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2010/2011  BA-BLC_3CEO  Culture, Economy, Organisation

English Title
Culture, Economy, Organisation

Course Information

Language English
Point 7,5 ECTS (225 SAT)
Type Mandatory
Level Bachelor
Duration One Semester
Course Period
Time Table Please see course schedule at e-Campus
Study Board
Study Board for BSc og MSc in Business, Language and Culture, BSc
Course Coordinator
  • Maribel Blasco - Department of Intercultural Communication and Management
Main Category of the Course
  • Globalization, International Business, markets and studies
Last updated on 29 maj 2012
Learning Objectives
At the end of the course, students should be able to:
  • define and demonstrate an understanding of key issues and perspectives on cultural difference and be able to discuss these in relation to organisations and organisational theory, and
  • apply appropriate readings and concepts taught during the course to reflect on, and analyse, the assumptions and observations presented in student logs and reports of fieldwork ‘at home’.
Examination
Culture, Economy, Organisation
Exam Period December/January
The course concludes with a 10-page essay (1 page equals 2275 STU), written individually, where students select a particular issue in connection with their exchange experiences and/or their Danish fieldwork. Grades are given according to the 7-point grading scale by an examiner and an internal examiner. The essay may take its point of departure in a particular incident/experience, and discuss it in the light of the theoretical perspectives and concepts taught during the course. Students, organised in groups of 5-6 according to which themes they sign up for (e.g. ‘difference’ ‘culture shock’, ‘communication’, ‘experience’) will also, during the course, be required to make a compulsory joint presentation of relevant extracts from their logs at a workshop, and to reflect on their different experiences in the light of one or more of the theoretical concepts taught during the course. Opponent groups and a teacher give feedback on presentations.
Examination
CEO is designed to integrate with the 5th semester course in Organisation and Corporate Communication and the 3rd Year Project.
Prerequisites for Attending the Exam
Course Content

Today’s BLC graduates are likely to be employed in multicultural organisations both in Denmark and abroad. The ability to work effectively with people from a wide range of backgrounds is therefore increasingly crucial. Collaborative abilities, a professional attitude, and awareness of one’s own cultural situatedness, and that of one’s organisation, are important elements in enabling this.

“Culture, Economy, Organisation” is designed to foster and train these abilities. The aim of the course is to encourage critical reflexivity concerning students’ awareness of their own cultural situatedness, and the ways in which they apprehend and negotiate difference both in a foreign context and at ‘home’. This is achieved in two ways in this course. First, we will follow up on students’ experiences from their semester abroad in workshops using exercises, presentations and opponent sessions where students, organised in groups across their language classes, will draw on and exchange experiences based on logs written during their exchange using a media platform accessible only to the class group. Second, students will be introduced to different approaches to culture, self and identity (e.g. essentialist, constructivist, symbolist, structural-functionalist, post-modern, organisational culture, multiculturalism), both in and of themselves, and as they present themselves in major organisational theory paradigms. In connection with this, they will also be taught to use a range of ethnographic and organisational inquiry techniques, which are intended to be of further use in their 3rd Year Project

Guidelines for the logs will be distributed at the end of the 3rd semester before the students leave for their semester abroad. Students will also be required to carry out a short fieldwork at a Danish organisation (CBS or another organisation of their choice) as part of the course where they are to apply the ethnographic and organisational research techniques taught during the course with a view to ‘making the familiar strange’. Students will be expected to draw on the perspectives and concepts taught during the course in explaining and reflecting on their experiences both abroad and at home.

Teaching Methods
The semester is organised as lectures and workshops where students are to apply the conceptual tools they have been taught on data from their logs and their fieldwork in a Danish organisation. Students are required to keep a log whilst abroad, containing thoughts, anecdotes, interviews, images, music, newspaper articles, film clips, etc. that they found thought-provoking, interesting, shocking, surprising, etc. This log, and the reports from students’ fieldwork in Denmark, will serve as the point of departure for the workshop exercises carried out during this semester. Exercises will include, inter alia, presentations and opponent sessions.