Learning outcomes

The overall goal of the course is to develop the students' ability to analyse different aspects of market entry and internationalisation. Internationalisation and foreign market entry is often considered as difficult and costly. An interesting question is therefore what kind of knowledge and experience is needed and used by the firm during the process to become internationally oriented. The objective of the course is to develop the skills of analysing internationalisation and market entry processes from the viewpoint of the individual firm. Different problems and strategies that a firm has to handle during the process to become and act as an international firm are being scrutinised from different theoretical perspectives. The purpose is to give the student a scientific base for understanding and analysing foreign market entry and internationalisation.

After the course the student will be able to orally as well as in writing independently discuss the topic i.e. market entry and internationalisation, by covering the following matters:

- Present a comprehensive picture of different modes of foreign market entry.

- Explain why different theoretical approaches offer different answers to the choice of entry mode as well offer different explanations behind firms' internationalisation.

- Analyse different market entries from industry and local market specific characteristics and implications thereof.

Based on these skills the student will be able to present an appropriate analysis on any contemporary situation that challenges a firm when entering a foreign market entry.

Content

The course consists of three themes.

- Foreign direct investments, Transaction cost approach and Resource based view

- Patterns of Internationalisation and Foreign marker entry (FME)

- Internationalisation in networks

Instruction

The course is taught in English and is based on lectures, literature seminars, case seminars and web based exams. The attempt is to create an atmosphere where participants have an interactive dialogue in this area. An important object with the teaching approach is to strive to reach as high level of shared knowledge as possible. For this purpose every attempt by students to contribute to the collective understanding will be encouraged.

The course contains four kinds of fora for learning; lectures, literature seminars, case seminars, and web-based exams. They all are compulsory and embark on active participation. Literature seminars are except for individual performance also performed in teams where they are assigned to present the literature, lead seminars and support discussions in a resourceful way. Case seminars rely on analyses where the students are assigned to apply theory-based research on an issue that concern specific cases. As for the web-based exams students are assigned individual questions. They also have to comment on the answers from other students (i.e. peer-to-peer judgements) for the purpose of improving these, as one way of contributing to the collective learning.

Assessment

Grades will be given in accordance with the Swedish grading system and, for international students, the ECTS grading system. The following grades will be used: VG (passed with distinction), which corresponds to A or B in the ECTS grading system, G (passed), which corresponds to C, D or E, and U (failed) which corresponds to the ECTS grade F.

The students will get one single grade, equivalent to 7.5 ECTS credits. Performance during the process towards learning goals is measured via:

- Active participation in seminars and completion of assignments given during the course.

- Web-based exams throughout the course in combination with peer-to-peer judgements (individual). It should be noticed that judging peer-to-peer is equally important as answering the assigned question thus efforts put in the peer-to-peer judgements will be taken into account for the final grade.

Performance is assessed by using so called Assessment Units (AU). Performance during seminars constitutes maximally 50 AU out of totally 100 AU for the course, while the web-based exams in combination with the peer-to-peer judgments constitute 50 AU. To obtain the final grade G, the student has to reach at least 25 AU within each sub item, i.e. seminars and web-based exams. To obtain the final grade VG, the student has to reach at least 37.5 AU within each sub item.

In addition, any remaining assignments or supplements must be completed and handed in at least within two weeks after the end of the course otherwise this part of the examination (all assignments included) has to be redone the following semester, provided there is space in the course.

Attention Swedish students: Only completed courses can be recognised in your degree.