Postgraduate Course: Doing Business Projects in Emerging Markets (CMSE11130)
Course Outline
| School | Business School |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| SCQF Credits | 15 |
ECTS Credits | 7.5 |
| Summary | This course is specifically designed to provide practical as well as analytical tools for students to engage with real business issues in considering and planning operations in the contexts of emerging markets. Two major perspectives are highlighted. One addresses the issues for companies from industrialised countries seeking to enter and/or operate effectively in emerging markets. The other addresses the challenges facing domestic enterprises within emerging economies (and developing countries more generally) in seeking to build global competitiveness.
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| Course description |
Students will be expected to go beyond abstract and theoretical knowledge and deal with real world issues in international business. Drawing upon the knowledge, concepts, models and theories, from diverse disciplines, that students have acquired from semester one courses and/or previous education, students are encouraged to first adopt a more concrete and analytical approach that treats a market and a product/service as an embodiment of a specific social, economic and political context. Second an integrated view will be favoured, addressing the complexity of interactions between a multitude of institutional and individual actions and relations.
A hands-on, problem-based approach is at the core of this course. Rather than focusing on lectures and readings, in this course students are expected to learn by doing. Students are asked to work in groups on a project - developing and presenting a business plan for an operation in association with a specific emerging market. Students will be given a choice of themes for these business plans (please note the themes may differ yearly depending on teaching staff involved). For example, a theme could be 'developing a product/service for a specified market', 'setting up a new business (subsidiary, joint venture, etc.) in a specified market' or other business operations.
Students work in groups on a project proposed by a particular business client, and in the end of project, provide valuable information, assessments, suggestions and strategic plans to the client. Through this process, students are expected to enhance both the academic and practical abilities needed for effectively doing business projects and utilise selectively appropriate analytical approaches to assess business obstacles and opportunities while applying them to individual business projects.
Syllabus:
-Introduction to the course
-Project management
-Workshops
-Mapping the project and defining objectives
-Belbin Group dynamics
-Data collection
-Using social media for international business
-Working on numbers
-Case study
-Writing project reports
-Preparation for the final presentation
-Student Presentations
Student Learning Experience:
All teaching and learning activities are designed to assist students in working with clients on business projects. Students' participation in discussion in every lecture session is essential. Students have to learn how to apply knowledge and theories that they have previously acquired to the conduct of the project with academic rigour. Through the hands on doing the project, they will develop / enhance practical skills in managing business projects that are specifically related to emerging and/or developing countries. They are given the opportunity to gain abilities for dealing with client by assessing, negotiating, and bringing the client along with the process; and to work in teams by communicating with each other effectively and utilising everyone's potential to the highest level.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | For Business School PG students only, or by special permission of the School. Please contact the course secretary |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: None |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
150
(
Lecture Hours 14,
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 8,
External Visit Hours 6,
Formative Assessment Hours 6,
Summative Assessment Hours 1,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 3,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
112 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
70 %,
Practical Exam
30 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Students must complete a written group report of the business plan (70% weighting), and prepare and give a group presentation/oral defence, maximum 30 minutes, (30% weighting).
25% of this overall mark will be subject to peer assessment
The word count for the report not to exceed 8,000 (for groups of four) or 10,000 (for groups of five) |
| Feedback |
All students will be given at least one formative feedback or feed forward event for every course they undertake, provided during the semester in which the course is taken and in time to be useful in the completion of summative work on the course. Such feedback may be at course or programme level, but must include input of relevance to each course in the latter case.
Assessment feedback will be provided on a feedback form in the appropriate format. Presentation and written report assessment marks will be made available within 15 working days of the final presentation and the submission of the written project report. The feedback for the TOR and interim student presentation will be provided orally by teaching staff (course lecturers, student development and business advisers) during the workshop/presentation session. Other feedback will be informal according to students¿ requests in diverse forms throughout the course.
Students will gain feedback on their understanding of the material when they discuss their answers to the tutorial questions in the tutorials. Students may also ask questions in Lectures to assess their knowledge.
Feedback format:
Informal feedbacks will be provided by teaching staff according to the needs of individual groups, which could be in different forms.
Oral comments on Terms Of Reference document
Interim student presentations; oral comments by teaching staff during the presentation sessions
Formal feedback to final group presentations and written project reports will be provided within 15 working days.
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| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand and critically evaluate the general issues faced by business operations cross national and cultural boundaries and the challenges in the globalisation context.
- Understand and critically discuss diversity and complexity of business environment
- Critically discuss how a market is socially embedded and constrained by its historical development path, the broader social, economic and political settings and the insertion of exogenous pressures from regional and international systems.
- Explain and discuss a range of political, regulatory and technological changes taking place concerning international business.
- Critically discuss the specific challenges / opportunities facing foreign investors seeking to operate in a selected emerging market; and/or the issues facing enterprises in developing countries seeking to grasp opportunities to compete globally, including problems that may surround their struggles to absorb advanced technologies from developed countries.
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Reading List
| Not applicable |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Cognitive Skills:
-Display a critical appreciation of the key issues involved in doing business project in emerging/developing markets and recognise wide ranges of presumptions hidden in current management theories, models and practices, which may have blocked our sights in emerging business opportunities and /or challenges. This will involve developing skills for identifying wide range of social and culture related ¿presumptions¿ and applying diverse lens to overcome the obstacles of the theoretical challenges in the field of International Business: i) the abstract and generic character of many concepts, models and theories in the international business field; ii) the limits of single-discipline based approaches; and, iii) the dominant position of Western perceptions and rationales.
-Demonstrate ability in doing a business project, by acquiring and applying specialist knowledge as well as deploying concepts and sources incisively and with sensitivity to the particular contexts under examination.
-Be able to work independently as well as in groups in reviewing literature; searching for information and data, managing time and contributing to a specified group project.
-Demonstrate skills in interdisciplinary analysis, drawing upon different empirical sources, analytical perspectives and disciplines in proposing responses to match the complexity of the issues under examination.
Transferable skills:
-Be able to deal with business clients (companies) appropriately and effectively;
-Be able to work effectively in a multi-cultural team, communicating with people from different cultural backgrounds, drawing benefit from accommodating different perspectives, and making best use of diverse strengths of individual team members.
-Be able to present the project outcomes clearly and succinctly while being persuasive.
-Be able to write a business project report clearly and succinctly by using appropriate academic analytical frameworks and articulating findings and its empirical evidences with scholarly rigour.
-Be able to advance reasoned and factually supported arguments in written work and oral presentation.
-Be able to carry out information search using different sources, e.g. from libraries and Internet.
-Be able to understand the pliability of data, interpret and use data with care and in critical manner
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| Keywords | IBEM-DBP |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Xiaobai Shen
Tel: (0131 6)50 3819
Email: Xiaobai.Shen@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mr Peter Newcombe
Tel: (0131 6)51 3013
Email: Peter.Newcombe@ed.ac.uk |
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