Course description
Title of the Teaching Unit
Intercultural Topics Q2
Code of the Teaching Unit
31IT020
Academic year
2026 - 2027
Cycle
Number of credits
5
Number of hours
30
Quarter
2
Weighting
Site
Anjou
Teaching language
French
Teacher in charge
MOGAVERO Fabrice
Objectives and contribution to the program
Raise awareness of cultural differences and how they affect the way people do business and work together. The class will focus on
- people’s management
- how to manage international teams
- how to be part of an international team
- how to do business abroad
- …
Prerequisites and corequisites
No specific prerequisites of the subject matter are required. Students, however, should ideally have a good command of English in order to be able to express themselves fluently during classes and understand the contents of the class.
Content
The following chapters will be tackled in class:
- What is culture and how does it affect business life in general?
- An introduction to Hofstede’s dimensions.
- The impact of culture on management: an introduction to the Culture Map
- Communicating and giving feedback across cultures
- Leading and deciding across cultures
- Trusting across cultures
- Disagreeing across cultures
- Persuading across cultures
- Scheduling across cultures
- Finding a common set of values among international teams and when doing business abroad
- Establishing English as the global language of business
Teaching methods
Mai Nguyen-Phuong-Mai’s books, “Intercultural communication. An interdisciplinary approach: when neurons, genes and evolution joined the discourse” and “Cross-cultural management with insight from brain science” will be analyzed thoroughly with students with concrete examples supplied through Meyer’s book, The Culture Map, Other authors will be referenced when needed.
Assessment method
No proper exam will be organized. Students, however, will be required to take an active part in the class throughout the term by carrying out two case studies and a virtual teamwork project with Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.
As far as the two case studies are concerned, students will be working in teams necessarily made up of students from different countries, cultures and backgrounds who will have to develop the necessary strategies to work together as an international team.
Assessment based on:
- Virtual presentation of the project the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (one mark for the whole team). Deadline: April 2020, presentations May 2020
- A case study on the impacts of pandemics on culture. Deadline: May 2020
- a reflection in which students cast a critical look on the way they've managed to work together as an intercultural team. Deadline: June 2020
In order to succeed, students have to show that they have mastered the theory concerning cross-cultural management and that they are able to apply it to concrete examples.
Exams requirements may slightly vary from one exam session to the other.
In order to qualify for a pass, students must have taken all the parts that make up the assessment.
References
The class will mainly be based on the analysis of the following books and concepts:
- Erin Meyer, “The Culture Map”
- Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, “Culture and organizations, software of the mind”
- David A Thomas and Robin J Ely, “Making differences matter, a new paradigm for managing diversity”
- Thomas Donaldson, “Values in tension, ethics away from home”
- Tsedal Neely, “Global business speaks English”
- Carl R Rogers, Richard E farson, “Active listening”
- Mai Nguyen-Phuong-Mai, “Intercultural communication. An interdisciplinary approach: when neurons, genes and evolution joined the discourse”
- Mai Nguyen-Phuong-Mai, “Cross-cultural management with insight from brain science”