ECO0132 - INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

The course provides the basics for understanding the global international business environment and the main factors affecting the competitiveness of multinational enterprises in the global marketplace within the present geopolitical framework. During the course will be presented and discussed internationalization theories, illustrated the main drivers of internationalization, discussed main factors affecting the market selection process, the entry strategies and location choices. The course also provides a critical for understanding the crisis of the globalization process in the present geopolitical framework and discusses the implication on international business and interntationalization strategies of companies. The managerial implications associated with building the organization and managing the operations of multinational enterprises in a global economy are also discussed, paying attention to the impact of national/regional difference in political economy, industrial policy and culture on firm’s strategic choices. The role and different forms of “psychical distance” in the internationalization processes are also analyzed and discuss with the support of selected case studies.
At the end of the course, students will be able both to understand and discuss the unique challenges of global business and to understand the main problems involved in conducting international business. Students will also be able to discuss, adopting a critical perspective, the theories of internationalization, the key determinants of strategy development in an international context, the alternative ways of organizing and managing the multinational enterprise. Finally, the student will be able to apply the theoretical foundations acquired to the analysis of business internationalization cases, which will be presented and discussed in class with managers from international companies