Duration
30h Th
Number of credits
| Master in management (120 ECTS) | 5 crédits | |||
| Extra courses intended for exchange students (Erasmus, ...) | 5 crédits |
Lecturer
Language(s) of instruction
English language
Organisation and examination
Teaching in the first semester, review in January
Schedule
Units courses prerequisite and corequisite
Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program
Learning unit contents
The successful global marketer needs to develop the empathy, knowledge and skills required to successfully operate in a constantly evolving global environment. The intercultural marketing course intends to familiarize students with the myriad of decisions to compete outside the "home" country taking into consideration the cultural diversity and how crucially culture affects a firm's competitive advantage and strategic positioning in foreign markets. This course allows students to "decentering" their approach to understand cultural diversity in consumer behavior and marketing management and gain experience in current issues in marketing-related decisions faced by a specific firm entering a foreign market (team assignment requiring systemic, analytical, creative and ethical competences).
Learning outcomes of the learning unit
Upon completion of the subject, students will be able to:
- demonstrate a systemic outlook and understanding of cross-cultural concepts and their impact on the practice of marketing in a globalized world.
- measure the impact of culture on consumer behavior across markets & identify and extract the different meanings related to products/services across borders.
- build new cross-cultural frameworks for communicating effectively in different cultural markets.
- exhibit leadership and interpersonal skills working together in teams to obtain creative solutions to intercultural marketing problems.
- ILO-2: Gaining the knowledge and understanding of one of the proposed fields of concentration or to gain deep knowledge in the field of the management being already specialized through a first University master's degree.
- ILO-4: To acquire the capacity to research autonomously and methodically the information needed to solve a complex, transversal management problem.
- ILO-5: Integrate autonomously researched information, tools, knowledge, and context to build and propose, either individually or as part of a team, original, creative and viable solutions to concrete complex management problems, whether real or simulated, taking into account, when necessary, the human, social and legal context.
- ILO-7: Being capable of professional teamwork.
- ILO-9: Developing a critical sense.
- ILO-10: Developing a transversal, global vision.
- ILO-11: Creative conception of solutions.
- ILO-12: Professional capacity for oral communication.
Prerequisite knowledge and skills
The students are required to participate actively during the sessions. Accordingly, they need a good proficiency level in spoken and written English.
Each student should have followed at least one course of Basics/Principles in Marketing prior to taking the International Marketing Course.
Planned learning activities and teaching methods
The course uses the Flipped learning approach in which students are introduced to the learning material before class and classroom time is dedicated to deepening the concepts through discussing case studies with peers or problem-solving activities linked to guest speakers' presentations. The sessions are therefore interactive and practical.
The sessions begin with an introduction, outlining the learning objectives of the module, agenda, and content of the session. An assessment tool to ensure that students have understood the course content linked to the session is then activated ('Concept Check' multiple choice questions).
Most of the sessions will then be taught in alternating phases of team and collective learning, each about 20-25mins in length.
Collective learning phases consist in testimonials from contributors from real life companies invited to provide their company and personal experience to link the theoretical aspects covered to the real world.
Team learning phases focus on short, precisely formulated tasks related to the course content previously given to enable students to practice applying concepts, to embed the concepts learnt before class and to consolidate their knowledge. The results of the peer discussions are uploaded (maximum 3-slide Powerpoint Slidedeck) on the LOLA university platform. Selected or volunteering groups are then asked to present their results as a brief in-class presentation challenged by the instructor to facilitate learning through discussion. Students also benefit from direct feedback on their assignment.
Short Case studies feed the understanding of some theoretical foundations. Students are required to read and thoroughly prepare the material prior to class following a 5-step process:
- Get to know the context, the situation in which the company operates: figure out the underlying changes in the company's business environment;
- Identify the issues and research questions the company must answer to solve these problems;
- Justify the use of specific international marketing tools to answer the research questions;
- Explain the different potential solution scenarios
- Give relevant recommendations, based on the previous steps.
Mode of delivery (face to face, distance learning, hybrid learning)
Face-to-face course
Additional information:
The course uses the Flipped learning approach in which students prepare some material before class (case studies and readings) and classroom time is dedicated to deepen understanding through discussing. The supporting materials are provided on Lol@, HEC learning platform. Classes regularly welcome guest speakers who provide students with their experience and intercultural practice.
Recommended or required readings
The content of the course will be along the lines of:
Usunier, J-C, Lee J.A, (2013), Marketing across cultures, Pearson, 6th edition.
-
Part 1 - The cultural variable in international marketing
CHAPTER 1 - The cultural process (pp 6-17)
CHAPTER 4 - Language, culture and communication (pp69-82) -
Part 2 - The integration of local consumption in a global marketing environment
CHAPTER 5 - Cross-cultural consumer behavior (pp 103-118)
CHAPTER 6 - Local consumers and the globalization of consumption (pp132-150) -
Part 3 - Marketing decisions for the intercultural environment
CHAPTER 8 - Intercultural marketing strategy (pp 220-235)
CHAPTER 9 - Product Policy 1: physical, service & symbolic attributes (pp 252-267)
CHAPTER 10 - The critical role of price in relational exchange (pp 291-308)
CHAPTER 11 - International distribution & sales promotion (pp 316-328) -
Part 4 - Intercultural marketing communications
CHAPTER 12 - Branding : managing meaning(pp 343-358)
CHAPTER 13 - Intercultural marketing communication - advertising (pp 375-395)
- Chapter 8 - Culture and branding (pp 129-143)
Exam(s) in session
Any session
- In-person
written exam ( multiple-choice questionnaire, open-ended questions )
- Remote
oral exam
Written work / report
Additional information:
FIRST SESSION (January):
The overall grading will be based on three different aspects:
- 60% Individual Evaluation (IE): the first session examination (January) consists in a final written (Multiple Choice Questions plus open questions) or oral exam (depending on class size and sanitary conditions). The material covers all the sessions content, selected text book chapters, case studies, articles, AND guest speakers testimonies.
- 40% Team assignment (TA) - (teams of 3-4 members based on class size), Analysis and recommendation about a specific topic developed in various steps.
- Bonus Class Contribution (CC) - Effective participation means active, substantive, and continuous contribution. CC can take the form of being prepared to discuss the assigned readings and cases, raising or answering questions particularly when classes welcome guest speakers, offering comments, participate constructively, presenting own ideas and critiquing those of others, enriching the class with relevant items of interest from the media or personal experiences or taking part in brief in-class quizzes or other exercises.
- Bonus/Malus - Each student must submit, by the last session of the class, an independent evaluation of each team member's contribution to the team assignment. For this peer assessment, a specific link will be provided at the right time on the Lola platform.
RESIT (August):
Individual Assignment (individual evaluation-IE) - In the first week after the deliberation (beginning of July), in case the team assignment was not succeeded in January, each student is requested to contact the professor to be appointed a specific topic for the resit. In case the first session individual evaluation has not been succeeded in January, the student takes an oral examination (face2face or online) based on all the course material.
Note:
To pass the course, you MUST at least have 10/20 in the final exam AND in the team assignment. In case you fail only one of those two activities, the failed activity accounts for 100% of the final grade. For instance, if you passed the TA (14/20) but failed the IE (9/20), the final grade in the first session will be 9/20. Succeeded activities are NOT transferred to another academic year
Work placement(s)
Organisational remarks and main changes to the course
Students are expected to attend class when they have read the necessary material and have their preparation done. They should actively participate in class discussions and when there is a guest speaker, be active and raise smart questions.
Contacts
For lecture content, please contact GRUSLIN Claire by email Claire.Gruslin@uliege.be
Please note that her office is located:
Rue Louvrex 14 - 4000 LIEGE (N3 - 4th Floor- room 1/26)