International Business Environment (BFT 335/3)

International business and multinational corporate activities have grown significantly during the past two decades. The rapid and continuous growth of cross-border economic linkages have contributed to the importance of the study of international business. Furthermore, the mandates by the international Assembly of the Collegiate Schools of Business (ACSB) regarding the globalization of the business curricula added to the relevance and importance of international business teaching. The objective of this text is to present an overview of international business teaching as a balance between international business environments and the functional area knowledge of international finance, international accounting, and international management.

This volume concentrates on the substantive gaps in the IB/IM field and addresses whether these gaps are resolvable with our current theoretical and methodological toolkit. This entails three specific queries about the past and present: Have our theories advanced some combination of explanation and prediction? Have our methods proven to be effective in providing rigorous, robust and consistent evidence with respect to the explanatory and predictive validity of our theories? Have we studied the right phenomena in the right way?

What are the forces shaping today's business world? Understanding Business Environmentsprovides key readings which introduce the student to the factors underlying the business environment. Including chapters by gurus such as Anthony Giddens, Stuart Hall and Will Hutton, the book covers: * social forces including the social structure and long-term social change * technological factors including Information Technology and new production technologies * economic factors including the impact of macroeconomic policy and of the financial system * political factors including the legal environment and government-business relations.