Course Title: Regional Management Issues

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Regional Management Issues

Credit Points: 12.00

Terms

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
BUSM2119	Malaysia Institute of Managemt	Undergraduate	630H Management	Face-to-Face	Offsh 2 07, Offsh 2 09

Course Coordinator: Nigel Munro-Smith

Course Coordinator Phone: +61 3 9925 5942

Course Coordinator Email: nigel.munro-smith@rmit.edu.au

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

None

Course Description

This course investigates some of the broader current and likely future challenges facing managers in the Southeast Asian region.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

This course will help you develop your ability to:
• Contribute to decisions within diverse political, economic, environmental and social contexts
• Communicate ideas, intentions and outcomes clearly to a variety of audiences
• Contribute to the management of business in contemporary organisations
• Analyse information and data
• Synthesise information
• Propose courses of action according to the analysis and synthesis

At the end of this course students are expected to be able to:
* identify the key issues facing managers in the region
* research the literature and data sources relevant to selected key issues
* demonstrate a critical awareness of the range of perspectives on a particular issue
* recognise implications of cultural, political, economic and geographic factors for commercial operations, business decision-making and organisational behaviour
* identify the ethical and social responsibility questions raised by an issue; and
* recognise some of the organisational demands placed on managers by these issues.

Overview of Learning Activities

The course will be conducted over a period of ten weeks. During this time students will learn through lectures, small group discussions and experiential learning activities provided by their class lecturer. An emphasis will be placed on group participation, both within and outside the seminars. Students are therefore expected to take responsibility for their own learning and managing their own time. In working on the group asessment the onus is on the team to co-operate, collaborate and negotiate any issues as part of the team experience.

Overview of Learning Resources

There is no prescribed textbook for this course given the wide variety of topics included. However, a selection of relevant articles is provided for each topic as a guide to other resources. These should only be regarded as ‘starting materials’ and act as examples of suitable resources. Students are required to read widely. As the course focuses on “current” issues in the region, students are encouraged to develop active information gathering and analysis skills. There is a wide range of sources with which students should make themselves familiar.

The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) publishes widely on regional political, economic and social issues. Its authoritative annual publication Southeast Asian Affairs will be a valuable reference for many topics. It conducts an extensive research and publication program and issues over forty publications each year – many of them relevant to the concerns of this course.

The Kuala Lumpur based Institute of Strategies and International Studies (ISIS) publishes a range of short studies on regional and international issues. The focus is often political and strategic rather than economic and business related.

The news media, both electronic and print, offer significant reporting, opinion and, sometimes analysis of regional issues. Students are encouraged to keep a press clippings file of relevant articles from such resources as The New Straits Times, The Straits Times, the financial dailies and any other regional newspapers they have access to.

The weekly and monthly business press is a rich source of reporting on relevant regional issues – sometimes in considerable depth. There is now a wide range of journals in this category. Good starting points would be Asiaweek, Asia Inc and The Economist and The Far Eastern Economic Review.

Governments and international agencies produce large quantities of information in the form of policy statements, reports and a wide range of statistical and economic data. All governments in the region publish such material – it differs greatly in quantity and quality. In addition, international bodies such as ASEAN, Asian Development Bank, World Bank, issue a lot of useful comparative data. Business and industry groups provide some information in the form of company reports and trade journals.

The Internet is also providing a rich source of data however students should try to verify the information accessed from the net.

Overview of Assessment

The assessment in this course requires students to complete three tasks. There is a group assignment, an individual assignment and an examination.

The assessment has two purposes. First, it is an integral part of the learning process. In particular the research and analysis required to complete the assignments plays a vital role in helping the students understand the issues. Secondly the assessment aims to find out how well the student understands both the issues and the managerial implications of those issues.