Busi­ness and European Gov­ernance

Course content

The course provides an in-depth knowledge on the European Union context for European business development. The European Union regulates and decides on a wide range of areas directly related to the daily issues for business. These EU regulations and decisions have to do with specific developments in the Single European Market and its adjacent areas, here including business in the external and global markets of European most relevant trade partners. These European Union regulations define the limits of business operations at the local level, as well as new business opportunities in a larger and harmonized market with high level of interdepencence with global markets. With a strong focus on business case studies, this advanced course gives the students analytical competences and factual knowledge about the European context for business, as well as concrete examples of business challenges, opportunities, ambiguity, or paradoxes, directly related to the EU business context.

This course builds up from the previous course in the 1rst semester “European Business Framework” (EBF), in two essential ways. Firstly, whereas the EBF course gave a very general introduction about the history, institutions and few policies of the European Union; the current course assumes the students have this basic knowledge, and takes an advanced approach and deeper analytical look into 5 core areas that are relevant for business: free movement of goods and capital; labour market mobility and principles associated to freedom of movement of workers; competition policy; external trade; and single currency. After refreshing briefly the basics, the students will be presented with more advanced knowledge and detailed aspects of the EU which are relevant for business. This advanced knowledge is not only about how to improve the competitiveness and leading business position in the market for purposes of prosperity and business development, but it is also about the ethical aspects related to doing business in Europe. Secondly, and very importantly too, this is an advanced course that allows the students to be actively engaged in their own learning process. The course uses case based teaching methods. The case studies are a suitable approach to make the students learn through a critical assessment and analysis, acknowledging the complexity of real-life business competitiveness situations and the business dilemmas when operating in the European market. Likewise, the group based collaborative form of exercise case studies in class, develops the students' abilities in a constructive collaborative form of analys and knowledge development.