International Business

MGMT100; 30 additional points from ECON, MGMT, MKTG, MSCI

MGMT220

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

David Stiles

Assessment

Learn quizzes
These quizzes, worth 20% of your overall grade, are designed to help test your own understanding of the main topics of the course as you go along. They are based on your Essential Reading (the core text chapter) and the relevant lecture each week. As you will see, I will provide a variety of theoretical and applied questions that will make you think about each topic in more depth. Some will also ask you to be more creative by thinking outside the dodecahedron (boxes are old hat) and applying topic concepts to ‘mini-cases’ – fictional or real situations – to see if you truly understand course ideas.
 
Each quiz will be available for the seven day period following each class. You may make unlimited attempts at each quiz, but there is a 30 minute delay between quiz attempts to get you to think before each go rather than adopting a random guessing mode. To make it fair to all, there is no option for late submission of a quiz or to complete the quiz other than via the facility on Learn. Marks will be available for each quiz after the quiz closes.

To gain full credit for this item of assessment, you will need to complete all questions for 8 out of 10 quizzes. Since the main aim is to get you to learn from all lecture topics, it’s a good idea to attempt all quizzes; but only your best marks from 8 quizzes will count in case you have one or two disasters. One word of warning about the Learn system on quizzes: I've noticed from past experience that some people do not 'close' their quiz responses properly on Learn, but leave answers open past the deadline. This happens automatically when you press the submit button, so isn’t much of a problem if you make one submission. However, it is a danger when you make multiple attempts at a quiz, and forget to press the button on your final attempt to officially submit the response. It’s also an issue if you try to look at questions again before the quiz closes without answering them. Unfortunately the very act of reopening the quiz on Learn to look at the quiz questions means it counts as an attempt on the system. Learn counts the last submission made, not the highest scoring one. That would be far too easy in inviting unlimited random guesses: you could simply attempt it as many times as you like, putting different answers up each time and the system would accept the correct ones, even if you don’t know these! I am unable to override any of your responses on Learn since there is not facility for doing this and I can only examine responses afterwards to determine whether I should take any remedial action. However, the difficulty for me here is to decide which if any one of a series of multiple attempts to accept. By rights, none are officially valid except your last answer. So, make sure you close all quizzes you look at each time.

Obviously don’t consult your classmates on questions or answers, since this will be detrimental to your own learning and will not be a valid indication of whether you understand the course material. In any case, the questions are in a different order each time you open the quiz. This item of assessment is not available for aegrotat consideration.

Group Project
International Business isn’t an abstract academic subject, but affects what you do every single day of your life - from the moment you get up. If you’ve got time before this lecture, unless you make a special effort to eat only locally-sourced food and drink, you’ll probably breakfast on cereal, toast or something more exotic made, licensed or sold by a foreign-based Multinational Enterprise (MNE). Your milk will hopefully be supplied by the New Zealand dairy industry (although for how long?); but the chances are your bread and spread will be sold to you by an Australian-owned supermarket using ingredients sourced worldwide. Unless someone in NZ has magically planted vast tea and coffee plantations overnight, your drink will have gone through many hands to get to you. Your toothpaste will almost certainly be an international brand, your clothes made using textiles from Asia, and your smartphone designed and manufactured abroad. If you’re lucky enough to be able to afford a parking permit, your car will definitely not be made in New Zealand – or the bus, bus ticket and fuel you might use to get here.

Most of us don’t bother looking at the ‘Made In…’ label on the products we consume. If you did, it might prompt you to think about where the things we depend on come from and how they get to you. If you delved a little deeper, you’ll probably discover a complex set of decisions relating to that product – involving a bewildering number of suppliers, designers, manufacturers, subcontractors, distributors, advertising agencies, sellers and others all involved in bringing that product to you.

If you haven’t guessed it already, this is the idea behind your group assignment for this paper. I’d like you to:

In a group you will be allocated to, decide on a single product that has an international dimension in terms of where it comes from, how it is made, and/or how it gets to its end-users (i.e. the product and/or company must cross at least one national border). Then, research why (1) that product is successful because of the way the product meets end-user needs/wants through the benefits it offers, and (2) how the international strategies and competitive advantage(s) of the company or strategic business unit (SBU) bringing that product to market have developed from its business environment. You should write a report of up to 4,000 words in the main body (i.e. not including the executive summary, graphics, illustrations, charts, tables, bibliography, reflections section, and any appendices) describing and analysing those characteristics, processes and strategies. Wherever possible use international business concepts and theories to explain how the company/strategic business unit (SBU) has strategized to provide the product. You must also include a) a 1 page executive summary at the beginning of your report; (b) a bibliography of the sources you have consulted (including websites) at the end and appropriate references throughout the report; and (c) a sheet reflecting on the group processes you have gone through. Failure to include any of these will lead to an automatic deduction of 5% of marks for each item missing. The deadline is 9:00 a.m. Friday 24th May, when you should hand the assignment in to your lecturer in the class.

You are allocated to a group in order to simulate what happens in real businesses, where you undertake collective projects with little choice of who you work with. Please do not come to me with requests to change your group members, work with friends or be set another assignment because of work, family or social reasons. Even if much can be accomplished by email or social networking, everybody is expected to be able to set aside a reasonable amount of time to meet and work on the project. How you do that is up to you. You should agree on when and where you should meet, how work will be allocated, and what will happen if a group member fails to contribute effectively. Each group will be a mix of different people with various expectations, experiences and knowledge. It is up to you to be able to function effectively as a team to deliver this assignment. On the way a successful group will develop relationship, communication and team working skills, in coordinating research, writing and editing, managing the project process and showing reasoning and creativity in analysis and presentation.

All group members will be expected to contribute equally to this assignment, with ‘freeloaders’ (those not pulling their weight for whatever reason) not tolerated. This should be an enjoyable and interesting learning exercise, so I hate to dwell on any negatives. However, part of the test is to see if you can work effectively together as a team and manage any personality conflicts or logistical difficulties that may arise. As a last resort, if there any members of your own group who you consider are not contributing equally as the project progresses, please contact me to let me know. This can be done confidentially either in person or by email. In most cases, equal marks will be awarded to members of your group, but I reserve the right to deduct marks for under-performing individuals. Your team will be expected to work independently, with minimum help beyond this brief and general advice from your lecturer. There should be enough information here and in your lectures: the second lecture will help guide you through a standard environmental assessment, reinforced by the course textbook.

To help you understand this assignment further, I’ll use the iPhone and Apple as an example below; so please do not choose this product or company. Also, don’t choose local companies that have no business activities outside their domestic host country. With these exceptions, you can choose whatever product and company you like, but try and be creative in your choice. After all: if everybody chooses the same company, you’ll be in direct competition against other groups who may do it better! The distribution of marks is as below, with each question marked in terms of:

• Demonstrated recognition of theoretical concepts, including evidence of understanding of relevant parts of the core course textbook and any additional academic and business sources.
•Application of theory to a real-life product and company, including reasoned and creative analysis, the generation of strategic insights concerning the company’s activities.
• A clear, logical structure and flow of argument, readability, appropriate referencing, and communication of ideas.

Make sure you properly reference all academic, business and online sources used – the library publishes useful information online to help you in this. See: http://library.canterbury.ac.nz/services/ref/apa/

When you take an idea from any academic, business and online source, cite the source in the body text of your report (not just in your bibliography). If you use the exact words of a source, put them in quotation marks and cite the source next to the quotation. When you submit your report through the appropriate link on the front page of the Learn course website, your report will automatically go through the Turnitin plagiarism detection software; so make sure you do not cut and paste chunks of information from other sources, but properly attribute your sources. Otherwise, you may be penalised.

Although you may not be able to access all possible information, since some will be commercially confidential, structure your report around the following required sections, making sure you stick to the word count in each section:

1. Title Page & Executive Summary. This should show your group number, members and the product and company/SBU you have chosen. It should also present a series of numbered bullet points summarising the main points from sections 2 and 3 below. It is always good practice to include an executive summary in a business report, since it provides an easily-digestible précis for a busy manager to glance at to tell her or him what the larger report contains. It is a particular skill to tease out the major findings from the rest of the report without going into too much detail. (Maximum 1 page; 5% of marks).

2. Product Description & Benefits. Explain fully:
a) What the product is (Maximum 250 words; 5% of marks); and
b) Who are the main end-user groups of the product and how and why are their particular needs or wants met by the specific benefits the product brings? (Maximum 750 words; 20% of marks)

This section should have two main parts. In the product part, don’t just say ‘it’s a smartphone’! Be clear what the product is and what it does. The harder task is to explain who would use it and how and why it ought to appeal to these end-users because of the benefits it offers. The end-user is the person or organization who actually uses the final product, not an intermediary such as a wholesaler or retailer. There may be different groups the product appeals to for different reasons, so try to identify and describe the main groups. Marketers argue that a successful product must fulfil genuine customer requirements or desires, but not everyone wants the same thing. For example, as well as allowing you to make and receive calls, texts and messages, a smartphone may have certain features, or attributes, that appeal to a particular group of end-users: with the iPhone it may be the screen size/resolution, the iTunes applications store that supports it, its ability to work with Outlook to ‘push’ emails from the server to you, its camera quality, chip power, etc? Try and be as precise as you can be in explaining these product attributes and the benefits they provide to meet end-user needs/wants. Avoid too much technical information that may confuse readers. Assume you’re trying to explain to an ordinary person what the product does and why particular groups of customers would buy it rather than a competitive product (such as Samsung’s Galaxy III phone). Can you describe likely groups of end-users? For example, the iPhone may particularly appeal to 18-49 year olds with high disposable income. There may also be a large group of business people who want the iPhone’s push email attribute and prefer it to a more conventional business smartphone like a Blackberry. Don’t just assume people will buy something because it does something clever or fancy. What do its end-users really value out of all the attributes it offers?

3. Company or Strategic Business Unit (SBU) International Strategy.
a) Present an External and Internal Environmental Assessment of the context facing the company or SBU (Maximum 1200 words; 25% of marks);

b) Explain the Company/SBU’s Strategies that result from this environmental analysis (Maximum 1200 words; 25% of marks); and

c) Identify the Company/SBU’s Competitive Advantage or Advantages and discuss whether you believe this/these can be sustained in the longer term (over at least the next 3 years or more) (Maximum 600 words; 10% of marks).

Thinking about the product and end-user needs will help you identify how the company competes more generally in that market. The answers to these three questions should build on Section 2 in terms of knowledge about products and customers, but it will help extend your analysis to also consider how the company or SBU is successful because of the strategies and advantages it develops in relation to competitors, suppliers and other actors in its environment. If you are analysing a large Multinational Enterprise (MNE) you may find focusing on the particular SBU your chosen product is in is more helpful than analysing the entire company. This is because each SBU may face a very different environment. So, for example, the smartphone and computer tablet markets facing Apple are arguably more innovative and fast-moving than the desktop computer or laptop markets, requiring different strategies. Focusing on the smartphone market alone may help make your analysis clearer and more manageable – although of course some of the larger phones or smaller tablets may be substitutes for each other. Possible international business strategies and the idea of competitive advantage will be constant themes in the lectures, so try and use appropriate concepts and techniques you learn during the course to make your analysis as complete as you can.

The external part of the environmental assessment involves analysing the major players outside the company. Who exactly are its buyers, competitors and suppliers? What substitute products exist that a customer could buy from a competitor? What companies could now or in the future be potential new competitors? The internal environmental assessment involves determining the company/SBU’s strengths and weaknesses. These include the company’s/SBU’s important resources and competencies. Chapters 2 and 8 of the textbook are particularly helpful for both parts of the environmental assessment, with suggested ideas and techniques for you to use.

Unless they’re making it all up as they go along, the strategies the company or SBU adopts should follow logically on from many of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats you identify in the external and internal environmental analysis. Strategies are the specific ways of achieving company/SBU goals and should be as precise and as quantified as possible. Make sure you explain these strategies fully and how they arise from your environmental analysis, so it’s no good cutting and pasting corporate material from a website or strategic plan. Instead critically consider the reasons why the company/SBU does what it does and whether you can relate its strategic activities to particular items you’ve revealed from your environmental assessment. In a sense, you’re trying to find logical reasons for each of the company/SBU’s strategic choices. You may not agree with the strategies adopted, but your job is simply to use the available evidence to identify and justify the choices the organisation has already made. So, how is each of Apple’s strengths turned into a market opportunity? How does it overcome or downplay each of its weaknesses? For example, like Samsung in Korea, Apple has a large domestic market (in the US) that regularly buys its products, proving it with a reliable and solid regional demand base. Apple has been able to charge premium prices for its phones and has avoided providing a range of different models (apart from differences in storage capacity) – unlike competitors like Samsung and HTC, which have far wider ranges but have also gone for more ‘downmarket’ customers with less spending power or desire for complex smartphone features. Both firms also outsource production to Foxconn in China to minimise production costs, taking advantage of the (opportunity) lower labour costs and increasing levels of technological skills. So, one (semi-fictional) strategy for Apple could be: “To reduce production costs for a complete iPhone unit by 30% between 2012-15 to US$50.00, by outsourcing manufacturing and assembly of 85% of components to Foxconn”. You will need to explain this and other strategies in much more detail using available evidence and make some reasonable assumptions, given the difficulty of getting sensitive commercial information. Other things you must consider as part of the strategy section are which structure has the company/SBU used in becoming international (textbook, chapter 9); how has the company been innovative (textbook, chapter 11); how has the firm chosen to enter particular foreign markets (textbook, chapter 2); and how has it used knowledge about other cultures to compete successfully abroad (textbook, chapter 5)?

Finally, make sure you explain fully the competitive advantage(s) of the company/SBU and how this enables the company/SBU to compete effectively in that market. See chapter 2 of the textbook for more on this. The competitive advantage can be defined as a valuable characteristic or characteristics that the company has that allows it to compete successfully against other companies in the same or similar market. Such competitive advantages are usually important, fairly unique, relatively difficult to copy and may last a long time (although the best ones may be dynamic enough to adapt to changing needs or wants). They may partly come from one or more products the firm produces; but they exist at the firm or SBU level. So, they may arise from the knowledge or competences in the firm, the firm’s country or geographical location, the firm’s strategic choices, and from other characteristics.  So, a company like Apple may be better at design than its competitors, and offer seamless connectivity between all its devices (including tablets, laptops and PCs). Usually the company is doing something different to its competitors: if it’s not, it probably won’t survive long-term. So, the special design competencies of Apple have enabled it to produce iPhones which are among the best-looking and easy-to-use smartphones around (although arguably the design is getting more dated now). This has in turn generated tremendous customer loyalty which has enabled a whole series of iPhones to be introduced. One important question you should consider is how sustainable these advantages are. For example, how long does a design last? Also, the iTunes store has provided a strong competitive advantage for Apple until now, but the Android store is catching up.

4. Bibliography & Appendices. This should follow the APA format recommended by the online library guide, whose website is given above. (No Maximum length; 5% of marks).

5. Reflections on Group Processes. Here, you need to answer the following questions:
a) In which areas did your own Project Group do well? Why?
b) In which areas did your own Project Group do less well? Why?
c) Briefly explain the 3 most important benefits you got from the Project?
d) What would you do differently with the benefit of hindsight and why?
(Maximum ½ page; 5% of marks).

Please be as honest as possible. Marks will be awarded for a frank, full, objective appraisal of your group management and processes. This includes identifying your weaknesses as well as your strengths, so you can learn from your experiences for the next time you have a group project. No group will be perfect and you will not be deducted marks for revealing where you have not operated as effectively as you could have done. In fact, those representing their processes as 100% effective may find marks deducted for failure to reflect properly on your experiences.

The deadline to hand the project in is 9:00 a.m. Friday 24th May, when you should hand the assignment in to your lecturer at the beginning of the class. If you finish the project early, you can instead place it in the Assignments box in the College of Business and Law Office Reception. This is on the ground floor of Block K, Ilam Apartments, on the corner of Homestead Lane and Waimairi Road.

Final Case Study Examination (TBA)
This will be an open book, invigilated, 2-hour exam based on materials outlining an international situation facing a business, based on one of the short cases in your textbook. I will allow course notes, textbook and other paper in the exam room, but no electronic devices. You can begin to prepare yourself for this exam now and throughout the course by reading and understanding the Active Learning Cases, Real Cases and Strategy in Action cases for each topic in the textbook. There are questions for each of the Active Learning and Real Cases you can answer to see if you understand the material and concepts, while the Active Learning Cases are particularly useful because each chapter provides brief answers after you read the relevant section. Please ensure you do this; or you will find the exam much harder. I will run a special workshop in the last lecture to help prepare you specifically for the exam, so it would also be a good idea to attend this. During that lecture, I will also reveal the actual case we will use; to give you time to do some research on that company. The only things you won’t know in advance are the questions. The paper will be designed to test you on your broad knowledge of IB issues, concepts and tools from across the course rather than on a single topic. There will be 4 main questions, each from a different topic area.

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

Rugman, Alan M. , Collinson, Simon; International business ; 6th ed; Pearson, 2012 (Please buy this or consult a copy in the library, since this is essential reading for this course).

Course links

LEARN
MGMT221S1 Course Outline

Notes

Departmental Academic Policies The Department assumes that you have read this document.

You should also read the General Course and Examination Regulations

Dishonest Practice
The University of Canterbury considers cheating and plagiarism to be serious acts of dishonesty.  All assessed work must be your own individual work unless specifically stated otherwise in the assessment guidelines. Material quoted from any other source must be clearly acknowledged. You must not copy the work of another person (student or published work) in any assessment including examinations, tests and assignments. Any person, who is found to have copied someone else's work, or to have allowed their work to be copied, will receive a fail grade for that piece of assessment and may face disciplinary action which may lead to a fine, community service or exclusion from the university.

IMPORTANT: Where there are concerns regarding the authorship of written course work, a student can be required to provide a formal, oral explanation of the content of their work.

Coversheets - Group and Individual

Indicative Fees

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.