Aix-en-Provence, France - Course Descriptions - International Intercultural Management

Course Information

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OBJECTIVES

This course is designed to introduce students to concepts and fundamentals of international management. The course will consider aspects of management within an international and culturally complex environment, while considering the business influences within the global workplace. Students with or without prior international management knowledge will benefit from the course. Organizational effectiveness demands that personnel do the right things efficiently. Therefore, the role of management is to strive for and maintain the goals of the organization. Being an effective manager is not just telling others what to do. It is also about effective leadership, training, and communication. Having effective managers can be a cost saving tool for all organizations of all sizes. Corporation executives, supervisors, and managers are aware of the importance of and difficulty in finding and retaining highly skilled employees (a time consuming role of management).
Today's managers need a systems view of the organization. This course will help you think of the organization as a system rather than as a work unit where tasks are preformed. Most of you will, after graduating, become supervisors and managers and be required to provide training and leadership for your personnel. In just about any organization, you will be working with people who will have a different cultural background that your own, you may be working as an expatriate in a different country or you may experience any of a number of multicultural challenges. This course will help you prepare for these eventualities.

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The class will consist of lectures conducted in seminar fashion, with regular student participation through presentations and group work. A typical class would consist of students synthesizing and presenting information acquired from a text chapter or assigned article. Discussion and in-class exercises will follow each presentation to further examine fundamental aspects of international management concepts.

Selected case studies will be assigned by the instructor. Students will be asked to read and analyze each case carefully. This will be followed by general class discussion and/or presentations.

General class themes include:

• Intercultural Effectiveness in Global management
  
• Implementing Strategy, Structure and Systems
• Cultural dynamics and the international manager
• The individual worker in an international intercultural context
• Team dynamics in internationalintercultural management
• Leadership in a global context
• Change management
  
• Motivation and Power

GENERAL STRUCTURE (3 hours):
-presentation/discussion of chapter assigned to students OR presentation/discussion of reading from assigned article(s)/cases OR short quiz
-lecture/presentation of topic by the professor
-In-class exercise/case study/analysis and class discussion
-Summary, next steps, assignments

Guest speakers:
As far as available, guest speakers will present varying aspects of management, as experienced from the international company where they work. Students may query them on the subject matter covered in their presentation as well as what it was like to work in their particular company and country.

TEXTBOOKS
Deresky, H. ‘International Management', 4th ed. Pearson/Prentice Hall
Browaeys, M & Price, R. (2008) Understanding Cross-Cultural Management, Prentice Hall.
Selected articles, Internet back-up, case studies, and supplemental research

Suggested daily and weekly reading:
Text chapters, business cases and articles, as assigned (required)
In French: Courier International, Les Echos
In English: Business Week, The Economist, Time,

EVALUATION

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