25 hrs in winter semester 2016/17 in semi-blocked mode (2 weekly hours per semester)
9 blocks á 3 hours incl. written exam


Course Description

“Globalization” is a buzzword describing an extremely complex and multi-faceted field with many opposed trends, interests, and power games, created by a myriad of players with conflicting interests. These trends and changes have profoundly impacted the way, how big, medium-sized and even many small companies are doing business. The various economic crisis’, G20 negotiations, the ongoing global Foreign Direct Investment and M&A-activities as well as environmental issues are demonstrating how interconnected the economies – emerging and developed countries – are and how important an understanding of all kinds of inter-dependencies (regions, industrial sectors, value chains etc.) is. The growing importance of major new economies, like China, India, or Brazil, ensures that these changes will continue during the upcoming decades.

This highly interactive course will deal with many aspects of globalization, not only with global value chains in production and services in various economic sectors, but also with the consequences of globalization, such as protective behavior of various states, conflicts of interests between corporations and states, Intellectual Property issues, relations between developing countries and industrialized countries, as well as environmental and social issues. The red line through all these issues will be the creation of three so-called “Scenarios”, i.e. different snapshots of the possible positions of Europe within a globalized world of the future. These scenarios which will be elaborated in three teams.

Aim of the course is to give students an understanding of globalization issues, their interrelations, the interests of the various players (countries, corporations, regulators, NGOs, etc.) as well as levers and ways to improve the global cooperation to the advantage of every player. In addition, students should develop an understanding of how globalization might develop during the next decades, depending on different assumptions.

The course will develop an understanding of trends, forces, impacts, risks, opportunities, etc. which are connected with “globalization”. After participating in the course, students should be able:

i) To understand driving forces of globalization and how these have changed/will be changing the structures of businesses, economies and societies
ii) To judge how major players and stakeholders (countries and companies) are behaving, in order to promote their interests and to use/avoid consequences arising out of these trends
iii) To assess the risks and opportunities for various industrial sectors from these challenges – also with regard to technological trends and substitutions
iv) To use opportunities from globalization in an entrepreneurial way for their own business or future company.

Participants will prepare and present focus topics (like institutions for global trade, role of patents, or interests of multinational corporation vs. states) and global trends (in four industries: Agriculture, Energy, Pharma, Automotive) and global issues (like relations between states and companies, or positions of various world regions (Africa, Asia, US or Europe). They will jointly elaborate scenarios describing how globalization might develop during the years to come, depending on various assumptions, and, thus, will develop sensitivity for differentiating between industries and regional strategies.

- Students should have studied/have experience with economics for at least 3 years
- Students should have glanced through the required reading material before the first day of the class. The reading list will be available via the learn@wu, at least 2 weeks before the first lecture.
- Students must have written an Opinion Statement (in English language; max. 2 pages) on two of the articles in folder “Reading material” (obligatory; registered students, who do not deliver the pre-course assignment cannot be considered for participation).

This seminar is limited to 30 attendees. There will be a waiting list, since our experience is that (1) the seminar is full after a few hours and (2) several students cancel their registration for the course during the following days. So if the course is already fully booked, please contact cems@wu.ac.at  for the waiting list.

Dr. Reichl can be reached via mr@manfredreichl.com