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.

A special focus of the course will be "The Trump effect – the impacts of ‘America First’ on globalization". In addition I have included als the subjects "Cyber globalization" and "State vs. companies (Shades of capitalism in US, Europe and China)".

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 the folder "Reading material" (obligatory; registered students, who do not deliver the pre-course assignment until Oct 11th latest, cannot be considered for participation).

- Missing 2 (out of the 9) classes might results in a negative evaluation. Please inform Dr. Reichl in case you have to miss a class. In case you have to miss more than 2 classes, you should get in contact with Dr. Reichl early enough!

Missing 3 (out of the 9) classes will results in a negative evaluation.

The mark for the course will be calculated based on the following criteria:

i) Pre-course assignment (10%) – written

Pick two articles of the reading list and express your opinion on max. two DIN A4 pages (1 ½ lines, character size 11). It is recommended to comment on articles on related subjects. Upload the document with your opinion statement before the first class of the course.

(Header of page containing: name of participant, articles commented)

- Evaluation primarily according to substance of opinion and secondarily according to clarity of expression

ii) Class participation (15%) – oral

Students are strongly encouraged to actively take part in the discussions and contribute their own experiences.

- Engagement will be tracked

iii) Teamwork and seminar presentations (30%) – oral

Students are required to engage in teams to prepare homework jointly (e.g. subjects like regulatory environments, cases or scenarios) and to present the results in short presentations

- Engagement will be tracked and evaluated

iv) Participation in the online discussions/blogging (10%) – written, online

During the course, Dr. Reichl will provide an online discussion/blogging possibility. Students are expected to participate and feed in fresh thoughts

- Engagement will be tracked

v) Exam (35%) – handwritten; on paper

On December 6th, 7:15 pm, there will be a one hour written exam, where the students will answer questions on the discussions during the course and write short statements on his/her opinion on certain subjects and/or cases. A positive written exams is the condition for a positive evaluation of the overall course.

- 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 25 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.

 

Please address all administrative issues to the imm@wu-wien.ac.at and/or to cems@wu.ac.at

 Dr. Reichl can be reached via imm@wu-wien.ac.at and via the CEMS office cems@wu.ac.at

After his long-term position as a Senior Partner and Managing Director of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants in Austria and Central/Eastern Europe, Dr. Reichl stepped down from operative management in mid 2007, after 20 years with the company. Today, he is acting as a Senior Adviser to major corporations, he is investing into small and medium sized companies and serves in various non-executive positions. Before joining Roland Berger in 1987, he has been a Marketing Program Manager at Hewlett Packard in Böblingen/Germany for four years; before that, he had served as an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Management and Organization in Graz/Austria, lecturing IT-organization, Computer Aided Design and Artificial Intelligence. During and immediately after his studies, he did various jobs in sport teaching and at a major Austrian Construction Company. He studied at the Technical University in Graz/Austria and made his thesis based at Stanford University in California and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Reichl holds a Dipl.-Ing. degree in Civil Engineering and Doctor degrees in Engineering and in Law. He was born in Salzburg, is married, and has 2 adult daughters.

www.manfredreichl.com