CrossCulturalManagement

In the course of the lecture, students deal with the challenges of cross-cultural business. Fort his purpose, they first learn about a number of pitfalls that international managers face when dealing with cultural diversity. Students acquire the ability to cope with these pitfalls and to manage the diversity of customers, managers, and employees in organizations. For this purpose, students

-       are sensitized to societal culture as an important characteristic of economic agents,

-       are enabled to understand the definition and function of societal culture and to understand two pertinent measurement concepts of societal culture,

-       learn how managers may solve specific marketing and management tasks in order to successfully market products and services across cultures.

In addition, students put themselves in the position of a consultant who has to provide advice to the manager of a Grand Hotel. Solving a real-world case helps students learn how to successfully manage cultural diversity of customers and employees. As the case study is conceptualized as a role-play (students as a consultants, lecturer as   a hotel manager), students also learn how to present themselves in a way that they are perceived as socially competent professionals. Students receive feedback on how well they did on solving the case study.