Doing business in Africa (5 cr)

Objective

Upon successful completion of this course, student would be able to:
• Understand the role of culture and cultural conditions that enhance orharm businesses in Africa
• Understand the simple cultural and established principles critical to doing business and business practices that are found in Africa
• Understand and identify the role of regional economic bloc and their organization in Africa
• Understand the nature of diverse regional markets of Africa
• Understand and evaluate the business opportunities and barrier of entering the African markets
• Understand the legal, monetary and monetary system in Africa
• Understand the complexity of managing diverse and cross-cultural situations when doing business in Africa
• Understand the wider context of doing business in the emerging African region and influencers
• Understand the factors to manage uncertainty and to achieve success in Africa

Content

Purpose of this course is to introduce and explore the African business environment, African cultures, African business opportunities and how to exploit those opportunities with the right business competences. Main focus for this course will be to explore the differences between competition from local and foreign markets in Africa; the economic organizations and African regional markets as a whole.

In this course students will learn the local and international legal environments of African business, as well as the cultural and behavioral condition of the African people and their business life. This includes looking at country analysis in the region, types of businesses and industries, consumer markets, and the nature of international trade, product and services trade.

Furthermore, the course will assess local agent selection, partnership selection, cross-cultural conflict resolution and management of inter-firm relationship which are important tools in today’s business approach by most companies in Africa.

Knowledge of international business and management will be useful.

Course material

The material will be provided by the lecturer.

The course will also be supported by a current reports on Business Africa and recent news on what is actually going on in the continent.

Study forms and methods

The course is based on both theoretical lectures, discussion of case-studies and other empirical materials, most importantly, it requires the active participation of students in class discussions.

Cases analysis, assignments and final project.

Evaluation scale

1-5

Qualifications

Knowledge of international business and management will be useful.