International Management and Cooperative Strategy (Internationales Management und Unternehmenskooperation)

Credit Areas:

M.Sc. VWL PO 2014: “Labor, Human Resource Management & Organization” // “Corporate Governance, Business Ethics and Marketing”
M.Sc. VWL PO 2011: „Betriebswirtschaftslehre“
M.Sc. BWL: „Allgemeine Betriebswirtschaftslehre“
Other: Students from other faculties/master programs are welcome. Please discuss bureaucratic details with your examination office and contact me for any questions.

General Information:

In this course, we will cover topics relating to strategic management on an international level such as market entry strategies or the connection between national cultures and corporate strategy. In addition, we will cover cooperation strategies such as strategic alliances, joint ventures, outsourcing, industrial clusters, or M&As.

With regard to international students, the course will be held in a hybrid mix of German and English. All course information, all communication and all slides are provided in English. All lectures and the exercises will be taught in German. The exam will be provided in German AND in English (i.e. students will always see both languages and can answer in both languages).

The course is offered as 4 ECTS and 6 ECTS option:

4 ECTS: Students learn based on the lecture. You just need to pass the exam.
6 ECTS: Additionally to the lecture, students can attend a three day exercise. It will take place from January 12 to January 14 (Friday to Sunday). We will work on international case studies. You have to pre-register for the exercise (a list will be provided in the lectures and/or via ILIAS)

ILIAS:

Please join the ILIAS course (which will be online in September or October). You will find all materials in the ILIAS course. The homepage will not be updated from now on, i.e. you can find new information only in the ILIAS course. If possible, please use the procedure via HISinOne to participate in ILIAS (you should automatically join the ILIAS course). If this is not possible (and please only then), you can join the ILIAS course directly. The course can be found under the following path (password is "password"):

Magazin => Lehrveranstaltungen aus HISinOne => Wintersemester 2023 => Institut für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Schwerpunkt Ordnung und Organisation der Wirtschaft, Abteilung Organisation und Personal-VB => International Management and Cooperative Strategy - Wintersemester 23/24 (Internationales Management & Unternehmenskooperation)

The Lecture:

The lecture is largely based on one textbook (Morschett, Schramm-Klein & Zentes, 2015: Strategic International Management – Text and Cases, Springer, Heidelberg.). I will provide all relevant information regarding the lecture on the slides (see ILIAS). Moreover, you can always contact me via email or ask me after the lecture.

The lecture takes place: Thursday, 14:15-15:45 in HS1009

The Exam:

The exam will be the same for all students (no matter if you choose the 4 ECTS or the 6 ECTS option). Probably, it will take place as a written exam (i.e. no online exam) during the regular exam period (February/March).

Regarding the exam, there should theoretically not exist relevant disadvantages for those students who did not attend the exercise. In the exercise, we will not cover additional theories or concepts that are relevant for the exam.

IMPORTANT: My contract at the University of Freiburg expires in July 2024. Hence, the second exam (“Nachholklausur”) will maybe take place earlier than usual. For example, the second exam could take place at the beginning of the summer semester. Please be aware of this. More information will be provided during the winter semester.

The Exercise:

In the following, I tried to outline all relevant information relating to the exercise. This is the current plan for the exercise:

The exercise takes place from on January 12 (start around 13:00) until January 14 (end around 18:00) at the University of Freiburg in room R 201 Breisacher Tor (see here: https://goo.gl/maps/a8tDjJvnwHZRgddh7).
We will work on up to five case studies (probably: Airbnb’s future strategy, INSEAD’s strategy, Netflix Goes to Bollywood, Louis Vuitton in Japan, the Dutch Flower Cluster). This includes reading, searching for information, discussing solutions in small groups, and presenting solutions in front of all students. Some case studies cost a few Euros per students but costs will be covered by the university.
The exercise room is limited to 40 students. I do not expect more students to register. If I am wrong, we maybe have to change rooms.

Additionally, here some FAQ for the exercise:

Which language will we use? I would suggest that we use German as long as we consist of a group of German speakers. In my experience that makes the discussions easier for most students. However, we could switch to English if international students with low German language skills attend. We will see.
How will I get the 6 ECTS for the course? You need to attend the exercise (i.e. be physically there and discuss with us). If you attend the exercise only, you will not get any credits. You also need to pass the exam. You can either take the main exam date or the second exam date, but not later. Also, you cannot attend the exercise if you already wrote the exam in a previous semester. The exam will be the same as the exam for those students who did not attend the exercise.
What happens if I am registered for the exercise but sick? If you registered for the exercise and are sick (including an official medical certificate), you could do a substitution work (e.g. a seminar paper). But this applies only to pre-registered students. Otherwise there is no possibility to get the 6 ECTS. Of course, you could always only take the main exam for 4 ECTS.
Is there any chance to get 6 ECTS without attending the exercise? No, I am really sorry.
Will there be any food or drinks? Maybe I can collect some money from the students (e.g. 10€ or 20€ per student) in order to provide coffee and snacks. But we can discuss this together before the exercise.
Do I need to prepare for the exercise? You should read the case studies in advance (up to 5 case studies, typically around 15 pages per case studies).
Do I need any specific knowledge in order to attend? No, the whole exercise is learning by doing. To be honest, I personally do not have much experience with case study teaching either. We all support each other. This will be fun. I expect everyone to be respectful and to show some engagement in the discussions. It doesn’t matter if your answers are smart or not. We are all there to learn.