AFM 333/ARBUS 301 International Business

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School of Accounting and Finance

AFM 333/ARBUS 301 International Business

Spring 2024 Course Syllabus

Course Description:

This course examines the opportunities, risks, and challenges faced by businesses in international markets, as well as key concepts in each functional area of management for large enterprises operating in a global environment.  The course opens with an overview of the forces of Market Globalization in recent years and provides an understanding of the underlying drivers and the implications to today’s business environment.  It then addresses various aspects of the environment(s) in which international businesses operate and continues with a review of key concepts and frameworks for international business, including Michael Porter’s value chain and its relationship to Global Sourcing It concludes with a review of each of the key functional areas of business including Marketing, Finance, and HR and the context of how to manage these functional areas in an international environment.

Lectures:

This term’s lectures will be provided online in LEARN using a voice-over-PowerPoint format in conjunction with the use of an online TopHat textbook as well as lectures and discussions provided in class at the appointed times as per the schedule.  The timing of the chapters and lectures is outlined in the separate course schedule document on LEARN.  Each online lecture is designed to be a summary of the key lessons learned from the associated TopHat chapter and will provide additional instructor insights.  The lecture slides will be available alongside the weekly due dates for the TopHat chapters and will each have a corresponding online quiz in LEARN that will need to be completed generally within a 3 hour period after the completion due date of the TopHat chapter.  The pre-recorded online lectures are intended to provide a summary of key topics that will help to prepare for the quiz.  See below and the course schedule for additional details on the quizzes.

To best listen to the voice-over-PPT lectures, we suggest downloading the PPT and viewing it in slideshow mode which will advance the slides in time with the audio presentation. Alternatively, you can save as a movie, and/or import into the media platform of your choice.

Course Goals:

Programs delivered by the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) are designed to provide students with the competencies, professionalism and practical experience that they need to excel in their chosen careers.  With this in mind, SAF programs (and courses within the programs) are created to deliver the knowledge, skills and competencies identified in the School Learning Model illustrated below:

AFM Program Level Learning Outcomes

This course will cover knowledge and skills from the following categories:

1. Knowledge base for Financial Professionals and Fluency in the Language of Business – through theory and real life examples you will gain an understanding of the role of Globalization as a key driver of Business, and the key concepts of business operations and management in an International context.

2. Problem Solving Capabilities – through case analysis and group discussions, you will practice solving business problems through application of the theories and concepts introduced in the course to real life case scenarios and current articles in the business news

3. Communication Capabilities – you will practice and with feedback, learn to improve both written and oral communication skills through participation in group assignments and discussions, a group presentation and written midterms and exams

4. Ethical Conduct and Social Responsibility – you will gain insight into: the ethical dilemmas facing international businesses; ethical decision making in organizations; ways that organizational decisions and actions affect society

5. Leadership and Collaboration – you will practice and reflect upon these skills through teamwork via the completion of required group assignments

Upon completing this course, you should be able to:

· Analyze the impact of various events in the global business and political environment

· Research and review information about the business, social and political culture of various countries.

· Apply case analysis techniques to solving real world business problems by identifying symptoms and root causes, analyzing alternatives, and making recommendations backed up by persuasive evidence

· Define and discuss relevant international business concepts including globalization, comparative advantage, supply chains, and international marketing, HR and financial management

Course Resources:

Textbook:

International Business in a New Age of Global Disruption, available online via TopHat. Invites will be sent to students to their uwaterloo emails by the first day of the term.  Please email the instructor if you are registering late or did not receive an invite.  (Please check your spam folder first)

Course lecture slides and additional readings (available on LEARN).

Casebook:

Cases (available from IVEY) as a digital download.  You will need this to prepare for the assigned cases in the post midterm classes. Please buy the latest version as the cases have changed slightly and you will want a clean copy that you can highlight and make your own notes on.

Hybrid Delivery Model for Classes:

This course will be delivered using a combination of the online delivery of pre-recorded lectures on Learn and then a once a week interactive live class.  This term the live classes will be held on Wednesdays and will be team taught by both Instructors.  Providing the content elements of the course lectures in a pre-recorded format allows students flexibility in when they access the material and focuses the classroom time on interactive review and application of course material to current events, cases and country presentations.

You must complete all of your assigned online activities (TopHat chapters, voice over PPT and LEARN quizzes) prior to the live classes.

The online Monday classes not indicated on the schedule are optional but can be booked each week by sending an email to your instructor.

Course Communications:

Please email your lead TA (posted on LEARN) for all initial course related communications.  They will involve your instructor as required.

Course Schedule:

Please refer to the separate Course Schedule in LEARN. This is the central point for all due dates.

Course Evaluation:

Participation Grading

Participation will be tracked each class by a student volunteer.  The volunteers will be provided with a tracking sheet and instructions and will hand the sheet in to the instructor at the end of each class.  The student volunteer will be given participation credit for that class.

The following is a guideline of how your assessment will be consolidated with the instructor’s evaluation of your “in class” contribution and will map to a range of contribution grades assigned at the end of term:

• 9-10 – at the instructor’s discretion - attends class regularly, contributes to class discussions most classes, quality of contribution is high (shows insight, moves the conversation, enhances learning experience for all)

• 8 - attends class regularly, contributes to class discussion most classes

• 6-7 - attends class regularly, contributes sometimes

• 5 - attends class regularly, rarely contributes

• 0-4 - does not attend class regularly, and/or rarely participate

TopHat Learning Resource & Quizzes

The primary learning resource for the course is entitled “International Business in a New Age of Global Disruption” and is available online at TopHat.  Students will receive email invites on their uwaterloo account by the first day of the term.  Please email the instructor if you are registering late or did not receive the invite.  (please check your spam folder first)

The chapters in TopHat will be assigned according to the class schedule, and will typically be due by 9PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Each chapter includes 5 multiple choice questions and a number of free form “reflection” questions which together will count towards 5% of the students grade for the term.  Unlimited attempts are allowed for the multiple choice questions and the reflection questions are given a participation grade of 100% for completion. It is the students responsibility to complete the quizzes by the deadlines assigned in TopHat.

At the end of each chapter there is a free form feedback discussion for students to be able to provide feedback on the learning resource.  These are completely voluntary, anonymous, and are viewable only by the instructor.

LEARN Quizzes

Throughout the term there will be quizzes of 5 multiple choice questions based on the associated TopHat chapter (see the course schedule for details).  These quizzes will be conducted on LEARN, and will be due within 3 hours of the TopHat due dates (see the course schedule for details).  There will be 11 quizzes during the term plus an optional practice quiz and the highest 9 of those will count towards your overall mark for the quizzes.  Students are responsible for preparing for and an initiating the quizzes during the assigned windows.  Once a quiz is initiated, students have 5 minutes to complete it.

Student Teams

A significant portion of the course will be delivered in teams of up to 5 students.  These will be randomly assigned in week two and will generally include a mix both AFM and ARBUS students.  Your Teams are expected to meet weekly online (using your choice of collaboration tools … the University supports Webex and Microsoft Teams, but you can elect to use other tools such as Zoom or Google Hangouts at your own discretion).

You will work with your teams on three different assignments, including Country Presentations, Current Events, and Case Summaries.  These are outlined below.

Teams will be responsible for scheduling timeslot(s) that work for all team members.  Some team members may be in different time zones, so scheduling may require early morning or evening timeslots to accommodate everyone in the team.  You will also need to find times that work for everyone’s schedule.  This is a normal course of communication with global teams in large international companies and will be part of the experiential learning of the course.

Country Presentations

Students Teams will prepare a 10-minute presentation that describes the position of an assigned country in the global economy.  This will include their key strengths and comparative advantages, key industries, important companies, current industrial policy, and any relevant historical, geo-political or demographic information that help put context around their global position.  Each team will present their country presentation in class at an assigned time and date. PowerPoint presentation slide decks must be submitted into the designated Dropbox 30 minutes before the assigned presentation class for download and evaluation by the Faculty.  The schedule of country presentations will be assigned during week two and posted on LEARN.

Global Current Events

Using your preferred online collaboration tool, your student team will prepare a 3 minute audio and/or video recording along with support PowerPoint slides which summarizes a current event article related to globalization, international business, or a core topic of the course. This submission should discuss the impacts or implications of the article including how it may relate to key concepts covered in the course as well as your team’s analysis and opinion on the topic.  These will be due by end of day Wednesday for 6 weeks starting in week 3 (five in total).  The top three of these submission will count 5% of your mark which means the team can skip up to two current events submissions during the period or submit all five to attempt to improve your grade.

Team Peer Evaluations

All students are expected to participate and contribute to their team activities and assignments.  Teams will have the opportunity to submit peer feedback in a confidential email to their instructor.  All students in the team will generally receive the same team mark.  However, the faculty reserves the right to adjust individual marks up or down based on peer feedback.

Teams will be required to complete a one page team contract due by the end of week two which will outline their intended code of conduct, how the team will interact, what online collaboration tool(s) they will use, when they will meet each week online, and how they will discuss and assess team performance and resolve team issues.

It is important that teams work to include all team members and to resolve any individual or team issues that arise.  The team contract should help set the stage for this process and for any issue resolution.  Teams should escalate quickly to Faculty if they need help resolving critical team issues. PLEASE USE YOUR TEAM CONTRACT TO RESOLE ISSUES, AND ESCALATE ANY UNRESOLVED TEAM ISSUES EARLY. It will be considered a failure of the team if underperforming team members are excluded from contributing without working to resolve the issue according to the team contract and engaging Faculty for help if required. In some cases this could result in Faculty imposing a 5-10% downwards adjustment of all team grades for all team members.

Mid-term and Final Examinations:

You should expect to be tested on all material including: text, course readings package (cases), assignments and lectures. The mid-term exam will be released on LEARN at 6PM on June 13^th, and will be due at 6PM on June 14^th.  Your mid-term submission must be your own original work and will be assessed using Turnitin.

Written requests for re-grading a mid-term examination must be made within one week after the examination has been returned. A written request must be submitted that indicates your reasons for believing that a question was improperly graded.  The instructor reserves the right to re-grade the entire examination. “Faculty of Arts policy provides that students who wish to review their final examination papers informally may do so without instituting a formal appeal procedure. Such review will take place under supervised access only, and will be arranged in a way that is mutually convenient for the instructor and the student.”

A final case examination covering all material in the course, will be scheduled during the exam period (timing TBD) and will be released and available for completion within a 24 hour period. You are required to pass the final exam to pass the course. Your exam submission must be your own original work and will be assessed using Turnitin. Do not make any travel plans until the timing of the final exam has been confirmed.  All students will be expected to write the final exam during the confirmed exam dates.  We cannot make exceptions for individual students.

Because the midterm and final exam are both 24 hour take-home exams, there is no need for accommodation from the Office of Accessibility Services.  Both exams are designed to be completable within a 2-3 hour period during the 24 hour window.