Welcome to the course: what you will learn

Your first move abroad. Welcome to Doing Business Across Borders: The Global Environment for Managers course. Picture this. Your coffee chain wants to open its first stores in a new country. Should you export your beans, sign up a local franchise partner, or build your own cafes? What happens if the local currency drops twenty percent next year, or your new team expects a very different style of leadership? Would you know which questions to ask first? By the end of Doing Business Across Borders, you will.

Who this is for. This is built for MBA students and early-career managers who want a working command of how international business really operates. You don't need to have worked abroad or studied economics. If you know everyday business words like sales, costs and profit, you're ready. Every new term, from tariffs to exchange-rate pegs, gets explained in plain words the first time it shows up. The most useful thing you can bring is curiosity about the global brands you already use every day.

How the parts build on each other. Here's the map. We start with the global playing field and the people in it, because every decision abroad lands in a culture. Next come the rules of the game: politics, law, economies and ethics. Then we follow goods and money across borders through trade and currencies. With that ground laid, you'll build strategy, pick locations and choose how to enter a market. Finally, we look inside the multinational itself, from organization design to sending people abroad.

The world and its cultures. The first two sections cover modules one to six. You'll see what globalization really means, who gains and who is left behind, and the three motives for going abroad: sell more, source better and spread risk. Then we turn to culture: why a deal-focused negotiator and a relationship-focused one can talk past each other, how power distance shapes management style, and how colour, space and time send silent messages. Afterward, you'll be able to read a foreign market and its people without stereotyping.

Rules of the game. Modules seven to twelve cover the rules every investor must read. You'll compare democracies and authoritarian regimes, sort political risk into four types, and see how common, civil, theocratic and customary law differ. On the economic side, you'll classify economies and read measures like GDP and the misery index. Then come the hard choices: bribery and the FCPA, climate goals, and fair work in supply chains like fast fashion's. You'll leave able to weigh a country's risks and build a code of conduct that works.

Trade and money. Modules thirteen to twenty-two follow goods and money. You'll learn comparative advantage, the surprising idea that even a country best at everything gains by trading and specializing. It explains a lot about where your smartphone is assembled. You'll meet tariffs, quotas, the WTO, the European Union and USMCA. Then money: how the foreign-exchange market works, how to read a dealer's quote, and what moves exchange rates. You'll be able to lock in a rate and see how currency swings reshape sales.

Strategy, location and entry. Modules twenty-three to twenty-nine are where it all comes together. You'll build a strategy for a multinational, map its value chain, and choose between global, localization, international and transnational approaches, the same tension a streaming service faces when it decides how much content to make locally. You'll scan countries, weigh demand against political and currency risk, and compare entry modes by control, cost and risk. That's exactly the coffee chain question from the start, and you'll have a method to answer it.

Running the global company. The last section, modules thirty to thirty-five, looks inside the multinational. You'll compare functional, area and matrix structures, adapt products and prices across markets, and find lost sales with gap analysis. You'll see how car makers run just-in-time supply chains, how accounting differs by country, and how to hedge currency exposure. Finally, you'll staff the company and follow an expatriate from selection to coming home. You'll be ready to help run operations that span many countries.

Getting the most out of it. A few habits make a big difference. Keep a steady pace, roughly one module a week, so ideas have time to settle. Pick one global brand you know well, say an airline or a fast fashion label, and keep asking how each lesson applies to it. Answer the quick questions inside the videos, even when you feel sure. And when you read business news about tariffs, currencies or a company entering a new market, try naming the concept behind it.

Recap and what's next. Let's recap. Doing Business Across Borders: The Global Environment for Managers moves through thirty-five modules in nine sections. You'll read the global landscape and its cultures, weigh politics, law, economies and ethics, follow trade and currencies, then build strategy, choose markets and entry modes, and run the global company. By the end, you'll make decisions abroad with clear reasons behind them. Next up is module one, Globalization: Forces, Gains and Discontents. See you there.