BUSI 1301 – Business Principles in a Global Economy

Professor: Dr. Joseph L

Thompson
Semester Contact Information for Professor Thompson
and TA
• Professor: Dr. Joseph L
Thompson
• Preferred Email:
jlthompson@bauer.uh.edu

• Office Location: 325P MH

(Melcher Hall)

• Office Hours: Mon: 1130-

1230 pm, Tue 12-1 pm
 Class TAs (Large Section Only)
• See the syllabus for contact information
• The TA is your point of contact for
everything course-related
• Students must email the TA first
• Check the Syllabus Course Calendar and
Other Information Before Contacting the
TA.
 Required Texts

1. The Syllabus (This is the most important document in the course.

Students must keep up to date with the syllabus. If changes need to
be made, the professor or your TA will inform students. )
2. Geringer - International Business (3rd edition) with Connect Plus.
3. Some topics require additional readings and videos. Those readings
and videos will be located in the appropriate topic folder
 Recommended Readings

• Each student should acquire a copy of the classic book on writing style,
The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. This book will
help all students learn how to write effectively for all writing inside and
outside of college.

• Anyone involved in global business should be aware of business

resources that provide information on industries, companies, markets,
and more. Students should also pay close attention to media outlets for
up to the minute stories that can have a dramatic impact on
international businesses. The following library resources are highly
recommended and should be used by each student when conducting
research on the international business environment. These sources can
be accessed via the UH library by using your CougarNet ID to log in. Click
on the link (https://guides.lib.uh.edu/business) for more details about
each of these sources.
 Mental Health
Counseling and
Psychological Services
http://www.uh.edu/caps
(713) 743-5454

Let’s Talk Program

(no appointment
necessary):
http://www.uh.edu/caps
/outreach/lets_talk.html
Global Leadership and Business Ethics
Lecture Outline:
Key Terms:
I. Global Leadership
• Global Mind-Set
A. Defining Global Leadership
• Leadership B. Key Global Leadership Competencies
• Pyramid Model of Global Leadership II. Business Ethics
• Ethics A. Defining Ethics
B. Approaches to Business Ethics
• Amoral / Legalistic / Responsive / C. Ethical Benefits and Consequences
Ethical Businesses
 • June 4, 1927: The dean of the brand-new
Harvard Business School, Wallace B.
Donham, gave a short address that was
more of a warning than a celebration.
Scientific advances had opened up “new
opportunities for happiness,” he observed,
but these would not be secured without
“a higher degree of responsibility.”

• Business leaders, he went on, needed to

develop “social consciousness,”
accompanied by “competently equipped
intelligence and wide vision.”
Global Leaders
Global Leadership
• Global leadership is more complicated than domestic leadership
and requires different and unique skillsets

A prerequisite to global leadership is developing a global

mind-set:
• A view that combines an openness to and an
awareness of diversity across markets and cultures
with an ability to synthesize across this diversity
• Requires both intellectual intelligence (business
acumen) and global emotional intelligence (self-
awareness, cross-cultural understanding,
cultural adjustment, and cross-cultural
effectiveness)
Global Leadership
• “Global [leaders] have exceptionally open
minds. They respect how different countries
do things, and they have the imagination to
appreciate why they do them that way. But
they are also incisive; they push the limits of
the culture. Global managers don’t passively
accept it when someone says, ‘You can’t do
that in Italy or Spain because of the unions,’
or ‘You can’t do that in Japan because of the
Ministry of Finance.’ They sort through the
debris of cultural excuses and find
opportunities to innovate.”
• Leadership: the behaviors and processes
required for organizing a group of people in
order to achieve a common purpose or
goal.
The Complexity of Global
Leadership
Four overlapping dimensions of complexity:
1. Multiplicity: growth in volume and nature
of issues global leaders must deal with
2. Interdependence: the parts of the global
company are dispersed geographically, but
they are all interlinked
3. Ambiguity: information about some global
problems can be missing, unclear, or open
to interpretation
4. Dynamism: the global context is constantly
changing
 Global
Leadership
Competencies

Successful global
leaders must be able to:
• See differences
• Make connections
• Adjust
• Integrate and lead
change
• Localize
 Who are they?
Elon Musk
Bill Gates
Ma Huateng
Mary Barra
Richard Branson
Mukesh Ambani
Eric Yuan
Sanna Marin

Global Leaders
 Global
Leadership
Competencies

Successful global
leaders must be able to:
• See differences
• Make connections
• Adjust
Mukesh Ambani
• Integrate and lead
change Mary Barra
• Localize
 In 2019, 181 chief executives
from the Business Roundtable,
an association of leaders of the
largest U.S. corporations,
signed a statement pledging to
run their companies “for the
benefit of all stakeholders—
customers, employees,
suppliers, communities, and
shareholders.”
Global Leaders
Scenario Planning:

Managers are now more interested

In “what-if” planning instead of
planning for a single set of events.

Multi-domestic company Royal

Dutch Shell is a pioneer in using this
technique in response to possible oil
shortages.

Shell Scenarios Video:

https://youtu.be/srY-hJuqYTM
Shell energy to 2050:
https://youtu.be/jQ2uIPeiEYQ
Scenario planning is used more frequently today.
Bain and Company’s annual survey queries 13k
respondents from more than 70 countries about the use
and utility of management tools. In 2014, 18 percent of
respondents reported using scenario planning and 60%
said they expected to use it in 2015.

There is scenario planning and effective scenario

planning. What is effective scenario planning?

Effective scenario planning enables managers to view the

future differently- helping them get out of their mental
mind-sets. This is called “re-perceiving.”
Business Ethics
• Ethics: moral guidelines that govern
behavior
• Subjective and open to interpretation—
moral behavior can vary from individual to
individual or culture to culture
• An action can be LEGAL but not ETHICAL
 Approaches to Business Ethics
• Amoral Business: Will do anything to profit, including breaking the law

• Legalistic Business: Will follow the letter of the law, but nothing more

• Responsive Business: Recognizes that there are tangible benefits to

behaving ethically

• Ethical Business: Places ethics at the core of its mission and business
model
 • Sea World

• Response: Public outcry, bands and

entertainers canceled concerts at
SeaWorld

• Impact: SeaWorld saw attendance

drop and lost over $15 million in 2014

Consequences of
Unethical Behavior
 (No In-Class Session Thursday)
Consequences of Watch “Dark Side of Chocolate” :
Unethical Behavior There will be quiz questions for this
film