Strategy and Marketing in a Global Context

The course is included in the fourth semester of the Bachelor’s Programme in Business and Economics for students whose main field of study is business administration. It is not offered as a freestanding course. The course is open to incoming exchange students. All companies and organisations, regardless of size and industry, operate in a global context. Management and development of companies is therefore today about being able to analyse and understand how global change sets the framework for the company’s development, and about being able to benefit from changes in the company’s environment. This means that in addition to understanding the underlying economic structure of an industry, management must also understand how new and unused market areas can be created for growth. The course is based on theories and models for corporate and market strategies and how these strategies and activities relate to the company’s environment. Initially, the main theories and models of the course are introduced and illustrated and how they interact with each other. Subsequently, basic concepts and theories are introduced in the field of international business, and a framework for building the company’s systematic knowledge about the global business environment is presented. The starting point is that companies in today’s economy must build a systematic understanding of the business environment in which they operate, and how they are affected by global economic changes. In the next step, the focus shifts from the companies’ global environment to corporate strategies and, in particular, to how corporate strategies are shaped in practice. Here it is shown that corporate strategies are formed by both deliberate management-driven strategy activities and emerging activities that over time prove to have strategic significance and that successful companies manage these activities in parallel. Thereafter, the perspective shifts from corporate strategies to innovative business and marketing strategies, i.e. how companies and organisations can create sustainable and ethical conditions to compete in the context of new market conditions in a global and digital world. Here, basic perspectives, theories, concepts, and models are provided and dealt with, which are required for business and market strategies to be shaped, valued and put into action. The course thus combines insights from literature in international business, corporate strategy and marketing. Theories and concepts from these areas are discussed specifically in relation to how they are affected and shaped by global economic change and social, economic, and environmentally sustainable development. During the course, the students work with a case where they apply the various theories and concepts from the literature. The work on the case is discussed in seminars and the results are presented in a report. All in all, the course provides a broad understanding and knowledge of the conditions of international enterprise, how business leaders face new ethical challenges through globalisation, and how companies and organisations can create innovative conditions for development.