module specification

MC5015 - Global Marketing Strategy (2018/19)

Module specification Module approved to run in 2018/19
Module status DELETED (This module is no longer running)
Module title Global Marketing Strategy
Module level Intermediate (05)
Credit rating for module 30
School Guildhall School of Business and Law
Total study hours 300
 
219 hours Guided independent study
81 hours Scheduled learning & teaching activities
Assessment components
Type Weighting Qualifying mark Description
Group Presentation 50%   Group presentation submitted in class - 20 minutes (20%) Group report -3000 words(30%) submitted in class
Coursework 50%   Individual critical essay of 2500 words submitted to the UG office
Running in 2018/19

(Please note that module timeslots are subject to change)		 No instances running in the year

Module summary

The phenomenon known as ‘Globalisation’ has been greatly accelerated by a variety of key drivers like changes in markets, technology, cost priorities, political and economic factors. These rapid growth and dynamic changes in the global marketplace have posed a great challenge for companies operating globally. Consequently, the subject of Global Marketing has grown in response to this and it is essential for students to have an in-depth understanding of the complexity of the global marketplace. In this module students are introduced to a range of concepts and theories that are key in solving global marketing problems. The module relies considerably on independent learning and assesses students’ entrepreneurial abilities by challenging them to investigate the possibility to expand their own business operations outside of the United Kingdom, in a very competitive global environment.

Module aims

Students are expected to be able to demonstrate a range of cognitive, intellectual and interpersonal skills. The module aims and learning outcomes have been formulated in relation to these QAA benchmark statements.

The aims of the module are to:

  • Provide students with a critical understanding of key global marketing concepts and models
  • Systematically assess the opportunities and challenges that exist in the global marketing environment
  • Foster a critical awareness and understanding of contemporary issues in global marketing management and theory
  • Identify and apply concepts towards developing solutions to global marketing problems
  • Equip students with global marketing decision-making skills and know-how needed for a successful career in global marketing activities
  • Develop students’ academic writing and communication skills, including oral presentation
  • Enhance students’ intellectual and interpersonal skills, including working with others and encourage self assessment and reflection

Syllabus

SEMESTER ONE

  • Definition, scope and challenges of global marketing in the 21st century
  • Globalisation of markets: myth or reality? standardisation vs. adaptation debate; internationalisation, regionalisation and globalisation approaches
  • Initiation of internationalisation - proactive vs. reactive motives, internal and external triggers of export initiation
  • Internationalisation theories applied to SMEs and LSEs
  • Development of the firm’s international competitiveness
  • International value chain analysis, competitive triangle and; competitive benchmarking
  • Methodological issues in global marketing research, key challenges in collecting primary and secondary data, reliability and validity issues
  • Analytical frameworks for evaluating the global marketing environment, including social, political, legal, financial economic and environmental factors
  • Application of key models for spotting and responding to institutional voids in emerging markets
  • Consumer behaviour across cultures: convergence and divergence of consumer behaviour and cultural paradoxes and analytical tools for examining cross-cultural differences
  • Main streams of research and approaches to international market selection, segmentation market expansion strategies
  • Global marketing positioning strategies including the GCCP, LCCP and FCCP strategies
  • Alternative approaches to foreign market entry including export mode, contractual/hybrid mode and hierarchical mode of entry
  • International sourcing strategies- reasons for international sourcing, the role of subcontractors, difference between conventional and turnkey subcontractors

SEMESTER 2

  • Global product and brand decisions, adoption and diffusion of innovation in global markets
  • Managing a global product portfolio, international product lifecycle, the COO, COD, COA effects
  • Global brand architecture, theories of global brand building, alternative global brand strategies
  • Globalised services marketing: significance of services in the global economy, the challenges of marketing services globally, strategic options for cross-border services marketing 
  • Global pricing decisions transfer pricing, price corridors, dumping, price escalation, terms of payment and terms of delivery, export credit and financing
  • Globally integrated marketing communications (GIMC)- including public relations, sponsorship, direct marketing, digital marketing, viral marketing,  sales promotions, personal selling, trade shows and exhibitions
  • Schools of thought of global advertising decisions; comparative advertising strategies in practice, selecting a media agency, standardisation vs. adaptation
  • Negotiations in global markets: critical knowledge and skills required in handling global sales negotiation, management of global sales force
  • Managing and controlling international distribution channels and logistics, the global distribution network; strategies to overcoming blocked channels; implications of the Internet for distribution decisions; grey markets; global retailing strategies
  • Global e-Marketing: barriers to global internet marketing, the digital revolution and global marketing mix strategies, the key role of social media in global marketing operations
  • Social responsibility and ethical issues in global marketing operations
  • Organising and controlling global marketing operations- steps in developing the global marketing plan, organisational structures suitable for global marketing operations; pitfalls and opportunities with global account management; key elements of global marketing control systems, global marketing budgets
  • Future challenges and trends in global marketing

Learning and teaching

The module will be taught over a 30-week period and consists of 1.5 hour lectures and 1.5 hour seminars each week.  The module uses a blended learning and teaching strategy, comprising of: lectures, video case studies, research projects, WebLearn interaction, guest lectures and class discussions. The use of WebLearn facilities is central to the delivery of module handbook, case studies, journal articles, external web links and student feedback. Other more specialised approaches such as ‘role playing’ are also used.

The lectures focus on key issues, concepts and theories of international marketing and their application to real life situations. Where possible, guest lecturers from global marketing companies are to be incorporated in the teaching. Seminar serves to anchor knowledge imparted in the lectures and provides a forum for:-

• A better understanding of lectures through small group discussions, case study/ journal article analysis and interchange of questions and answers.
• Team work to acquire the skills of working with others from diverse cultural and educational backgrounds.
• Correcting wrong views, ideas and impressions obtained through various sources relating to the subject matter.
• Improving the use of visual aid, present views coherently and the ability to defend questions during group presentations.

During the seminars, students are encouraged to construct small learning groups of 3 (three) and work together on analysing and critically interpreting video and internet case studies, academic journal articles and other current real-life examples. Between 4 and 6 seminars are dedicated to supervised group work in view of the in-course assessment (more details on the in-course assessment in section 17).

A key component of the learning process in this module consists of additional reading and private study to be carried out between taught sessions. This allows students the opportunity to reflect upon their experiences. Seminar and lecture sessions assume that this study has been carried out.

The use of WebLearn facilities is central to the delivery of module handbook, case studies, journal articles, external web links and student feedback. Students will also be encouraged to use blogs to share their views of contemporary issues in global marketing.

 

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

  1. Identify and evaluate relevant concepts and models supporting the development of global marketing decisions
  2. Critically explore the global marketing environment and its influence on the marketing operations of the firm
  3. Understand and apply contemporary issues surrounding the development of global market entry and positioning strategies, international e-marketing and consumer behaviour, culture, brand communications, e-services, negotiations and ethical issues
  4. Understand how businesses of various sizes implement and evaluate their marketing mix strategies simultaneously in multiple dynamic environments
  5. Research and write a report of global marketing opportunity, with appropriate data gathering and analysis

Assessment strategy

The assessment strategy consists of the following components, which aim to assess the module’s learning outcomes as follows:

 

Assessment Learning Outcomes Skills Development Details
Group presentation (20%) 1,2,3,4 Oral presentation(P,A);
Analytical skills (P,A), problem-solving skills (P,A), time management skills (P,A), creative skills(P,A);  team skills (P,A), synthesis skills (I,P,A)		 This 20 minute group presentation which takes place in weeks 13 and 14 assesses students’ ability to synthesise and summarise the written project and to present in a concise and coherent manner the key factors which have contributed to their final group decision with regards to the two foreign markets. This presentation is worth 20% of the overall module mark.
Group report (30%) 1,2,3,5 Research skills (P,A); referencing and numeric skills (P,A); improve the ability to work independently and as part of a group (I,P,A); improve the ability to communicate ideas, principles theories and information effectively by written and visual means (I,P,A); digital literacy and IT skills (P,A);  improve global commercial awareness(I,P); significantly improve one’s enterprise skills, including taking initiative, showing leadership, completing tasks and projects, taking calculated risks (I,P,A) The 3000 words in-course assessment requires
students to identify and evaluate 2 international
markets of their choice (however, they cannot pick
the United Kingdom as one of them) for a given
product/service and justify their recommendations
by using appropriate marketing theory.
This assignment invites groups of 3-4 students
to carry out extensive additional secondary research
for many weeks in order to identify those markets,
analyse the necessary environments, select 2 markets,
develop STP strategy and market entry strategy.

The groups should meet up weekly outside as
well as in class and work on this entrepreneurial project.
All groups will submit a diary of meetings as well
as a team role sheet.
Individual critical essay (50%) 1,2,3,4,5 Improve one’s ability to think critically and write reflectively in relation to real business/ marketing world facts (I,P,A); develop the skills to analyse (I,P); synthesise and evaluate a large body of concepts, ideas and theories related to international marketing strategies(I,P,A); improve the ability to communicate ideas, principles, theories and information effectively by written means (I,P,A); individual research skills (I,P,A); referencing skills (P,A); self-discipline (I) This 2500 word essay 50% of the overall module grade tests students’ individual critical interpretation of global marketing theory and practice. Each student is required to:

1. Choose a foreign multinational company with which he/she is familiar with or interested in. Students should make sure that they have access to relevant information about the organisation of their choice and how it market itself.   
2. Select two models of global marketing and explain their relevance to the selected company by discussing examples from its global marketing operations.
3. Choose an article from an academic journal related to one of the models and show how its conclusions could be used to improve the marketing performance of your chosen company.

 

Bibliography

Core textbook:
- Hollensen, S. (2014) Global Marketing, 6th edition, UK: FT/Prentice Hall, Pearson Education Ltd

Supplementary reading:
- Albaum, G. and Duerr, E. (2011) International Marketing and Export Management, Pearson Education
- Craig, C.S. and Douglas, S.P. (2005) International Marketing Research, 3rd Edition, Chichester, J. Wiley & Sons
- De Mooij, M. (2011) Consumer Behaviour and Culture, Consequences for Global Marketing and Advertising,2nd edition, Sage Publications
- De Mooij, M. (2010) Global Marketing and Advertising: Understanding Cultural Paradoxes, 3rd Edition,
Sage Publications
- Gillespie, K., Jeannet, J. P. and Hennessey, D. (2010) Global Marketing, Cengage Learning
- Hofstede, G., Hofstede, G. J. and Minkov, M. (2010) Cultures and Organisations: Software of the Mind,
revised and expanded 3rd edition, McGraw-Hill USA
- Keegan, W.J. and Green, M.C. (2013) Global Marketing, 7th Edition, Pearson, Prentice Hall
- Kennedy, A. and Mar Hauksson, K. M. (2012) Global Search Engine Marketing, Pearson Education
- Khanna, T. and Palepu, K.G. (2010) Winning in emerging markets: a road map for strategy and
execution, Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, USA.
- Kotabe M. and Helsen K.(2011) Global Marketing Management, 5th Edition, John Wiley & Sons Inc.
- Salmi, A.C (2013) International Consumer Behaviour in the 21st Century: Impact onMarketing Strategy Development, Springer Publication, USA.
- Tolba, A. and Habib, A.(2011) Principles of Marketing Arab World Editions, Pearson Education
- Usunier, J.C. and Lee, J. (2009) Marketing Across Cultures, 5th edition, Financial Times Press Pearson Education

Academic Journal Reading:
International Marketing Review
Journal of International Marketing
Journal of International Consumer Marketing
Journal of consumer behaviour: an international research review
European Journal of Marketing,
Journal of Marketing
Journal of marketing Research
Advances in Consumer Research

Essential Press Reading:
Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal,  Marketing Week, Business Week, Fortune

Industry/ Country reports
Keynote,  Mintel Marketing Intelligence, business insight, ESOMAR,  GMID (Euromonitor)
World Bank, IMF, OECD, UNESCO, UNCTAD, NAFTA, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, International Advertising Association, http://www.adageglobal.com, European Association of Communication Agencies, European Group of Television Advertisers, PRS Group International Country Risk