MCD Lectures
Set-up of the course
- Online lectures: introducing the most important papers on thinking about culture in
international business and management
- Overview of lectures:
1. Cultural intelligence and virtual teams
2. Culture and it’s dimensions
3. Leadership and communication
4. Culture and conflict management
5. Culture and corporate strategy
6. Wrap up – contradicting, levels of analysis and theory-based stereotyping
Assessment:
- X-culture 30%
- Tutorial team presentation 20%
- Exam 50%
o Theory based reflection on your x-culture experience
o Two essays (with 2 parts each) different theories and/or approaches
Exact topics announced at the exam
Perspectives come from the assigned articles
Details to be announced this week
Theory: Cultural intelligence or CQ
- Popular construct
- Some definitions:
o A person’s capability to adapt as s/he interacts with other from different
cultural backgrounds.
o A measure of a person’s capacity to function effectively in a multi-cultural
environment
o Knowledge or understanding of how a person from a particular country, race,
religion, etc lives and behaves, and how this affects the way they do business.
Social problem solving and intelligence
- Cultural intelligence > emotional intelligence
o A person with high emotional intelligence grasps what makes us human and
at the same time what makes each of us different from one another
o A person with high cultural intelligence can tease out of a person’s or group’s
behavior those features that would be true of all people and all groups, those
peculiar to this person or this group, and those that are neither universal nor
idiosyncratic.
- Culture = behavior that is neither universal nor idiosyncratic.
How to develop cultural intelligence (CQ)
>three sources; head, heart & body
1. head (Thinking; knowledge)
, Cognitive means: learning about your own and other cultures, and cultural diversity
1a. metacognitive; learning about how you process and acquire cultural
knowledge.
2. Heart (energizing; personal attributes)
Motivational means;
Lecture 2
Lecture 1 – cultural intelligence
- Cultural intelligence, global mindset, virtual teams.
Lecture 2 – culture and it’s dimensions
- Starting point: conceptualizing differences
o Conceptualization and measurement of national cultural dimensions
o Why country profiles?
o Pitfalls
Culture and diversity
- Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of
one group or category of people from others.
o Culture exists at group level (so minimum 2 people)
o Culture emerges out of interactions between individuals
Making sense of human/cultural diversity
1. Nomothetic approach (e.g. Hofstede)
a. Explaining societal differences on basis of general principles
b. Identifying universal ‘laws’ underlying human behavior
2. Idiographic approach
a. Understanding societies in their own terms
b. Evoking unique perspective that applies only to one particular society
Comparative (cultural) research
(mostly nomothetic (in international business))
1. Universal. Dimensions or classification schemes
2. Unique scores of societies (often countries) on these dimensions
This approach normally misses the richness that the idiographic approach adds.
Schwartz’s cultural value orientations
- Schwartz’s method is based on the view of culture as a collection of shared values
- Using the relative importance of different values across countries, cultural differences
between countries can be assessed
- So how does he do it?
Step 1: developing theory – the fundamental societal problems
- Three fundamental problems faced by each human society
Set-up of the course
- Online lectures: introducing the most important papers on thinking about culture in
international business and management
- Overview of lectures:
1. Cultural intelligence and virtual teams
2. Culture and it’s dimensions
3. Leadership and communication
4. Culture and conflict management
5. Culture and corporate strategy
6. Wrap up – contradicting, levels of analysis and theory-based stereotyping
Assessment:
- X-culture 30%
- Tutorial team presentation 20%
- Exam 50%
o Theory based reflection on your x-culture experience
o Two essays (with 2 parts each) different theories and/or approaches
Exact topics announced at the exam
Perspectives come from the assigned articles
Details to be announced this week
Theory: Cultural intelligence or CQ
- Popular construct
- Some definitions:
o A person’s capability to adapt as s/he interacts with other from different
cultural backgrounds.
o A measure of a person’s capacity to function effectively in a multi-cultural
environment
o Knowledge or understanding of how a person from a particular country, race,
religion, etc lives and behaves, and how this affects the way they do business.
Social problem solving and intelligence
- Cultural intelligence > emotional intelligence
o A person with high emotional intelligence grasps what makes us human and
at the same time what makes each of us different from one another
o A person with high cultural intelligence can tease out of a person’s or group’s
behavior those features that would be true of all people and all groups, those
peculiar to this person or this group, and those that are neither universal nor
idiosyncratic.
- Culture = behavior that is neither universal nor idiosyncratic.
How to develop cultural intelligence (CQ)
>three sources; head, heart & body
1. head (Thinking; knowledge)
, Cognitive means: learning about your own and other cultures, and cultural diversity
1a. metacognitive; learning about how you process and acquire cultural
knowledge.
2. Heart (energizing; personal attributes)
Motivational means;
Lecture 2
Lecture 1 – cultural intelligence
- Cultural intelligence, global mindset, virtual teams.
Lecture 2 – culture and it’s dimensions
- Starting point: conceptualizing differences
o Conceptualization and measurement of national cultural dimensions
o Why country profiles?
o Pitfalls
Culture and diversity
- Culture is the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of
one group or category of people from others.
o Culture exists at group level (so minimum 2 people)
o Culture emerges out of interactions between individuals
Making sense of human/cultural diversity
1. Nomothetic approach (e.g. Hofstede)
a. Explaining societal differences on basis of general principles
b. Identifying universal ‘laws’ underlying human behavior
2. Idiographic approach
a. Understanding societies in their own terms
b. Evoking unique perspective that applies only to one particular society
Comparative (cultural) research
(mostly nomothetic (in international business))
1. Universal. Dimensions or classification schemes
2. Unique scores of societies (often countries) on these dimensions
This approach normally misses the richness that the idiographic approach adds.
Schwartz’s cultural value orientations
- Schwartz’s method is based on the view of culture as a collection of shared values
- Using the relative importance of different values across countries, cultural differences
between countries can be assessed
- So how does he do it?
Step 1: developing theory – the fundamental societal problems
- Three fundamental problems faced by each human society
