General provisions

​The course is offered within, e.g., the Bachelor's Programme in Business and Economics and as freestanding course.

Entry requirements

Completed 15 credits from basic courses (A-level) in business studies, and registered for another 15 credits at the same level.

Learning outcomes

The course is a continuation in business studies with particular attention on international business, organisation and marketing.

The course deals with how global trends and phenomena affect companies and organisations and lead to change. To organise and manage often involves dealing with conflicting logics and rationales. To be an attractive partner and at the same time being a skilled negotiator; to have efficient production and at the same time being an attractive workplace, or to optimise results in the short term while stimulating long-term growth are some contradictions that most organisations have to make a daily decision on, but with different preconditions to do so.

The course is an extension where previously acquired knowledge about organisation and marketing is developed in a diversity of contexts and situations. The overall goal is therefore to give the student knowledge and ability to describe, understand and analyse business and organising in change in different contexts and in different markets.

After the course the student should be able to:

• Account for and analyse how different market contexts and global trends affect the organisation of competitive and efficient operations
• Account for and analyse the growth of modern multinational companies
• Account for and analyse different forms of organisation in different contexts
• Account for and analyse industrial markets and changes in such markets
• Apply theoretical knowledge of what directs strategies, behaviours and communication in different organisational practices
• Reflect, relate and critically relate to the different models conveyed by the course literature
• Problematise specific challenges and opportunities through the application of relevant research
• Summarise complex information and make qualified oral presentations based on analytical reading and argumentation
• Evaluate other students' analyses of and solutions to organisational and market problems
• Lead and participate in a group works around different tasks.

Content

The course covers three areas that together provide the student with in-depth knowledge in business studies with connection to international business, organisation and marketing.

The first course section addresses contemporary issues about how globalisation and societal trends affect companies within different industries. We study how these trends affect modern multinational companies and how they act in the light of the opportunities and challenges of globalisation.

In the second course section you will learn how to use theoretically based organisational and management models to solve practical organisational and management problems. The purpose is to apply previous knowledge in an in-depth way based on a variety of organisational contexts. This means that we move on from our previous understanding of new, established or global companies to public, nonprofit, hybrid, or network organisations order to understand how the task, actor dependencies, and the possibility to organise efficiently differs.

The third course section deals with the market strategic challenges that change entails and introduces business networks as a perspective for describing, understanding and analysing. The course presents various central theories, concepts and relationships which are applied to describe and analyse development and change processes in networks. During the course sales and purchasing issues with links to customer and supplier relationships but also the impact of relationships with others important players nationally and internationally are discussed.

The course deals equally with international business, organisation and marketing.

Instruction

Teaching takes the form of lectures, seminars, group work and supervision.

Assessment

The student will get one single grade, equivalent to 15 credits.

The examination takes place through seminars and assignments that are conducted individually and in groups and in writing the exam which is conducted individually. The grade for the entire course is based on an assessment of all parts of the examination. Grading criteria are reported in the study guide that applies to each course opportunity. The grades used are Pass with distinction (VG), Pass (G), and Fail (U). Examinations that are not submitted on time are not graded; if not special reasons can be substantiated. Any residual information and supplements must be submitted no later than that date as stated in the study guide.

For students who have not received a passing grade on the course the entire course (including all examinations) will have to be redone. This is only possible through re-registration during subsequent course sections.

If there are special reasons for doing so, an examiner may make an exception from the method of assessment indicated and allow a student to be assessed by another method. An example of special reasons might be a certificate regarding special pedagogical support from the University's disability coordinator.

Uppsala University does not accept cheating or plagiarism. Suspected incidents of cheating or plagiarism are reported to the Vice-Chancellor, which may issue a formal warning to the student or suspend the student from studies for a certain period.

NOTE: Only completed courses can count toward a degree.

Other directives

​The course substitutes/overlaps among others Marketing and Organisation II 2FE251, Marketing and Organising - Group and Individual 2FE211, Marketing, Consumers and Companies 2FE201, 2FE205, Organisational Behaviour 2FE203, 2FE207, Organisational Behaviour 2FE223, Management 2FE030, Basic Marketing 2 2FE998, Organisation Studies II: The Organisation and its Environment 2FE996.