Managing the Foreign Business Environment Seminar

Description

How confident would you be managing a subsidiary in a foreign country? Can you map the risks and opportunities of the economic and political environment? Will the economy liberalize, or become more protected? Can you read where politicians are heading into? Can you deal with national champions? How can a local competitor change the rules of the game against your firm? Do you have the competences to compete “outside” the market? How can local stakeholders affect your business – even at home?

Firms often avoid countries where policy and economic uncertainty are high. Yet, these countries offer the best prospects for growth. Management of the company's interactions with the local public and government is thus critical for the positioning and strategy of any firm doing business in a foreign country. In this seminar, we will examine how managers can develop nonmarket competences to manage abroad. We will put into practice a series of concepts, analytical tools and skills that will allow participants to develop a comprehensive set of competences required to manage the environment of business in a foreign market. Practical cases and hands-on discussions will be essential components of the learning process, with a special focus on the Latin American business environment.

Seminar learning objectives

• To understand how political regimes and economic structures condition the business environment of foreign markets
• To go beyond the macro environment and to delineate the relevant issues that shape the specific environment of firms
• To examine a framework that allows developing and implementing strategies to manage in local political arenas.
• To understand the forces that encourage local stakeholder actions, and how to deal with them

Seminar Hours: 9

Leader

Ariel Casarin, Ph.D., is associate professor at IAE Business School, Universidad Austral, Argentina. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Warwick Business School, an MSc in Economics and Finance from the University of Warwick, and an MSc in Finance from CEMA University. Most of his research is concerned with regulatory economics, nonmarket strategy and applied industrial economics, with a focus on applied production theory, market power and entry. He has published articles in a number of scholarly journals, including The Journal of Regulatory Economics, Energy Economics and Utilities Policy. He has spoken to academic, industry and government audiences on regulation in Argentina, Chile, South Africa and the US. His professional activities relate to the application of microeconomics and finance to a range of regulatory, business, competition and public policy issues. He has served as a consultant to firms, regulators and other institutions, including the Treasury Attorney General’s Office (Argentina), the  World Institute for Development Economics Research (Finland) and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (Switzerland).