CORE: Global Leadership (2225.YR.013153.1)

General information

Type:	OBL	Curs:	1	Period:	S semester
ECTS Credits:	7 ECTS

Teaching Staff:

Group	Teacher	Department	Language
Year 1	Jaap Boonstra	Dirección de Personas y Organización	ENG

GLOBAL LEADERSHIP: Crossing borders and mastering transformational change

Imagine you work worldwide as a manager in an international firm or as a business consultant involved in international mergers. Your manager challenges you to develop your international skills and send you to a country where the culture is unknown to you. You meet people of different cultures, manage across borders and collaborate in virtual international teams. It is a journey and an adventure. Are you ready to enjoy this adventure?

Imagine you are asked by the executive board to develop a new market or implement a new business strategy together with local people. The cultural identity and mentality of the local people is unknown to you and you don't even speak their language very well. You like the challenge and you are motivated to be successful and develop yourself as an international leader. But where to start and what are cultural values and drivers in this new environment? How can you feel and understand what is going on and how do you build relationships? What does hierarchy means in this environment and what are the attitudes to time and uncertainty? Are you able to combine long-term and short-term perspectives? How do you motivate people and make friends?

Imagine you are asked as member of a global alliance to contribute to the future of the alliance. Do you have a feeing for the challenges and dynamics within global alliances? Where would you start to elaborate the global alliance? How much do you know about the history, strategy and guiding values of the alliance? How would you cope with the cultural diversity between the members in the alliance? What is the role of corporate and social partners in the alliance? How to realize strategic changes within the alliance?

Experiences in organizations based on internships or memberships are helpful to relate new concepts to own experiences and realize reflective learning.

GLOBAL LEADERSHIP: Crossing borders and mastering transformational change

This course deals with the question how internationally operating organizations and organizational networks, such as multinational companies, consultancy firms, and global alliances, build effective organizations and viable networks in order to realize their strategic objectives. The focus of the course is on transnational and transformational leadership and the way in which strategic and cultural changes can be initiated.

Cultural differences between countries and businesses affect the process of doing business and managing change. It is impossible to completely understand other cultures and it is not evident that you understand people of your own cultural background. Even with experienced international companies many well-intended applications of management theory have tuned out badly because cultural values of other countries were neglected. To be successful in international business and cross-cultural management there is a need to understand your own values, the business identity of your organization and to develop sensitivity to the depths of cultural dynamics.

In every culture in the world phenomena as authority, bureaucracy, creativity, emotions, good fellowship, attitudes to time, uncertainty, masculinity and accountability are experienced in different ways. To be effective as a transnational manager it is important to consider what these phenomena mean to people in each culture. The essence of culture is not what we see on the surface. It is the shared way how people understand and interpreted the world. If business professionals want to gain allegiance of their corporate goals, business strategies and the essence of products and services, they must understand what management means in different cultures.

The internationalization of business life requires more knowledge of cultural dynamics. To become a transnational and transformational leader it is necessary to develop business sensitivity, cultural awareness and transformational experience. Strategic and cultural change in transnational organizations are interconnected. It is not possible to achieve positive strategic change without cultural change. This raises the question what initiatives business professionals and transnational leaders can take in order to realize successful strategic and cultural change in international organizations and within global alliances.

This seminar on Global Management Practices helps you to develop your abilities to work in an international context as a manager, project leader or consultant.

The objectives for this learning program are:
- Understanding your professional biography, where you come from and where you like to go as a business practitioner and responsible leader;
- Understanding cultural norms and values of yourself and others in international context and improve your ability to understand and handle intercultural tensions;
- Understanding different ways multinational firms and global alliances elaborate their corporate strategy and develop and realize their strategic objectives;
- Understanding how global and national business identities facilitate and hinder international collaboration and business development;
- Understanding the relationship between corporate and business strategies, organizational and cultural values and societal meaning of business;
- Learning about management practices across countries and ways of doing business in different cultural backgrounds;
- Developing your abilities to build international alliances and contribute to international and cross-border collaboration;
- Developing your competences to manage organizational change successfully in an international context;
- Developing the art of choosing interventions to realize organizational change and development
- Elaborating your qualities in teamwork and collaboration where people of different cultural backgrounds meet and work in teams;
- Increasing your competences to work in virtual international business teams to accomplish a business challenge;
- Becoming a reflective practitioner and responsible leader being able to lead yourself and others in a global world full of uncertainties and challenges.

1. Block 1 These three days we will focus on cultural differences between businesses and countries, cross-cultural management and managing organizational change in international context. A international company will present their business challenges for teams that will explore these challenges during the course. On team level we work as teams in addressing international business challenges.

2. Block 2 These two days we focus on change strategies to build international alliances and post-merger dynamics. We discuss the application of interventions and their effects in different cultures. On team lever we explore team dynamics in collaboration and development

3. Block 3 These two days we will focus on leadership issues in global context and building your international career in international business. The final day we will present the outcomes of our business project to the company that presented their business challenges the first day.

4. General overview During the days of the sessions you are expected to work in class from 9.00 till 14.00 with a combination of lectures, exercises, team work, team presentations. In the afternoon and evening you are supposed to read literature and prepare the class next day. The time between the three sessions you will work in a team to explore cultural tensions in cross-cultural businesses and develop a change strategy and adequate interventions to be effective in business alliances and market development. This course is designed as an interactive learning experience, but when needed to comply to regulations of government and health care authorities the course can be offered in an online learning environment with interactive webinars during the mornings scheduled for classes and virtual teamwork.

This program is based on action learning during three block seminars of three and two days and virtual teamwork between the three blocks. Teams of students from different cultures will work on a business project from a global alliance that has the ambitions to create a positive impact in our world. During the module attention is given to theories, practical methods, illustrative practices, and reflections on own behavior and underlying assumptions. This course is designed as an interactive learning experience. When needed to comply to regulations of government and health care authorities the course can be offered in an online learning environment with webinars and virtual teamwork.

The learning methodology is based on:
- Sharing personal experiences and reflections;
- Exploring perspectives on international business and cross-border collaboration,
- Elaborating cultural differences and management practices across countries
- Enjoying examples with successes and failures of transnational leaders
- Inspirations from samples of movies;
- Teamwork in exploring perspectives on cross-cultural management;
- Teamwork in elaborating case studies ands a business project;
- Teamwork in developing a cross-cultural change practice;
- Exploring your professional future as a transnational leader.

ASSESSMENT BREAKDOWN

Mandatory:

BOONSTRA, J.J. (2014) Cultural Change and Leadership in Organizations. A practical guide to successful organizational change. Chichester: Wiley.
Available on e-Campus.

GEHRKE, Bettina & CLAES, Marie-Therese (2014) Global Leadership Practice. A cross-cultural management approach. New-York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Available on e-Campus.

Additional articles available on e-Campus about international negotiations, communications and cultures.

Recommended additional literature:
Boonstra, Jaap (2019) Organizational Change as Collaborative Play - A Positive view on Change and Innovation in Organizations. Amsterdam: Boom Publishers | Management Impact
Trompenaars, Fons & Charles Hampden-Turner (2006) Riding the Waves of Culture. Understanding cultural diversity in business. Boston: Nicolas Breadly.
Duarte, Deborah and Nancy Tennant Snyder (2006) Managing Virtual Teams. Strategies, tools and techniques that succeed. 3rd. Ed. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
Quinn, Robert (1996) Deep Change. Discovering the leader within. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Group	Teacher	Department
Year 1	Jaap Boonstra	Dirección de Personas y Organización