This unit of study aim to understand how multinational enterprises strategize and operate in global competition. Major topics include the International Business Environment (e.g. the differences in economic, political, legal, and cultural environments); International Business Strategy (e.g. International expansion strategy, entry mode choices, cross-border strategic alliances, and mergers and acquisitions); and International Business Management (e.g. design, structure and control of international operations; and foreign subsidiary management). The emphasis of the unit is on the application of contextual knowledge about international business and strategic management theories as tailored to the Asia Pacific, to analyse and make decisions faced by companies operating in the Asia Pacific region.

Critical to effective management in international and multi-cultural business environments is an understanding of cultural differences and how to manage such differences. The aim of this unit of study is to provide conceptual frameworks and evidence from practice that will develop an understanding of the ways in which cultures differ, how these differences can impact management, and how cultural issues can limit organisational effectiveness. Strategies for managing and harnessing cultural differences are also evaluated. The subject is explored from an internal perspective as well as from an external perspective, looking at issues within the company as well as issues between the multinational company and its host environment. Major topics include the significance of culture in international management; the meaning and dimensions of culture; comparative international management styles; managing communication across cultures; global business ethics; cross-cultural negotiations; cross-cultural leadership and motivation; culture and consumer behaviour; and cultural views of intellectual property around the world.

The formation and implementation of successful global business strategies involves alliances with a range of stakeholders including international customers and suppliers, overseas agents, international franchisors and franchisees, international joint venture partners, and international merger relationships. The aim of this unit of study is to provide conceptual frameworks and evidence from practice that will develop an understanding of the motivations underlying international alliances, the alternative approaches to alliance formulation and development, and the problems involved in promoting effective alliance management. Major topics include the motivations for international business alliances, analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of different types of alliances, factors influencing the choice of alliance arrangements, alliance structure issues, partners selection and relationship management, the reasons why alliances succeed or fail, and the management of alliance processes.

This unit is designed to introduce students to the nature of risk management, particularly the identification of risk, its analysis and consequences for international business actors. Emphasis is placed on surveying some of the environments that can potentially generate risk, how these risks can impact various aspects of market composition and market participation, the integrity of business actors and their profitability and viability. The business environments surveyed include the international financial system, government and regulation of business activity, compliance risk, corporate social responsibility and activism, as well as issues associated with country and political risk.

Successful entrepreneurship requires knowledge of several key business processes and is ideally learned by actually starting a business. In this unit of study, you will learn the business processes and concepts that will help you becoming an entrepreneur. Working towards a pitch and a business plans the most effective way to master many of the critical skills and concepts of entrepreneurship since it simulates, to a degree, real world processes. During this unit, you will learn how to investigate customer needs and markets to generate an innovative idea for a start-up. Then, you will participate in the realistic simulation of the creation of a start-up from the best student-submitted ideas to develop these ideas into a business model. All students will join a team that will remain together for the entire duration of the unit and will create and pitch sections of a business plan as well draft the final complete business plan for their company. The unit will bring together the skills you have acquired across multiple disciplines of study and will require your active participation as you work towards raising funds for starting your business.

In order to succeed in international business, both corporations and individuals need broad decision-making abilities. Business decision-making tools yield more coherent and justifiable results when used with an understanding of the ethical, social and environmental aspects of the process. This applies to various situations in the international business setting including business relations with government, customers, employees, and NGOs. This unit is designed to look at these non-financial elements in the decisions made within the international business context. Following the completion of this unit, students will have enhanced skills and knowledge relevant to the understanding of ethical issues and ethical decisions making in international business organizations.

The special project in International Business provides students with an opportunity to undertake a supervised research project on an approved topic.

The purpose of this course is to help you understand the theory of negotiation as it is practiced in a variety of strategic settings. The aim is to help you feel more comfortable and confident with the negotiation process. The course is designed to be relevant to the broad spectrum of negotiation problems that are faced by managers but we use specific examples from international strategy such as M&A and joint ventures. The course will provide participants with an opportunity to develop skills experientially and to understand negotiation in useful analytic frameworks. Considerable emphasis will be placed on role-playing exercises and case studies. Note: this unit will require your participation in a number of negotiations. Preparation for these negotiations, which are a large part of your grade, will require time-pressured reading of material in class.

This unit will provide you the opportunity to learn how you can apply your business knowledge and skills to address complex social and environmental problems. Social entrepreneurs are committed to furthering a social mission, and rank social, environmental or cultural impact on a par with, or even above, profit. At the intersection of business and not-for-profit organisations, these social entrepreneurs are now visible and having an impact on a global scale. This unit is structured around engaged inquiry-based learning, proving you the opportunity to learn from theory and practice. Topics will include critically reviewing concepts, challenges of growing a social enterprise, frameworks for understanding, sourcing funds from a variety of stakeholders, understanding and reporting social impact, as well as collaboration and leadership.

Emerging economies are rapidly changing the global business landscape as they present tremendous growth opportunities for the developed world. At the same time, their rise as a new competitive force has strategic implications for global managers. This unit focuses on four of the most prominent emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC nations), to develop strategic tools to win in the new global competitive environment. Drawing on current insights from International Business Strategy, a two pronged approach is used to analyse competition in emerging economies: multinational enterprises from developed economies attempting to leverage emerging economies and enterprises from BRIC nations as they transform into multinationals to compete globally.