Theories of International Business

Description

Course Coordinator Semester 1: Arad Ahi Course Coordinator Semester 2: Harald Puhr In the 21st century, international business (IB) is an integral part of any organization. Business organizations globally, whether large or small, are engaged in international activities and/or affected by processes of global integration. Their clients may be foreign, their supply chain may be international, employees may be from different countries, or the company may be registered abroad. Internationalization and global integration have become part and parcel of management, and in this course, we will explore the basic concepts of IB, such as the nature of the IB environment, foreign direct investment (FDI), global governance and home and host countries’ influence on IB organizations. Seeking to capture the diversity of IB and its increasingly multifaceted and interdependent nature, the course emphasizes understanding theory to enable its application to contemporary IB phenomena. The course is structured around five themes: core theoretical foundations for studying IB; global business environment and the ongoing global and regional integration processes; multinational enterprises' (MNEs') foreign entry decisions and the main motivations for international expansion; role of distance and influence of home and host countries on IB; new typologies of international firms, such as born global firms, emerging market MNEs and digital service MNEs. Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students are able to: explain the core theoretical foundations for studying international business (IB) and multinational enterprises (MNEs) broadly conceived; summarise the relevance of each of the themes covered during the course for understanding the nature of IB; link together and critically analyse the different theories/conceptual models associated with the five themes of the course; combine topics and theories of different themes covered during the course to design a new research idea to study an IB issue; apply the theory/conceptual models associated with the themes to create a conceptual model for the analysis of contemporary and real-world IB activity.