The International Business Away Day.

Last week, colleagues in the International Business Curriculum at Coventry university had our Away Day.?

Learning in the International Business (IB) Curriculum at Coventry university, centred around offering best- in-class, andragogical and heutagogical learning experiences, has always focussed on the achievement of positive outcomes from being an International Business learner. ?And we do this well; we have exceptionally talented pracademics who live and breathe International Business while working with outstanding learners, from all over the world.

Our first agenda was celebrating our successes:

• Both undergraduate courses – the BA (Hons) International Business top-up, led by Jessica (Xiaojue) An (PhD, SFHEA) ?and BSc (Hons) International Business Management led by Kate Barnett-Richards did well in the latest NSS surveys with outstanding positivity measures.
• The Postgraduate MSc International Business Management course, led by Vittorio Senso celebrated their PTES success, recognised by students for a truly class- leading?postgraduate student experience as in the preceding years.
• ?We also wanted to celebrate going through a phase of curriculum refresh and transformation across the International Business courses.
• We also celebrated our research activities this year;
• We had two PhD completions, 3 CABS 3* articles, 2 books, 4 book chapters, 1 conference proceeding and over 15 outputs in a R&R mode.

Our second agenda for the away day was to celebrate ourselves -specifically, the Humanness of the international business team at Coventry University .?

Humanness, our collective personal identities, and the worldview we bring to the vocation, is increasingly becoming important as generative artificial intelligence creeps in, threatening the agency of teaching. The agency of humanness is a very important construct in building academic teams; reinforcing collegiality and a community of kindness that is foremost fixated on friendly relationships. It’s also what James Derounian argues for as “the spirit of kindness in all we do”.

We find this works well in our IB community. We accept that outside of our day job, we are also parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and perhaps, change agents for the greater good. The butterfly effect in international business is well known and the butterfly defect, was brought to our doorsteps with the recent global pandemic. One cannot ignore the ‘local’ context of our humanness, as we live interconnected, but globalised lives, which becomes evident in academic practices.

I daresay you’d find such a talented and diverse pool of International Business pracademics anywhere else.

Between ourselves we:

• consulted for businesses of all sizes from a ￡2bn conglomerate to a micro-SME, across almost all sectors.
• have managed Michelin starred restaurants and high profile international events, including F1 @silverstone
• export niche premium Greek wines globally.
• managed pharmaceutical drug discovery projects and the creation of several innovative drugs.
• have worked on inclusive finance and development projects in the global south for the world bank.
• managed a community radio station to support transnational Diaspora entrepreneurship activities.
• have developed several International business teaching tools
• sit on boards of social enterprises across 14 countries
• have led and managed global luxury automotive brands
• journeyed with over 2000 learners on their International Business Journey.

?Between us, we could change the world of international business for good!

Our third agenda was to review best practices and suggest new directions.

• Koushik Das Sarma talked on incorporating lessons from Global drug discovery processes, walking the thin line between success and failures in International business, using Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle as a basis to examine fuzziness and strategic fog, clouding new market/ new product expansion strategies.
• Kate Barnett-Richards showcased the best practices on how we both managed the curriculum transformation of the undergraduate suite, incorporating new thinking in global trade, rising powers, problem solving in a global context and nuanced strategic themes in doing business, innovative global practices and the reality of cultural connotations of a post pandemic world
• Jessica (Xiaojue) An (PhD, SFHEA) presented a course team view of capturing the needs of diverse learners, understanding the different aspects of the student voice and creating opportunities for the learning community to express ideas, opinions, and beliefs, as we work to co-create a positive learning journey.
• Building from the earlier discussion on generative AI, Vittorio Senso made the case of using AI in group discussions, to provide instant information verification (using the agency of the well trained IB academic, to point out the inaccuracies of AI tools ) as well as to augment the role of dynamism of instantaneous critical thinking in the International business journey.
• Mahda Garmaki brought home the need for a revised understanding of acculturation in the ?International business curriculum, from her lived in experience across three geographies. Mahda highlighted a growing imperative to manage challenges from increasingly diverse societal needs and the onus for global business, to provide solutions and products, that nurture local culture in a global world- which is also moving into elements of restrictive protectionism.
• Christos Zoumpos augmented Mahda’s observation, ?with the role local culture plays, in creating IB narratives that work. He showcased the Greek wine industry in Nemea, particularly niche vines were used to create successful market entry strategies into the highly competitive and fragmented US market by Christos’s family business of wine exporting.
• Harinder Sagoo presented best practices within the rarefied Michelin starred International Business world of Haute cuisine; we heard about how fickle customers and a lack of performance management at individual Michelin chef level and at the organization level, ?are constant bedfellows to the downhill journey to business failures. It was an eye opener to read about Harinder’s IB journey in setting up and co-owning the STYX restaurant in Nelson’s bay, New Zealand.
• Osa-Godwin Osaghae (PhD, SFHEA) wanted us to rethink strategies on nurturing and capturing the International Business learner’s research journey. His proposal on facilitating a co-created, co-edited body of real world pragmatic research outputs, found traction with our need, to provide a bridge between employability and the theoretical framework of the International Business discipline. ?We want to be known for the ability to create new and useful knowledge towards our KEF journey.

You will all agree with me, that nurturing the soul and the mind, is an exhausting process!? Lunch at the away day came courtesy of the sovranos at Coventry. Ash Bahgozen has always appreciative of his learning journey at Coventry University . We had the most amazing authentic Italian food, outside of Italy. I am not making this up, we had two authentic gourmands Elmar Puntaier and Vittorio Senso confirm this!

A massive shoutout to Ash Bahgozen for supporting the International Business Curriculum at Coventry University and to our curriculum support officer Dr Bentil Oduro for organising it. ?We are also grateful to Bhajan Aulak from the Coventry University Group for suggesting the Sovranos.

At the end of it all we all had a blast, before we welcome our new cohort of International Business learners, tomorrow, 11th of September 2023. Watch this space for the next away day!

Thank you Gilbert Zana Naab, Ph.D., FHEA , Dr. Efrider Fifi Maramwidze Amir Daneshvar Dr. Nigel Walton Elmar Puntaier Dr Mazen joureih , Dr Bentil Oduro and Zeinab Kone for the massive support to our successes, this year.

For any learner who may have missed enrolling on our courses, we will be pleased to hear from you, for the January 2024 journey to success in International Business. If you need more information, please drop into the William Morris building and ask for any of us.

Or you can visit the course pages for BSc IBM, BA IB and the MSc IBM.

Stay positive!

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