Cross-cultural Communication and Management

ECTS : 6

Description du contenu de l'enseignement :

Course description and objectives
The increasing significance of the multinational enterprise (MNE) in the world economy has resulted in the importance of understanding not only MNEs as such, but also the actions of people working within these and similar multi-cultural organisations. This reality places demands on managers’ soft skills based on cultural knowledge and awareness. A key challenge will be to make the utmost of the cultural diversity of your staff, by fostering creativity instead of suppressing or ignoring differences.
 
Cross-Cultural Management (CCM) draws on research from several different disciplines such as international management, organisational behaviour, sociology, anthropology, ethnology and psychology. The CCM course will build on these various disciplines both in the content of the lectures and workshops but also in a group assignment.
 
The intention of the CCM course is to introduce you to some of this research in the context of working as a manager within a MNE, a multi-cultural organisation or as part of an international alliance or joint - venture. Cross-cultural management has developed under the influence of distinct paradigms.
 
We will focus on two main perspectives with their own assumptions, methodologies and implications for practice:

• A first group of studies adopting a cross-national comparison perspective tend to investigate the variation across nations of managerial behaviour.
• A second group of studies tends to focus on intercultural interactions to investigate processes and practices linked to culture.

1. Introduction: How culture has been debated in management literature.
2. Cross national comparison perspective: ( Geert Hofstede,  Edward T.Hall).
3. Interpretive studies initiated by the work of d'Iribarne (1989) in the stream of cross-national comparison ( France/ US).  
4. Cross cultural studies with an intercultural interaction focus: Film: A French- Japanese cooperation 
5. Organizational culture and national culture: The case of Lafarge
6. Intercultural Communication
7.  Intercultural Conflict
8. IHRM: Multicultural teams and diversity in the workplace
9.  IHRM: Expatriation
10. Culture and Strategy
11.  Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
12. Final Exam

Compétence à acquérir :

Learning outcomes
Our cross-cultural management course is designed to:

1. Offer an insight and understanding of how cross cultural and intercultural issues manifest in the workplace,
2. Develop skills and approaches to deal with cross cultural and intercultural issues such as communication, conflict resolution and decision making.
3. Provide guidance on how to leverage cultural differences and maximize the potential of a multicultural team.
4. Offer an insight of how to adapt “universal” management tools to local cultural contexts.

Mode de contrôle des connaissances :

Grading
The numerical grade distribution will dictate the final grade.
Class participation: Active class participation – this is what makes classes lively and instructive. Come on time and prepared. Class participation is based on quality of comments, not quantity.
Exam policy: In the exam, students will not be allowed to bring any document (except if allowed by the lecturer). Unexcused absences from exams or failure to submit cases will result in zero grades in the calculation of numerical averages. Exams are collected at the end of examination periods.

Bibliographie, lectures recommandées :

Bibliography
Prescribed text book: Iribarne, Philippe (d’) and Alain Henry (2007), Successful Companies in the Developing World: Managing the Synergy with Culture, Notes et documents AFD.
 
Other references:
Schneider, Susan, Barsoux, Jean Louis (1997), Managing across Cultures, Prentice Hall Europe.
Usinier, Jean Claude (2002), International and Cross-Cultural Management Research, SAGE Series in Management Research.
Hofstede, Geert (1984). Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values (abr. edition). Beverly Hills: Sage Publications
Primecz, Henriett, Romani, Laurence and Sackmann, Sonja (2009), “Multiple perspectives in Cross-Cultural Management”, International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 9, 3, 267-274.
 
Additional resources may include a variety of print & visual resources, handouts along with class PPTs .

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