Course in International Management

In recent years, the group has provided new inputs through its research, teaching and consulting on corporate restructuring, merger activity, competitive strategies and international business. A few optional courses on these are offered and more are planned.

Globalization of business presents immense opportunities to managers and businessmen of today. However, the process of internationalization is fraught with risks - globalization in many ways is not an unmitigated blessing. The process needs to be navigated through managerial agency. Several choices, pathways and trajectories exist. Hence, this course aims at developing among students the basic understanding of conceptual and managerial issues involved in cross-border business operations at th elevel of the firm and in the wider business network at the firm interstices. An important question that would be raised is how to increase the global influence and expand the turf of indigenous business interests, say in its nature of insertion in the global value chain. It would also attempt to sensitize participants to the existence of myriad institutional differences (some of which take the form of legal differences while others take the softer form of differences in cultural artefacts) across nations and markets that create strategic challenges for a global manager. An interesting question that would be raised is whether globalization would lead to convergence of institutions and business systems, or would national and regional idiosyncrasies remain (even be preserved) and international trade built up on the basis of that. Such debates are of concern to the strategist with a global ambition. The continuation of diversity implies, for instance, enhanced complexities and the ability of managing across cultures as an important skill that a global manager would require. The course will adopt a general management perspective. Some of the broad topics to be covered include:

Governance in Global value chains
Understanding trading networks and global trading companies
New forms of global trade intermediation
State as an actor in global business rivalry
Global cartels and barriers to entry for new firms
Cross border coordination in global companies
Leveraging global knowledge networks.