Managing Business Relationships (5 cr)

Evaluation scale

H-5

Content scheduling

The Content and Home-Assignments are described in OPTIMA-system.
ONLY ONE CONTACT TEACHING DAY IS ON Tuesday 7.4.2020 between 9-16 o´clock in the class room: A309 (Lemminkäisenkatu 30, Turku).

Business enterprises and other kind of organizations operate in many kind of networks, alliances and partnerships. It is claimed that high percentage of these networks, alliances and partnerships do not work as expected or are in troubles or failures (60-70 % by Hughes.J. and Weiss.J). This rate may be even higher in international co-operation alliances and networks, where cultural differences are apparent and cause extra "pain". BUT the tendency to have and start these kinds of networks, partnerships, alliances and outsourcing activities have not dropped down although of many difficulties in relation to them.

We need to know what kind of capabilities we need in order to operate in these networks/alliance/partnerships at organizational strategic and operational level and as individual managers/leaders and experts.

This course consist of three kind of co-operational capabilities:

1. Own organization and it´s network/alliance/partner relationships level management
2. Individual level co-operation and negotiation capabilities at general
3. Individual level co-operative capabilities in international relationships and settings

After completing this course successfully, student has increased his/her knowlegde and capabilities to

1. Design, manage/lead, evaluate and develop networks/alliances/partnerships
2. Participate in negotiations in these networks/alliances/partnerships
3. Manage/lead, co-operate and negotiate in an international environments and settings

Objective

This course introduces some of the communication strategies, styles and technologies essential for making networked systems reach their expected performance levels.
After completing this course the student
- is able to organize and manage business relationships within a value chain
- is able to negotiate and manage contracts in international context
- has the collaboration and negotiating skills for demanding business settings and relationships

Content

Core contents:
- alliances and networks, business relationships and their management
- third party companies as a  important part of today's supply chain
- factors affecting the decisions to outsource logistics functions
- contract management regarding international relationships

Materials

The studying materials are in Optima.

Teaching methods

Multi-Form

Exam schedules

Home Assigments, no tests.

Completion alternatives

Home-Assignments in OPTIMA-system.

Student workload

Home-Assignments are described in OPTIMA-system

Evaluation methods and criteria

The grading scale is 1-5 . The grading is done by teachers and is based on the correctedness and content of each home assignment.

The final grade is the mean of the grades of all home assignments.

Further information

Dr. Keijo Varis, Principal lecturer
MBA in Business Management
keijo.varis@turkuamk.fi