Moodle per la didattica

This course is taught by Giovanni Gallo and Cosimo Beverelli.

Course objectives:

• Understand the importance and the fundamentals of cultural differences in international business settings.
• Know and apply theories of cross-cultural management to international business settings.
• Develop skills for adequate behavior in cross-cultural business settings.
• Master techniques needed for the successful management of cross-cultural teams.

Topics:

This course develops cross-cultural competences especially related to international business relationships and sales.  Students acquire both knowledge and skills to master the cross-cultural challenges when engaging with clients, partners, and collaborators from other cultures. The course applies intercultural theory to international business relationships and sales settings. The discussion of case studies and the conduct of role plays will help students to apply their learning to real life situations.

The course is structered as follows:

1. Culture and its impact on international business relationships

• Understanding the notion of culture and its impact on business relationships and sales
• Cultural differences frameworks, impact and limitations (Hofstede, Trompenaars, GLOBE, Lewis)
• Profiling own and other cultures
• The CAGE Framework of distance

2. Managing interaction and business relationships across cultures

• Relationship building and maintenance
• Individual’s role, power and status
• Wining, dining, gift giving – compliance issues in business relationships
• Reliability, time management, planning
• Negotiating in an inter-cultural context

 3. Managing intercultural business partnerships

• Building trust in an intercultural partnership
• Integrating around competence and community
• Intercultural skills to build partnerships

 4. Leading intercultural, distributed teams

• Cultural differences in what is expected of leaders
• Situational leadership
• Creating virtual closeness
• Intercultural skills to leading across cultures

Textbook and readings:

The course is based on the following textbooks:

• Comfort, Jeremy; Franklin, Peter: The Mindful International Manager 2^nd Ed.; Kogan Page 2014
• Meyer, Erin: The Culture Map; Public Affairs, US 2014
• Lane, Maznevski, DiStefano, Dietz: International Management Behavior; Wiley 2009
• Barmeyer, Franklin: Intercultural Management – A case based Approach to Achieving  Complementarity and Synergy; Palgrave 2016
• Morrison, Terri: Kiss, Bow or Shake Hands Sales and Marketing, McGraw-Hill Education 2011
  

Handouts for obligatory readings will be provided.

Class sessions:

The learning in this course is organized around lectures, case analysis, role plays and discussions. The lectures will cover various important aspects related to the topics of the course. In addition, students, by working within their chosen groups, will develop and discuss solutions for the assigned cases and role plays, thereby achieving and enhancing their capabilities for the proper application of their knowledge to specific problems of cross-cultural management especially in the field of international business relationships. Relatedly, this will allow the students to prepare, describe and illustrate complex issues in cross-cultural business settings in a structured manner. This provides the class with the opportunity to better understand the complexities and challenges of cultural diversity and the resulting individual behaviors. It also allows all of us to each learn from each other.

All teaching material will be uploaded on Moddle.

Exams for attending students:

• Class participation: basic requirement to pass the course
• Quiz (online, 60 minutes): 40%
• Written exam (60 minutes) 60%

Exams for nonattending students:

• Written assignment, case study “Coats Indonesia” (2,500 words): 10%
• Written assignment, case study “Smart spacing” (2,500 words): 10%
• Written exam (90 minutes): 80%

In both written assignments, the tasks mentioned at the end of the texts of the case studies have to be worked on based on the teaching material of the relevant chapters. The two case studies will uploaded to the teaching material on Moodle.

Teaching language: English

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