International business, societies and cultures (MASTER)

- Familiarize students with interdisciplinary scholarship on markets in a global business environment, including the fields of sociology, cultural studies, communication, and economics;
- Provide students an opportunity to consider the usefulness of culture as a lens for studying markets and organizations, and a sociological toolkit for understanding the global economy;
- Help build students’ glocal (global + local) mindset and increase awareness of the global and local contexts within which markets, consumers and institutions operate.

1. Course introduction
2. Basic sociological tools and concepts for understanding markets, institutions and organizations in the global economy
3. Culture and consumption, markets, and prices
4. Contextualizing international business activities: groups and social identity (including stereotypes and ethnic distance), embededdness, social networks, social capital
5. Institutions, organizations and culture/society
6. Impact of global trends on business: climate change and sustainable development, demographics changes, migration patterns, inequality
7. Managing international business-society relations
8. Social responsibility, markets and social justice, ethics and values in diverse business environments
9. Understanding global economic events in social terms: globalization and securitization, 2008 world financial crisis and its aftermath, global resistance movements (e.g. Occupy Wall Street)
10. Student presentations