International Business

This course will expose students to some of the global and complex challenges impacting organizations’ objectives and operations in a variety of sectors. More importantly, it will invite them to envision possible renewed practices or novel ones that are both legitimate and material to their stakeholders. Students will be introduced to key theoretical insights in Institutional and organizational changes, Business & Society, CSR, and Governance. They are expected to use concepts, frameworks and models developed within those fields as tools to understand and assess real and recent business choices (decisions, projects, practices, etc.).

At the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Understand the drivers, risks, and challenges associated with the contemporary issues in the global context of organizations.
• Describe and explain the wider consequences of business decisions, projects, and practices.
• Understand dilemmas, common and conflicting needs, challenges, and perspectives of managers who have to serve multiple interests and competing stakeholders’ demands at different levels.
• Apply insights from the different theorical groundings presented in the course to explain and assess real organizations’ choices as regards the relations with society, more particularly, in an international setting.
• Explain the pros and cons of different approaches to international issue and stakeholders’ management, and connect the dots on how integrative ones can be applied to better understand the complexity of management in an international realm.
• Assess the benefits and challenges of practical tools, norms, and standards organizations are engaging with in order to manage wider social, environmental, and governance consequences of their decisions.
• Be better equipped to think critically about issues organizations encounter in their international context and about businesses’ internationalization in general.