BA-250 Weekly Teaching System
Saint Vincent College • McKenna School of Business
Instructor: Dr. Monika Cooper • Hybrid Format (In-person + Online)
Week-by-Week Teaching Autopilot (with Live Cases)
Week 1 – Ch. 1 Globalization (In-Person)
In-person
Greet students, learn names, and briefly ask what they’re studying and why they chose BA-250.
“Welcome to Global Business Management. This is the class where we connect headlines, supply chains, and your own careers.”
Pairs answer: “What did you do, buy, or use this week that involved another country?” Then 2–3 share out.
Explain hybrid rhythm, grading, and your teaching style (discussion, cases, real data).
- 1 Drivers: technology, trade rules, multinationals.
- 2 Interdependence & fragility (shipping lanes, data flows, chips).
- 3 Winners, losers, and why politics reacts.
Groups pick one everyday product and brainstorm how it might move from factory to them, including chokepoints (Red Sea, Panama Canal).
State three takeaways; preview the iPhone case and explain where to find it online.
Discuss how Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and drought-driven restrictions in the Panama Canal have forced ships to reroute, raising costs and delaying goods. Ask students: “How might this show up in prices or shortages you notice?”
Articles you can link or show:
- Red Sea disruption overview – JPMorgan & CSIS analyses
- Panama Canal drought & climate graphics – Woodwell Climate / World Weather Attribution
Week 2 – Ch. 1 Deep Dive (Online)
Online
Week 3 – Ch. 2 Political, Economic & Legal Systems (In-Person)
In-person
Ask: “If you had to build a factory abroad, what country would you choose and why?”
Political, economic, and legal systems as lenses for risk.
Groups compare two countries and decide which is less risky for long-term FDI.
Use the U.S. TikTok sale-or-ban law as a live example of how political and legal systems affect business. Ask: “What political values are driving this? How would a different country’s system handle TikTok?”
Week 4 – Ch. 2 Analysis (Online)
Online
Students pick two countries and write a 2-page memo comparing political, economic, and legal systems, ending with a clear “invest here, not there” recommendation.
Week 5 – Ch. 4 Culture (In-Person)
In-person
Students share in pairs a time when cultural differences caused confusion or friction.
Show Hofstede’s online comparison tool and have students compare 2–3 countries they care about.
Groups plan how they’d adjust style when negotiating in a high power-distance, high uncertainty-avoidance culture.
Week 8 – Ch. 5 Ethics, CSR & Sustainability (In-Person)
In-person
Short lecture on labor, environment, corruption, and data privacy in global operations.
Groups get a scenario (e.g., apparel factory, cobalt mining, shipping decisions) and must recommend a realistic course of action.
Show how drought has limited ship transits and raised costs. Ask: “What is the ethical responsibility of firms that know their supply chains rely on fragile routes?”
Week 10 – Ch. 7 Government Policy & Trade (In-Person)
In-person
Discuss how export controls and subsidy programs affect companies like NVIDIA and their global sales.
Students argue for or against a specific trade measure (e.g., limits on AI chip exports, or a subsidy for domestic semiconductor plants).
Use NVIDIA’s explosive revenue growth in 2023–25 and the evolving U.S. rules on AI chip sales to China to ask: “How should a global firm manage political risk in its trade strategy?”
Week 12 – Ch. 8 FDI (In-Person)
In-person
Warm-up on “Would you reshore this factory?” then an exercise where groups choose between Mexico, Vietnam, India, or Poland for a new plant and defend their choice, using risk and FDI trends.
Draw on UNCTAD and World Bank analysis of FDI moving toward “friendly” countries. Ask: “What does this mean for wages, jobs, and political influence?”
Week 14 – Ch. 12 Strategy + NAFRA (In-Person)
In-person
Students code NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s AI narrative and compare it with U.S. government narratives about TikTok and national security. They identify narrative types (Visionary, Threat/Response, Identity) and functions (Sensemaking, Motivation, Legitimacy).
Week 15 – Supply Chain, Marketing & Personal Narrative (Online)
Online
Students submit a personal strategic narrative applying NAFRA and reflect on how they want to operate in a global business environment shaped by AI, climate, and geopolitics.