Intercultural Management

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

This lecture will offer not only basic concepts of intercultural management but also will try to describe management as a process fundamentally intercultural. Managing across cultures is a natural consequence of the internationalization of today’s business but at the same time it is an opportunity to broaden the picture and to see management as a phenomenon from the very beginning saturated by the elements borrowed from many different cultures and discourses. This intercultural dimension do not become visible from a narrow perspective of a specific approach to HRM and business communication (traditional understanding of intercultural management) because it is present and should be traced in all managerial functions. Also the organizations – despite the fact that most of organizational theories present them as mono-cultural – posses and show that dimension. So the lecture would invite students to view intercultural management not only as a process of “managing across cultures” (which sounds today more like “colonizing the differences” and implies the existence of a centre and peripheries) but rather as the joint effort of many cultures. Taylorism which marks the ascent of modern understanding of management implied standardization of products and their parts as well as subordination of managers’ and workers’ minds. Today’s global business requires more humanistic approach which should bring to the fore the multitude of perspectives and the need of constant “dialogue”. In other words, before constructing any factory, owners and managers – through the market research and other analyses – should inquire into the wants and needs of potential customers and, like anthropologists, should be ready to interpret many different

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

General knowledge on the BA level·
Readiness to participate in class discussion
Good command of English

Syllabus

Week 1 Introduction
Week 2 Fordism and taylorism
Week 3 Fast food and taylorism
Week 4 Human face of management
Week 5 Culture as a software of mind
Week 6 Understanding cultural diversity
Week 7 Women as managers
Week 8 Communicating across cultures
Week 9 Managing across cultures
Week 10 Intercultural management at Nestlé
Week 11 Expatriate management
Week 12 Renault – Nissan alliance I
Week 13 Renault – Nissan alliance II
Week 14 Making a product cross-cultural
Week 15 Summary

Reading list

· C. Bartlett, P. Beamish, Transnational management. Sixth edition. McGraw-Hill 2011 (selected parts)· M-J. Browaeys, R. Price, Understanding cross-cultural management. Second edition. Pearson 2011 (selected parts)· G. Hofstede, Cultures and organizations. Software of mind. McGraw-Hill 1997 (selected parts)· N. Jacob, Intercultural management. Kogan Page 2003 (selected parts)· S. Magala, Cross-cultural competence. Routledge 2005 (selected parts)· F. Trompenaars, C. Hampden-Turner, Riding the waves of culture. Understanding cultural diversity in global business. McGraw-Hill 1998 (selected parts)