Engaging with International Business – Strategic Luxury Leadership

This residential module will take place in Venice and will help anyone looking to create a career in the area of luxury and to ultimately lead organisations.

Who is this module open to?

Credit bearing:

Open to students from partner institutions.

Open to all non-WBS intermediate level (second year) students at Warwick:

IB2D1-15 - Intermediate, for 15 CATS credit in current year (2024/25)

Open to all current first year WBS students:

IB2D2-15 - Intermediate, taken in first year for 15 CATS credit to intermediate year (2025/26)

Key dates

This module will take place 30 June - 11 July 2025.

Preparatory materials will be available on my.wbs from 2 June 2025
Teaching (in Venice): 30 June - 11 July 2025
Final assessment deadline:
- IB2D1-15 (current year credit): 11 July 2025
- IB2D2-15 (carry credit): w/c 6October 2025

Costs

Students would be required to fund their travel to, and living expenses (accommodation and subsistence) in Venice for this module.

Warwick students may be eligible to apply for Turing funding if taking two WIISP modules back-to-back in Venice and residing for at least 28 days.

Location

This is a residential module and will be taught in Venice, Italy.

What's special about our modules?

This programme will challenge your thinking, develop your confidence and open up a world of new opportunities. You’ll consider new ideas, apply theory to real world issues working in teams and individually, and develop new networks, connections and friendships. This will provide you strong analytical and research methods skills which also enhance your employability profile for a globalised world of work, derived from a transformative blend of online learning and intercultural engagement.

Access to Intercultural Training will provide further enhancement of your skills.

The intensive nature of our programme lets you focus purely on your chosen modules.

You should expect around two weeks of daily face-to-face sessions (on location) and possibly one week of preparatory online activities. The aim is to work in groups consisting of incoming students (from partner institutions) and Warwick students during the module. Assessments will consist of a mix of group and individual activities.

There are no additional programme fees for Warwick students to take our modules.

Where will you be taught?

Our intensive modules are taught in various ways: mostly face-to-face (combing some online learning and face-to-face teaching). Modules will be based at Warwick central campus, or our overseas residentials will be based at selected European locations relevant to module content. Our modules are designed to be taught in an intensive way, combining physical teaching, and online activities.

All participants will be expected to attend all lectures and group work activities in real time; this might include some online activities in the prep week (where listed in Key dates). As modules are intensive there is not expected to be free time during the teaching period for you to undertake other activities; there will be limited time available during the teaching period to explore the surrounding area.

Students are responsible for checking their own visa requirements and all associated applications and costs.

For overseas modules students are responsible for identifying and booking their own accommodation.

Prof Ashley Roberts (Module Leader)

Ashley is the Assistant Dean (Internationalisation) at WBS and has presented his research at many conferences, most recently at The Academy of Management, The British Academy of Management and also as a visiting scholar at Harvard University. Ashley’s research interests centre around High Performance Work Systems for Strategic Luxury Leadership, Organisational Culture and Growth, Creative Learning and Participatory Pedagogies.

Ashley is an Executive Team member of The British Academy of Management where he both formulates and implements strategy and policy. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, an academic member of The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, and also a member of The International Centre for Research in Organizational Discourse, Strategy and Change.

Ashley is a National Teaching Fellow, a winner of The Warwick Award for Teaching Excellence, a Fellow of the Warwick International Higher Education Academy and is the Director of The Warwick (Full-Time) MBA.

Ashley gained a PhD from Cardiff University where he also previously taught on a variety of courses at Cardiff Business School. Ashley teaches on Undergraduate, The Warwick MBA and Master's level courses. Ashley is the internal examiner on the Organisational Behaviour Executive variant of the Warwick MBA, an editorial board member of The British Journal of Management and publishes in and reviews for top ranked academic journals. He also acts as External Examiner for the MBAs of other Russell Group Universities.

As well as teaching at Warwick and in London, Ashley has taught Organisational Behaviour MBA Modules in Belgium, Chile, China, Dubai, Hong Kong, Italy and Singapore. He also holds Visiting Professorships at leading global institutions. For the academic year 2019/20, Ashley received the WBS Award for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching. In addition, each year Ashley wins an award for his outstanding contribution to Undergraduate teaching and he also receives the Warwick Business School Outstanding MBA Teacher Award annually.

Professor Tina Kiefer

Tina is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Warwick Business School. She joined Warwick Business School in January 2010 as Associate Professor. She is an Organizational Psychologist by background and received her MSc in Psychology and PhD in Organizational Psychology from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. Before joining WBS, she worked at Birkbeck College, University of London, at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver (Canada) and at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland).

Her main research areas focus on individual emotional experiences at work, in particular during radical and ongoing organisational change, using a variety of research methods (including diary studies, surveys, interviews) and settings, including the public and private sectors. She has currently researched a number of public service organisations, as they grapple with substantial governmental budget cuts. She also researches leadership in various contexts, in particular cultural implicit leadership theories and dysfunctional leadership in ongoing change. Tina has been rewarded several scholarships and grants and has published her work in the highest-ranked journals.

Tina is also a dedicated teacher, aiming to improve the quality of teaching for students and lecturers. In the past year, Tina has collected and combined data on WBS students (marks, demographics), lecturers (e.g. gender, tenure) and modules (e.g. student feedback, structure) in order to better understand the predictors of student satisfaction and student achievement.

Tina currently acts as the Assistant Dean for Widening Participation at WBS.

Module aims

The objective of this module is to explore the best-practices of growth strategy implementation adapted by successful companies operating in luxury industries. The programme will provide participants with practical managerial tools and frameworks on the formulation and implementation of unique strategic positioning in any industry. Via pre and post virtual learning, interactive face-to-face seminars, lectures, case-studies and company visits, participants will uncover a variety of best practices that can be used by companies to differentiate themselves from competitors, create value for their customers, communicate efficiently their product or service offering, and ensure the consistent delivery of quality and strategy implementation.

Luxury brands have seen a substantial increase in market share over the years and their appeal shows no sign of diminishing. These challenging markets bring specific demands and continually challenge our knowledge of strategic growth plus the need to remain ‘current’ with both macro and micro-trends. Recent innovations in digital technologies and the desire for sustainable luxury bring social, macroeconomic and political considerations for luxury goods where brand equity is to be maximised.

The module will be delivered at the University of Warwick's Venice base, Palazzo Giustinian Lolin. Venice is a culturally significant city that brings together globally-recognised brands and has access to nearby the luxury fashion world in Italy. Located close to key economic hubs in Italy with high standards of living, Venice's success can be attributed to its strong economic and logistical base that enable tourism. Venice is a venue for many designer collections, fashion brands and luxury shopping districts plus has access to key luxury Head Quarters that would be used for corporate visits.

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Business Models and Brand Management in luxury Companies: Six Key Dilemmas
Key Trends: International Expansion and Growth Strategies of Luxury Firms
Country of Origin
The Economics of Luxury: Digital Transformation and Data Analytics
Customer Engagement: The use of Digital Marketing
Sustainability, Ethics and Luxury Companies

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

Understand and critically evaluate business models in luxury industries, the growth strategies of luxury firms plus their differentiation strategies in the international context
Critically evaluate macro-trends that link luxury to sustainability and to investigate sustainability as an opportunity to build trust, innovation, legitimacy and brand equity
To understand and critically consider the role of digital settings in enhancing the marketing strategy and the KPIs of customer engagement in luxury with lessons learned for other industries
Critically reflect on their own and the experiences of others as participants in Strategic Luxury Leadership, interdisciplinary learning processes
Critically reflect on and contrast different disciplinary models of pedagogy, learning, and theory
Identify trans and inter disciplinary issues, formulate questions and engage in Strategic Luxury Leadership problem-solving, including own independent research
Synthesise and analyse ideas imaginatively from a range of different disciplinary perspectives
Understand and critically evaluate the international expansion of luxury companies and global fashion brand management within social macroeconomic, political and technological contexts

Indicative reading list

Beverland, M. B., and Farrelly, F. J. (2010). "The Quest for Authenticity in Consumption: Consumers’ Purposive Choice of Authentic Cues to Shape Experienced Outcomes". Journal of Consumer Research, 36, 838-856
Hagtvedt, H., and Patrick, V. M. (2009). “The broad embrace of luxury: Hedonic potential as a driver of brand extendibility”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 608–618
Hildebrand, D. H., Harding, R. D. and Hadi R. (2018). "Culturally Contingent Cravings: How Holistic Thinking Influences Consumer Responses to Food Appeals", Journal of Consumer Psychology, 39-59
Jee Han, Y., Nunes, J. C., and Dre Ze, X. (2010). “Conspicuous consumption: Signaling Status with Luxury Goods: The Role of Brand Prominence”, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 74 (July, 2010), 15–30
Kapferer, J.-N., and Michaut-Denizeau, A., (2017). “Is Luxury Compatible with Sustainability? Luxury Consumers’ Viewpoint”, in J.-N. Kapferer et al. (Eds.), Advances in Luxury Brand Management, Palgrave
Kumar, A., Killingsworth and Gilovich, T. (2014). "Waiting for Merlot: Anticipatory Consumption of Experiential and Material Purchases", Psychological Science, 25 (10), 1924-1931
Lojacono, G., and Pan, L., (forthcoming, 2021). "Resilience of Luxury Companies: How agile business models survive crises". Berlin, De Gruyter
Masuda, T. and Nisbett, R. E. (2001). "Attending holistically versus analytically: Comparing the context sensitivity of Japanese and Americans", Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81(5), 922-934
Venkatesh, A., Joy, J., Sherry Jr, J. F., and Deschenes, J. (2010). “The aesthetics of luxury fashion, body and identity formation”, Journal of Consumer Psychology, 20, 459-470
Van Boven, L., & Gilovich, T. (2003) “To do or to have? That is the question”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1193–1202
Wang, Q., and Narain, N., (2017). “Consumer Behavior in Special and Subpopulations”, Chapter 8, Consumer Perception of Product Risks and Benefits, Emilien, Gerard, Weitkunat, Rolf, LuÌdicke, Frank (Eds.), Springer.

Interdisciplinary

The module is designed to provide the students with an understanding of relationships between the different disciplinary areas within luxury management, particularly strategy, marketing and I.T. It also invites the students to make connections with other disciplinary areas covered in their main study programme. It provides a critical understanding of dominant traditions and methodologies associated with the luxury management covered in the module and enables the students to transcend disciplinary boundaries. The interdisciplinary course cohort provides contact opportunities and learning to see from different perspectives and is a core aspect of the learning experience.

International

The module is located in an international setting plus draws on cases and visits from different contexts, including different geopolitical areas, professional environments and linguistic contexts. The content and assessment invite the students to reflect on the societal relevance in different environments of the phenomena covered in the module. The assessment involves students working in groups with academic and ideally non-academic stakeholders which will) allow for a global and local outlook to be built into the module’s work.

Subject specific skills

Evaluate and deploy research tools and resources, including cases, and reference material correctly
Weigh and compare evidence from historical and contemporary sources in order to make informed but independent evaluations and original judgements
Appreciate the value of understanding and experiencing different disciplinary approaches and perspectives on Strategic Luxury Leadership, especially in relation to their subject specialism

Transferable skills

Analyse and reflect on personal Strategic Luxury Leadership approaches and those of others
Participate in team activities with confidence: support the generation of original ideas and questions, help lead teamwork and performance
Articulate proposals and advice orally and through well-argued writing, supported by widely read research and practice
Solve problems pragmatically and with originality

Study time

This is an indicative breakdown

Type	Required
*Lectures*	6 sessions of 3 hours (12%)
Fieldwork	1 session of 3 hours (2%)
External visits	1 session of 4 hours (2.5%)
Online learning (scheduled sessions)	2 sessions of 2 hours (2.5%)
Private study	48 hours (32%) Private study
Assessment	73 hours (49%)
Total	150 hours

Assessment

You do not need to pass all assessment components to pass the module:

Credit in current year

	Weighting	Study time
Online Examination (90 mins)	70%	51 hours
	This is the main assessment for the module. The exam will include multiple choice and open-ended questions.
Group Presentation (15 mins)	30%	22 hours
	The presentation will enable connections to be made between the themes of the module.

Carry credit

	Weighting	Study time
Individual Assignment (2,500 words)	70%	51 hours
	This is the main assessment for the module. Students will choose an essay question from 5 set questions which cover the main themes of the module.
Group Presentation (15 mins)	30%	22 hours
	The presentation will enable connections to be made between the themes of the module.

Feedback on assessment

Feedback will be provided via my.wbs

Before you apply

You can take a maximum of two WIISP modules, and cannot take them at the same time. This module runs at the same time as the following modules, so you cannot choose these as a second module:

Please note

Warwick students will need to check with their department before applying to take a WIISP module
Students from partner institutions will need to apply via their home institution
You are expected to fully engage and participate in the module, including in any group activities, if not your registration will be cancelled
Module details provided on these pages are supplementary to module details in the module catalogueLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window. Subsequently individual module pages (moodle/my.wbs) will provide live details
All modules require minimum numbers to run. This is set by each module leader.

How to apply

If you want to make an enquiry before applying, please contact the WIISP team at WIISP at warwick dot ac dot uk

Apply - Warwick students