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Faculty
Glen Brodowsky, California State University San Marcos

Course Coordinator
ISUP Secretariat

Prerequisite/progression of the course

Students should have at least completed a basic course in marketing principles.

Course content, structure and teaching

Successful firms realize that exchange of goods and services occurs within a global context. The domestic environment is part of the global environment that is heavily influenced by local cultures. This course approaches international marketing from a cultural perspective. Two dimensions of cultural perspective are a cross-cultural approach and an intercultural approach. The first approach compares national marketing systems and local commercial customs in various countries. The goal of this approach is to emphasize what is country specific and what is universal. The second, intercultural approach focuses on the interactions between business people, buyers and sellers and their companies who have different national, ethnic or cultural backgrounds.

Understanding these two approaches helps companies develop and implement marketing strategies in different national contexts at different stages of their involvement in global markets. These stages of international involvement include initial market entry, local market expansion, and global rationalization. A major component of this course focuses on the use of readily available global data sources for evalutating market entry opportunities. Students will work in teams on a secondary-data-based market selection project.

The course's development of personal competences

The course is designed to help students achieve the following goals:

• To understand the marketing strategies firms choose different stages of their involvment in global markets. These stages include entry into new markets, growth opportunities in expanding new markets, and streamlining firm activities to take advantage of synergies on a global scale
• To understand the marketing within the complexity of the global economic, cultural, political and historical environments
• To appreciate opportunities for standardizing some marketing strategies while recognizing the need for localizing adapting other elements of their marketing strategies

Learning Objectives

• Develop an understanding of the multiple dimensions of culture.
• Gain an appreciation of the genesis of cultures and traditions around the world.
• Have broad comprehension of concepts, theories, models and frameworks that have been developed for studying international marketing.
• Be able to identify, analyze, and use secondary data sources to conduct market research studies to identify market opportunities for entry and growth.
• Understand how firms and their stages evolve as they become more involved in the global marketplace.

Teaching methods

The course will include lectures, case studies, videos, and project work. Some Harvard Business Cases will be used. In addition, the students will work with secondary data sources to conduct a country screening excercise for market entry decisions. I also have several multinational data sets the students can use to learn proper data analysis techinques for cross-national data.

Examination

Mandatory mid-term feedback assignment: In order to be allowed to present the final assignment, each student must have completed one short experiential exercise (3 - 5 pages).

Final exam: Project/home assignment (written individally), 10 A4 pages. The students will be asked to write a series of essays based upon short cases or articles selected by the instructor.

Exam aids: The students may use their notes, texts, and any online sources they deem appropriate.

Re-take exam: Project/home assignment (written individally), 10 A4 pages.

Recommended literature

Usunier, Jean Claude and Julie Ann Lee: Marketing Across Cultures 5th Edition.
Paperback: 477 pages, Publisher: Pearson Prentice Hall, Language: English, ISBN-10: 0470010959, ISBN-13: 978-0-273-71391.

Several articles from The Journal of Global Marketing, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, and The Journal of International Marketing will be selected to supplement the text.

Last updated by ISUP Secretariat 29/01/2010