30437 - INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

In any field of professional activity – be it engineering, law, art, mathematics, physics, medicine or business – future leaders are expected to be able to deal with challenges and opportunities of the globalization, to set a positive tone, to craft a strategy, to organize teams, to ensure economic sustainability of their projects, to understand how to work together with a plenty of different, but crucial domestic and international stakeholders. In addition, because a business that makes nothing but money is a poor business, future leaders should be able to go beyond traditional wisdoms with the goal of overcoming recurring hurdles and of transforming problems in opportunities. The course has been specifically designed for motivated non-business major students interested in understanding how and why firms survive, grow and attract talents in the “new normal” globalized and digitalized society. At the end of the course the students will be able to understand and critically assess the business models adopted by global companies, to assess the demand for different foreign market and to formulate the internationalization strategy and a business plan supporting business projects of international expansion.

The course is concentrated on analysing management challenges and value creation mechanisms. Key questions addressed through the learning journey are the following:

• How do firms select foreign markets?
• How can the market be analysed and the demand size evaluated?
• What are the key components of a business model in the global context?
• What is the impact of the internationalization on the firm’s profitability?
• What are the approaches to the business model adaptation to cultural, legal, political, economic and geographic distances among markets?
• What are the key challenges in the internationalization strategy implementation?.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Company visits

The course includes three company visits to the Italian businesses operating on the global markets.

• 25% "learning in action" assignments in small groups  (Theme Parks Case)
• 25% "learning in action" assignments in small groups  (Starbucks Italy Case)
• 50% individual assessment comprising a written exam on July 19th

Readings, slides and cases will be provided via e-learning platform.