Abstract:

Over the past decade, Portugal has seen the products it exports globally changed, from being an exporter in the textile and footwear sectors to being an exporter mainly of machinery, with a very interesting growth in car exports (in a sector with high risk) ), but also in the molds (linked to the “row” or cluster of the automotive sector), in household appliances and in some other products in which we were not known to be strong, as petroleum products were, until some time ago.

At the same time, it was possible to assess an interesting growth in exports of wines and other traditional agricultural products (olive oil, for example), a stabilization (in a dominant position) of the cork and its derivatives businesses, an increase in value (although with a decrease in volume) in the footwear sector, an increased penetration in evolved markets for textile articles (but not in clothing). In other words, we will not necessarily have to abandon everything, but create the conditions to, if necessary, reconfigure and resize our production units.

As Costa and Carvalho (2016) refer, “globalization is the process of greatest interdependence and interconnection between countries. This interdependence makes economic, political, social, environmental events that occur in a certain part of the world have an impact in other regions of the globe.”

The first to study the international transactions were the mercantilists and the event of economic liberalism contributed to the growing role of companies on an international scale.

Later two names stand out: Adam Smith (1776) and David Ricardo (1817) who seek to explain the existence of international trade.
On this study we are going to analyze the adaptation of the international trade degree, that is held at the ISCAP – Porto Institute, to the reality of companies in Portugal. It is based in a questionnaire methodology, a survey to students that finish the degree and to companies with international trade in their business. After that, the study will be qualitative descriptive. The objective is to determine which disciplines most contribute for students preparation to the real work in companies. The main goal is to get information for the ISCAP – P. Porto use on next adjustment of the disciplines, being able to create a more efficient degree based on the needs of the industry. We also intend to evaluate the relation between theoretical and practice classes.

Keywords:

Internationalization, Globalization, International commerce, Transactions.