International Marketing

Master 2 in International Business and Corporate Development (MR13403A)

Companies engaged or not in marketing goods or services abroad are affected by the happenings in the global market place and the response of other businesses (both local and foreign) to these changes. The only constant is change. Consumers will continue to change in needs and consumption behavior, the environment in which businesses operate will continue to change. The companies that survive and grow will be the ones that understand change. It has, therefore, become critical to conduct proper international marketing research. Globalization of markets leads to increasing competition, and hence a growing importance of the role of marketing and international marketing research in creating value for foreign consumers.
The course provides students with the knowledge of the main international market research methods, the main difficulties to be encountered in establishing equivalence and comparability of research in different countries; and most of all, how international marketing managers can transform existing (secondary) and newly collected (primary) data on a global scale into useful information for their international marketing strategies and value creation for foreign consumers. A dedicated section will deal with ethnographic research in helping firms in every industry truly understand consumers and adapt to fast-changing markets.
The course is taught through a teaching method that mixes lecture sessions, group/individual practice/case written reports, and practice/case discussions. Thorough preparation of the course material and active participation in the class discussions are essential.
The course favors an active pedagogy based on the practical application of the concepts addressed, such as:

• Solving international marketing strategies case studies to understand the main challenges that international marketers face
• Practicing secondary research to assess opportunities in countries and estimate potential demand
• Practicing qualitative research (perform qualitative data collection by observation and by interview, analyze and present the results of qualitative data) to generate insights into customers’ thoughts, feelings, and behavior in order to propose new international marketing development.

The course incorporates ethical considerations into the choice and use of research methods.