Cross-cultural leadership

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

Cross Cultural Leadership is a collaborative research seminar that examines what constitutes "effective" leadership across cultures. The underlying theme of this course is that the skills and behaviors that are perceived as effective leadership characteristics in one culture are not necessarily those that will be effective in a different culture. By exploring the ways in which specific characteristics are valued differently by different cultures, the students acquire frameworks for assessing how to approach a work assignment in a culture that is not their own.

This course is collaborative because the students are expected to provide some of the content. The weekly readings target particular aspects of cultural differentiation. Working within those topics, teams of students are asked to describe aspects of leadership in particular cultures based on their research and/or personal experiences. Students use both formal presentations and informal discussions to engage each other in learning about different cultural expectations. The goal of the course is to help prepare students for business assignments outside of their native countries.

None

This is an interactive seminar. Most weeks we follow a similar format: a discussion of the theory for the week, informal presentations and discussions of how each team's region maps to the theory under discussion and a further discussion on a specific situation that is led by two teams that do presentations on that topic.

This course is graded Pass/Fail. As is true in so many things, the students will get out of this course what they put into it. In order to Pass, all assignments must be completed and handed in on the last day of class with appropriate effort.

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