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Billur Akdeniz, professor of marketing, recently co-authored “International Marketing in a Changing World: A Managerial Guidebook,” which was inspired by an MBA student who pointed out the need for such a book.

When Billur Akdeniz finished teaching her international marketing course for the UNH online MBA in spring 2020, one student sent her a thank-you email with a question.  

“Is there any resource out there that actually compiles everything you were trying to give to us in eight weeks?” the student asked.  

“That stuck with me,” says Akdeniz, a professor of marketing at the UNH Peter T. Paul College of Business and Economics. “The next term, I compiled in one place all the datasets, websites, and learning tools professionals need. I started developing this ‘depot of knowledge,’ a shared place where we could cumulatively build the resource. At the same time, I began talking with friends and colleagues.”  

Through those conversations, Akdeniz came to see what her student had intuited: there wasn’t a single, accessible resource that blended academic depth with practical tools. 

This eventually laid the foundation for Akdeniz’s new book, Akdeniz co-authored the book with her longtime mentor S. Tamer Cavusgil, Regents’ professor and executive director of the Center for International Business Education and Research, and Sebastian van der Vegt, founding partner at WMBV Consulting and former Coca-Cola executive.   

Akdeniz says the title reflects the intent: a resource for practitioners, professional master’s students, and instructors looking to navigate a rapidly shifting global landscape. 

“We’re living in a very dynamic era,” Akdeniz says. “Trade policies and regulations are shifting, and companies are rethinking where and how they operate globally, guided by the insightful notion that businesses should neither be mindlessly global nor hopelessly local but strategically build on each other to navigate the delicate bal­ance between global strategies and local insights.” 

The book covers topics such as megatrends, evaluating market opportunities and entry, managing across cultures, international brands and reputation, and digital marketing. Each chapter blends real-world vignettes, contemporary business cases, and international marketing theory, concluding with “Bites for Thought,” reflection questions designed for professionals to apply to the workplace. 

One chapter on managing across cultures opens with a case study on K-pop and the Korean Wave, showing how Korean pop music and global stars like BTS have become powerful cultural exports that boost South Korea’s economy and international influence. From there, the authors introduce frameworks that explain cultural differences and why they matter in practice, followed by cases ranging from a Coca-Cola translation mistake in China to Starbucks’s contrasting experiences in Australia and Turkey. 

“What we were really trying to do with the book was bring the research world and the teaching world together. Some books are beautifully written but very dense, which makes it hard for someone who just wants to find a clear takeaway,” Akdeniz says. “Others are easier to read but light on the frameworks that support real decisions. We wanted to strike a more balanced approach.”  

Many of the business cases featured in the book were “crowdsourced,” with the authors surveying colleagues around the world for examples to elevate each chapter.  

Akdeniz says she was deliberate about the book’s structure, opening with megatrends — the demographic, technological, geopolitical, and cultural currents that shape markets — before moving on to more traditional topics. ​

One of the themes addressed in the megatrends chapter is urbanization, along with the challenges and opportunities that come with half the world’s population living in cities. The book then features a case where Japanese engineers redesigned the bullet train by mimicking the beak of a kingfisher bird, reducing noise and easing demographic and environmental pressures in multiple cities worldwide.  

“The only constant in our world is change, so we felt it was important, even unconventional, to open the book with megatrends. If you’re doing global business, you always have to deal with change in one way or another,” Akdeniz says. “At the same time, we wanted to close the book by reminding readers that while trends come and go, companies also need to stay rooted in the fundamentals. Balancing the new with the evergreen is what keeps you relevant.” 

From start to finish, UNH played a central role in the book’s development, from the student email that sparked the idea to the Faculty Scholars Program, which gave Akdeniz a semester away from teaching to focus on the book. 

And fittingly, it was her students who helped give the book its name. As it neared completion in 2024, Akdeniz asked her cohort to weigh in. 

“The three of us were too close to it, so I went back to my students,” she says. “They didn’t love our options, but their feedback was invaluable. They told us to avoid calling it an executive guidebook and instead make it a managerial guidebook — more down-to-earth and accessible. In the end, they really named the book.” ​