Unit Chair: Professor Doren Chadee Email: doren.chadee@deakin.edu.au
Tutor:
Ms Jennifer Gao
Email: TBA
Consultation times will be provided at the start of the trimester. For academic queries other than during consultation times, through Cloud Deakin for example, teaching staff will use their best endeavours to respond within two business days of the query being received.
UNIT OVERVIEW
This unit develops your understanding of how changes in the international business environment affect the conduct of businesses both domestically and across national boundaries. The unit starts by providing an overview of the main drivers of globalisation and proceeds with an analysis of how businesses respond to the threats and opportunities presented by globalisation. Students develop an understanding of current developments and emerging trends in the cultural, economic, social, political and legal environments facing businesses by undertaking a research based international business project.
Learning Resources
The required text for the unit is:
Hill, Charles, Thomas Cronk and Rumintha Wickramasekera (2014). Global Business Today. Asia-Pacific Edition, 3rd Edition, McGraw Hill.
In addition to the required textbook, weekly learning resources will be made available on CloudDeakin. Students are encourages to access these from CloudDeakin.
Delivery Format
The delivery of the unit is organised as follows:
• 2 hour weekly lecture: Mondays 1-3pm – LT 1A (I2.07).
o On campus students are expected to attend the weekly lectures. Recordings of the lectures will be available to off campus students.
• 1 hour weekly on-line tutorial – Tuesdays 7-8 pm
o all students (on campus and off campus) are expected to engage with the weekly on-line tutorials. 1
• Weekly seminars – one hour weekly seminars will be held during the following times on the Burwood Campus:
o Seminar 1: Monday 3-4 pm: HE1.014
o Seminar 2: Monday 4-5 pm: HE 1.014
o Seminar 3: Wednesday 9-10 am: MA2.112
o Seminar 4: Wednesday 10-11 am: MA2.112
o Seminar 5: Wednesday 11-12.00: LB2.100
On campus students are expected to attend one of these weekly seminars. Please go to STAR to sign up for one of these seminars. Materials covered in the seminars will be made available to off-campus students on Cloud Deakin.
ASSESSMENT
(1) International Business Research Project (4000 words – 40%)
(2) Final written examination: (60%)
The International Business Research Project is an individual research project.
The Research Project:
You have been appointed as an International Business consultant to investigate the feasibility for a particular business to expand in a foreign market. This can be an Australian business wishing to go overseas or it can be a foreign business willing to do business in Australia. The business can be an export or import business or it can be a firm investigating the feasibility of investing in a foreign market.
For your assignment you are required to submit a written report which undertakes a comprehensive assessment of the business environment of the location which the firm is likely to face. Your report should consider the economic, social, political, environmental, legal and technological environments in the location which you have chosen. You can also include any other factors which you believe are critical to consider while making a decision to do business in the chosen region.
You first need to briefly describe the nature of the business followed by the objective(s) of your research. Then you have to explain why it is important to analyse the different business environments. You then systematically assess each of the most relevant business environments which you consider to be critical in deciding to do business in your chosen region. This is then followed by a short discussion of your findings along with some recommendations which will assist your company to make a decision about its plan to expand overseas.
The list of topics below provides examples of international business expansion which you can consider.
(1) Australian beef export to Indonesia / Japan / China.
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(2) Australian exports to Gulf Region (choose a specific product or servic such education / lamb / live sheep)
(3) Australian FDI in India, Russia, Brazil, South Africa (choose a specific sector)
(4) Australian food export to Japan (choose a particular food category).
(5) Chinese FDI in Australia (choose a specific sector such as real estate)
(6) Indian Investment in Australia (choose a specific sector such as Tourism etc
(7) Australian investment in Malaysia – choose a specific sector
(8) New Zealand export to Australia (e.g apples, wine)
(9) Australian wine export to China / Malaysia/ Indonesia.
(10) Australian tourism export to China / Indonesia/ Japan
The list of topics above serves as a guide only to provide you with an indication of the type and scope of issues which you could consider. If you want to research a different topic, please make sure that you have approval from your lecturer first.
The project consists of two parts:
PART A: Research Proposal (10%): (1000 words)
Due date: August 8, 2014 (5pm – only electronic submissions will be considered).
In part A of the report, you should address the following:
(1) Decide on the topic.
a. You need to choose an industry and country for you to focus on and identify a problem currently facing the industry/country. This can be a manufacturing business or a service provider wanting to expand overseas through FDI, mergers and acquisition, exports, import etc. Plenty of ideas are available from international business news papers (e.g financial times) magazines (e.g the Economist) and trade journals. Please keep up with current international business news by reading frequently as much as you can.
b. Come up with a meaningful title which captures the problem which you are investigating
(2) Introduction and background: (a) Briefly describe the business/industry which you are investigating and state why this topic is relevant. You need to introduce the topic to the reader in such a way that the reader has an appreciation of the issues at hand and why you are investigating these issues;
(b) undertake a succinct analysis of the industry/ product/service under investigation to identify the main players (countries) in this industry. Here, you may collect relevant statistical data to identify which countries are the major players, where are the major consumers, what are the global consumer trends in the industry, how these have changed overtime, what are the demographic and income trends and how is consumption likely to be affected in the future, etc etc? (700-800 words).
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(3) objectives of research (100 words).
a. Clearly outline the problem which you are investigating – this is what is known as the ‘research problem’. Once you identify the main issue, you will be able to articulate the main research problem and then proceed with your investigation). Ideally you should identify 2-3 main objectives which the report aims to fulfil in point form.
PART B: Analysis of Business Environments
(30% – 3000 words); Due date: September 28, 2014 (5pm – only electronic submissions will be considered).
In this section you need to demonstrate a clear understanding of the various business environments which are likely to impact on the decision to do business in your chosen location. You may want to develop a conceptual model from the lectures to analyse the various business environments and their relevance to your particular business.
b. Consider the political, economic, social, technological, cultural, environmental and legal environments of your particular sector / industry. You need to substantiate your arguments with hard statistical data and make sure that you provide the sources of your data.
c. Strategic recommendations: based on your analysis, make appropriate recommendations in order to assist your company to decide whether to expand overseas or not. Identify the main risks and suggest ways in which these can be mitigated.
d. Conclusion – short concluding comments
Submission of Final report: September 28, 2014.
Your final report (PART A plus PART B) should not exceed 4000 words. (appropriate appendices and references are in addition to the 4000 words). Your report should be typed, double spaced and well referenced.
Submission. On-line submission only will be accepted. All reports MUST be accompanied with a turn-it-in report.
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