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International Business
Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball
Instructor Guide to Module 4
11 Instructor’s Manual – Module 4 | Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.
CONNECT TOOLS FOR CLASS PREPARATION
SmartBook
What is SmartBook?
SmartBook is a digital version of your course textbook. It contains the same content within the
textbook, but unlike a typical eBook, SmartBook actively tailors that content to your individual
needs as a student. SmartBook can be accessed online through your laptop, tablet or
smartphone and is also accessible when you’re offline!
How Does SmartBook Help You/Students?
• Assignable – assigning students their reading and studying their textbook content
ensures they are coming to class prepared.
• Proven to help students get a better grade. Studies show SmartBook technology can help
increase grades by a full letter.
offline–via your browser or mobile app.
• Results in real time. Track student progress–and prevents them from wait for midterms
or finals. Know how well you understand the material now.
How to assign SmartBook to ensure students come to class prepared?
• On the Connect course homepage click “add assignment” > LearnSmart > Select the
• Assign points to the assignment. Instructors have found that if they give the
LearnSmart/SmartBook assignment a minimum of 10% of the course grade that students
are more likely to complete the assignment.
• The entire LearnSmart/SmartBook module is available to your student at all times,
however, assigning it will prompt students to try it. You are required to select a due date
for this assignment, however, this will not prevent the student from access to the tool; it
is designed to show you that the student has taken the LearnSmart/SmartBook
International Business
Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball
Instructor Guide to Module 4
12 Instructor’s Manual – Module 4 | Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.
This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any manner. This
assignment. LearnSmart/ SmartBook is an adaptive study tool designed for students. It
can also show you where students are struggling to understand specific concepts.
• The student’s LearnSmart/SmartBook score in the Connect reports is based on their
mastery of the material at the time the assignment is due. Mastery is an evaluation of
the number of learning objectives they completed via performance on answering
questions.
• Students may, and are encouraged, to continue to use LearnSmart/SmartBook
throughout the semester. After the assignment due date, they can continue to access
this tool. Continued use of LearnSmart will not affect their LearnSmart/SmartBook
assignment results in the Connect reports, but has shown to improve test scores by as
much as a full letter grade.
BACK TO MAIN
PAGE
International Business
Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball
Instructor Guide to Module 4
13 Instructor’s Manual – Module 4 | Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.
ENGAGEMENT & APPLICATION (FACE TO FACE & ONLINE & HYBRID)
BOXED TEXT DISCUSSION QUESTIONS WITH SUGGESTED ANSWERS
IB IN PRACTICE: EUROPE LEADS THE WAY: Why the EU Gets It on Environmental Issues
This box directly addresses the gaps on progress on environmental issues between the EU and
U.S. It offers explanations ranging from culture to demographics, including the precautionary
principle and varying assumptions about the purpose of business.
Online and Hybrid: Assign questions to be prepared in virtual teams and submitted as a
team assignment
Face-to-Face: Students develop responses to the questions in class in teams/groups
1. Do you think Europe’s approach to toxic substances could work in the United States?
Why or why not?
2. Drawing on what you know about culture, do you think it helps to explain the EU’s
approach to environmental issues?
This question gives the student an opportunity to apply some of the culture frameworks to an
GLOBAL DEBATE: How Immediate in the Fossil Fuel Crisis?
This debate centers around the unknown time we have left to rely on fossil fuels and how to
approach preparation for the transition. Although we do not know if we have reached the
midpoint of their extraction, we know that they are nonrenewables and that our present
economic model depends on them. The debate centers around how to approach this issue.
Meanwhile, reliance on fossil fuels at the global level is increasing.
Online and Hybrid: Virtual teams work out an approach to this problem. Present to
class, either online or in face-to-face setting.
Face-to-Face: Students develop responses to the questions in class in teams/groups.
International Business
Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball
Instructor Guide to Module 4
14 Instructor’s Manual – Module 4 | Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball © 2016 by McGraw-Hill Education.
1. How immediate do you think the fossil fuel crisis may be? How much time do you
2. Should our approach to energy be to use up all our fossil fuels, despite their pollution,
and then address transition to the renewables, or should we move to the renewables as soon
as we can?
3. If you’ve begun the transition, explain what you’re doing. If you haven’t, why not?
This question asks students to apply the argument to their personal consumption lives.
GET THAT JOB! FROM BACKPACK TO BRIEFCASE
Jeremy Capdevielle: Sustainability Work in Ecuador
Jeremy Capdevielle took the plunge into international work by setting out on a half-year journey
of exploration once he finished his undergraduate degree in entrepreneurship. He worked to
save money for his trip and once he decided where to go—Panama, to begin—he went there
and found jobs teaching English, while he worked on his Spanish. When he moved on to
Ecuador, he began volunteer work with Great Aves.
Online and Hybrid: Virtual teams evaluate Capedevielle’s advice for their own career
development. Share conclusions with class, either online or in face-to-face setting.
Face-to-Face: Students evaluate their own career strategy in light of Capdevielle’s advice.
1. Would Jeremy Capdevielle’s approach be one that you might follow? Explain.
2. Evaluate Jeremy’s advice to “challenge assumptions, observe the things that give you
joy, and continually ask yourself—What do I love to do and how can I align this with a life that
provides for what I need?”
International Business
Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball
Instructor Guide to Module 4
This approach may be seen as “typically American” by non-American students. It may well
resonate with many American students.
END OF MODULE EXERCISES
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
1. Comment on the assertion that the business of business is to generate profit and that
to pay attention to sustainability is to be taken off strategy by a passing fad.
2. Show through examples how the practice of sustainable business is both local and
global.
Small scale local sustainable agriculture is affected by the larger systems of which it is a part, for
3. Drawing on your own consumption patterns, describe the difference between cradle-
to-grave and cradle-to-cradle design approaches.
4. Why is it challenging to measure how successfully a business is practicing
sustainability?
To be most meaningful, the measures have to be able to serve as a basis for comparisons. That
is, the platforms have to meet comparability test. Note that 3BL does not meet this criterion.
International Business
Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball
Instructor Guide to Module 4
5. Explain how the stakeholder model applies to a specific sustainable business in your
community or one you have learned about in the business press or a class discussion.
6. Of the 38 nations the UN identifies as the least developed in the world, 16 are
landlocked. How might being landlocked slow a country’s development? Remember that
Switzerland is landlocked yet it won the America’s Cup sailing competition in 2005, as you
think through this question.
7. Should we be investing in new technologies to access oil and other fossil fuels, or
should all our efforts go toward facing the inevitable decline of the fossil fuels? Explain your
8. The safe guard and care of natural capital should be the responsibility of the
government and not be left to private ownership. Agree or disagree with this assertion,
9. “Of course we’ll have to transfer to renewable fuels sooner or later, but why should
my company travel that route now? We don’t need to be a first adopter or pay the first-
mover price. There’s plenty of oil left for us to stay the way we are for quite a while.” Agree
or disagree with this strategy, explaining your reasoning.
International Business
Geringer, McNett, Minor, Ball
Instructor Guide to Module 4
10. How does the stakeholder model help support the practice of sustainable business?
Stakeholder theory forces a business to address underlying values and principles. It “pushes
managers to be clear about how they want to do business, what kind of relationships they want
MINICASE: The BlueGreen Alliance: A New Way of Sustainability Thinking
BlueGreen Alliance is a growing collaboration of U.S. unions and environmental organizations
that have collaborated to work on environmental and employment problems that are directly
linked. They aim to build a cleaner and fairer economy.
1. Is the BlueGreen Alliance a partnership of convenience, or does it have the potential
to build a new way of approaching sustainability, with limits, interdependence, and equity?
2. Unions may prefer protectionist measures to preserve jobs. Do you think this policy
can fit a sustainable approach? Why or why not?
A protectionist approach, favoring domestic producers over foreign producers does not initially
seem to involve equity or interdependence. So one approach to this opinion question would be
