Welcome to the International Business Strategy Program at MMUBS

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Welcome to the International BusinessStrategy
Program at MMUBS
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International Business Strategy

• Henry Palowski
• Senior Lecturer Subject Group Strategy,
  Enterprise International Business
• Tel [phone]E-mail h.palowski_at_mmu.ac.uk

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International Business Strategy

• The programme is primarily concerned with
  Business Strategy.
• i.e. the Business Models developed by
  Business Units to create competitive advantage in
  specific product market contexts.
• Some elements of Corporate Strategy will be
  considered in as far as they impinge on
  International/Global Strategy
• A central aim of the course is combining theory
  with practice, and this is achieved by the use of
  case studies for class work, assessment and in
  the examination.

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The Objectives of the Module

• To present economic analysis that will be useful
  for understanding strategic management as an area
  of study
• To present a systematic approach to the subject
  that will permit structured thinking to some
  difficult questions.

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International Business Strategy Sessions
Influence of Economics
Program 1
Rise of Strategy Frameworks
Program 2
Strategy process Paradoxes, debates
Program 3
Positioning and Choice
Program 4
Threats to Positioning
Program 5
New Economy Models
Program 6
Globalisation versus Localisation
Program 7
International Co-operative Strategy
Program 8
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Session One Introduction Overview The
Development of Strategy - The Influence of
Economics

• In this session the subject of strategic
  management is defined and we explore its origins,
  foundation and scope as an academic discipline.
• The opening session provides an historical
  account of strategic management and in particular
  a case is made for why the field is now
  influenced by competitive thinking.

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Session Two The Development of Strategy The
Rise of Strategy Frameworks

• Competitive markets imply that economic profit,
  or excess risk-adjusted profit is competed away
  wherever possible. This sits uncomfortably with
  the notion of competitive advantage, a term
  frequently used in the business strategy
  literature to describe a situation where a firm
  has gained a superior product market position,
  such that it can earn above-average returns in an
  industry.
• The session identifies a number of obstacles to
  competition and discusses why these obstacles
  have the potential in some markets to earn
  positive economic rents, at least for some firms.
  The session also provides some tools for
  conducting an industry analysis.

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Sessions Three and Four

• Three The Strategic Management Process. Strategy
  Paradoxes. Current debates.
• Four Positioning and Choice
• The session examines the strategic choices
  available to business using positioning analysis.
  
• Positioning facilitates competitive cost-benefit
  comparisons of the factor/product-market
  positions implied by different strategic options.

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Session Five

• Threats to Positioning
• A central debate in strategic management is
  whether superior product market positions can be
  sustainable. Evidence from studying the
  performance of companies over time suggests that
  in most cases any advantage is quickly competed
  away.
• There are exceptions to this rule as there are
  examples of companies that continue to enjoy
  monopoly profits without any significant threat
  for many decades. This session examines the
  issues.

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Session Six New Economy Models and winner
takes most Industry Dynamics.

• This session explores, what is sometimes referred
  to as, the New Economics of increasing returns,
  which is a phenomenon often found in the
  information technology industry. Case studies
  which are relevant to this area include firms
  such as Microsoft, Intel and Google.

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Session Seven

• The Paradox of Globalisation and
• Localisation
• To what extent can firms operating
  internationally treat the world as one market?
• And, conversely, to what extent do they need to
  acknowledge national differences?
• This session will examine the tensions involved
  with reference to relevant case studies.

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Session Eight International Co-operation and
Partner Selection

• This session study explores some of the reasons
  why organisations choose to expand, or
  reconfigure, their activities internationally
  through acquiring or merging with other
  businesses, rather than internal growth.

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Assessment

• An individually assessed assignment contributes
  40 of the total module marks. (There is no
  assessed group work in this module)
• This will normally be based on the analysis of
  a case study.
• The summer examination contributes the remaining
  60.
• The final examination requires you to answer
  four essay questions out of seven or eight. Most
  questions are based around case studies analysed
  in class.
• All questions carries equal marks.

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Teaching and Learning Approach

• There will be a strong emphasis on case study
  analysis, given that Strategy requires the
  application of relevant theory to practice.
• Case studies will normally be analysed in groups
  with group presentations in plenary session.
• Feedback will be provided on group performance,
  but this will not form part of the formal
  assessment of the course.
• All sumative (formal) assessment will be based on
  individual performance in the assignment and the
  exam- i.e. no group assessed work is used in this
  module.

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Thank You and looking forward to seeing you
all on the course!