COURSE NUMBER: EWMBA299B.1
This course is cross-listed with Full-Time MBA
COURSE TITLE: Global Strategy & Multinational Enterprise
UNITS OF CREDIT: 2 Units
INSTRUCTOR: Paul Tiffany
E-MAIL ADDRESS: tiffany@haas.berkeley.edu
CLASS WEB-PAGE LOCATION: bSpace
MEETING DAY(S)/TIME: Mondays, 6:00 pm – 9:30 pm
Ten non-consecutive meetings across the 15-week
semester.
PREREQUISITE(S): EWMBA Core Curriculum
CLASS FORMAT: Cases and lectures
REQUIRED READINGS: Required readings consist of a Course
Reader (cases, articles, book chapters, and lecture notes). There is also a
course text: International Business, C.W. Hill.
BASIS FOR FINAL GRADE:
A. Class Attendance and Participation: 15%
B. Case Write-Up: 25%
C. Group Project: 60%
ABSTRACT OF COURSE'S CONTENT AND OBJECTIVES:
GLOBAL STRATEGY AND MULTINATIONAL
ENTERPRISE is a two-unit course in management. It is designed to acquaint the
student with the delineation of business policies by the firm that engages in
cross-border transactions, and the development and implementation of a strategy
that will allow the firm to achieve its cross-border goals and objectives. The
pursuit of such ends usually occurs within a competitive context, in which
other rival organizations seek similar if not the same ends (e.g., market
share, profits, control of scarce resources, etc.). Accordingly, the essential
drama of the marketplace is how one firm attempts to "win" vis-a-vis its rivals-- that is,
how it develops and implements a competitive strategy for cross-border business
transactions.
Yet while the development and pursuit of a
successful strategy is common to all firms, the fact that this course is
specifically concerned with global strategy and multinational enterprise adds a
further dimension to the issue. We will necessarily have to review the
political-economic context of host nations in which multinational enterprise
competes, and determine how these differing situations effect the formulation
of a given firm’s strategy. While MBA 299B is not a course in international
economics or international political economy, we will nevertheless have to
consider various concepts drawn from that domain. As well, the issue of
"culture" is one that is more salient for the firm competing across
borders: not all consumers behave in the same way or respond in similar ways to
given market signals. Accordingly, the manager of the cross-border enterprise
must, in general, have a greater appreciation of these differentiating
variables if the firm’s plans are to succeed.
This offering of EWMBA 299B will be highly participatory,
relying heavily on class discussions of cases and related readings. Students
must be willing and ready to engage in classroom discussion of the subject
matter if they expect to pass the course. In addition, a written group project
will be required of all students. Details on the written assignment are
provided at the end of this syllabus, and as well can be discussed in class.
Finally, there will be a written in-class examination at the end of the
semester to test your mastery of the core concepts of this course.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:
Paul Tiffany is a Senior Lecturer at the Haas School of Business of the
University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches courses in Business
Policy, Competitive Strategy, and International Management. Professor Tiffany
also serves as a Visiting Professor at Sasin, the
Graduate Institute of Business at Chulalongkorn
University in Thailand; IOMBA, the International Organizations MBA program at
the University of Geneva; and at the AVT Business School in Copenhagen,
Denmark. In the past he has taught at the Graduate School of Business at
Stanford, INSEAD in France, and at CEIBS, the
international school of business in Shanghai. Professor Tiffany earned his
undergraduate degree from Loyola University, an MBA from Harvard University,
and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.
Professor Tiffany is active in a number of academic organizations, and has
published his research in various journals. His book The Decline of American
Steel was published by Oxford University Press in 1988, and published in a
Japanese edition in 1989. Business Plans for Dummies (IDG Books), co-authored
with Dr. Steven Peterson, was published in 1997 and again in 2005 in a 2nd
Edition. It was a finalist in the Booz Allen/Financial Times Best Business Book
of 1998 competition. The first edition went through fifteen printings, and was
available in twelve languages. Professor Tiffany is the recipient of several
awards for his teaching, including the Cheit Award as
the outstanding professor in the Berkeley-Columbia Executive MBA program, in
both 2003 and 2004.
Prior to entering academia, Dr. Tiffany worked as a consultant with several
national management consulting firms and as an assistant to the president of a
large financial services firm. Currently, Dr. Tiffany heads Paul Tiffany &
Associates, a multi-specialty consulting and training organization that offers
management services to firms throughout the world. Recent clients have included
Deutsche Post World Net (Germany), Siam Cement Group (Thailand), Royal Bank of
Scotland, Genentech, The Hartford Insurance Co., Statoil (Norway), NFL Players
Association, Microsoft, Mohegan Sun Resort and Casino, US Steel, Raytheon,
Isuzu (Japan), Cisco Systems, Korean Management Association (Korea), Banc of
America, Johnson & Johnson (Thailand), Magellan Health Services, and MinSheng Bank (China), among many others.