Subject Overview

An advanced, research-oriented examination of global marketing strategy and consumer insights across cultures, institutions and technology ecosystems. The subject integrates foundational theories, international market decisions, consumer research, analytics, digital transformation, AI, managerial application, ethics and emerging scholarly debates.

Learning Goal

Critically evaluate and extend global marketing and consumer-behaviour knowledge; design rigorous cross-national research; generate actionable insights from qualitative and quantitative evidence; and formulate ethical, data-informed global marketing strategies under uncertainty.

Syllabus

1. Foundations and Paradigms of Global Marketing

Learning Objective: Examine terminology, globalization drivers, standardization–adaptation tensions, comparative advantage, market orientation and major economic, behavioural and institutional paradigms underpinning global marketing scholarship.

Category: foundation

2. Global Business Environments and Institutional Analysis

Learning Objective: Evaluate economic, political, legal, cultural, technological and ecological environments using PESTLE, institutional theory, CAGE distance and geopolitical-risk frameworks.

Category: foundation

3. Culture and Cross-Cultural Consumer Behaviour

Learning Objective: Critically assess cultural frameworks, identity, values, perception, motivation, learning, attitudes, social influence, decision journeys and the limits of national-culture generalizations.

Category: core

4. Global Consumer Insight Research Design

Learning Objective: Design rigorous qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method cross-national studies, addressing construct equivalence, translation, sampling, measurement invariance, validity, reliability and research ethics.

Category: core

5. Consumer Analytics and Causal Insight

Learning Objective: Apply multivariate analysis, structural equation modelling, experiments, causal inference, choice models, text analytics, social listening, forecasting and customer-lifetime-value methods to global decisions.

Category: advanced

6. Market Intelligence, Selection and Global STP

Learning Objective: Integrate secondary intelligence and primary evidence to assess market attractiveness, segment international consumers, select target markets, develop personas and construct defensible positioning strategies.

Category: strategic

7. Market Entry, Expansion and Global Organization

Learning Objective: Compare exporting, licensing, franchising, alliances, acquisitions, greenfield investment and platform-based entry; evaluate timing, control, risk, localization and organizational coordination.

Category: strategic

8. Global Branding, Products and Innovation

Learning Objective: Formulate global brand architecture, equity and portfolio strategies while managing country-of-origin effects, localization, services, new-product development, diffusion and reverse innovation.

Category: application

9. International Pricing and Value Management

Learning Objective: Evaluate willingness to pay, value-based pricing, elasticity, transfer pricing, exchange-rate exposure, tariffs, grey markets, price discrimination and dynamic pricing across jurisdictions.

Category: application

10. Global Channels, Retail and Commerce Ecosystems

Learning Objective: Design omnichannel distribution through intermediaries, retail, marketplaces, direct-to-consumer models and cross-border e-commerce while addressing logistics, channel power and resilience.

Category: application

11. Integrated Global Marketing Communications

Learning Objective: Develop culturally responsive communication strategies across advertising, public relations, sponsorship, influencers, search, social and mobile media; assess creative adaptation, attribution and brand safety.

Category: application

12. Digital Consumer Journeys and Customer Experience

Learning Objective: Map and optimize acquisition, conversion, service, loyalty and advocacy across physical and digital touchpoints using journey analytics, personalization, communities and relationship-marketing principles.

Category: contemporary

13. AI, MarTech and Automated Consumer Insight

Learning Objective: Critically evaluate generative AI, machine learning, recommendation systems, predictive segmentation, synthetic data, conversational commerce and marketing automation, including bias, explainability and human oversight.

Category: contemporary

14. Strategy Implementation and Marketing Performance

Learning Objective: Translate global strategy into capabilities, budgets, governance structures and control systems; use dashboards, experimentation, attribution, brand metrics, CLV, ROI and scenario planning for executive decisions.

Category: strategic

15. Ethics, Governance and Research Frontiers

Learning Objective: Assess privacy, consent, surveillance, manipulation, inclusion, sustainability, consumer vulnerability and regulatory compliance; develop responsible governance and identify future research on deglobalization, climate pressures and emerging technologies.

Category: advanced