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2015/2016  BA-BBLCO6002U  Culture and Organisation

English Title
Culture and Organisation

Course information

Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Mandatory
Level Bachelor
Duration One Semester
Start time of the course Spring
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
Study Board for BSc og MSc in Business, Language and Culture, BSc
Course coordinator
  • Maribel Blasco - Department of International Business Communication (IBC)
Main academic disciplines
  • Globalization and international business
Last updated on 11-08-2015
Learning objectives
To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or errors:
  • Define and compare the theories and perspectives on cultural difference presented in the course material and readings, and be able to evaluate their strengths and limitations for explaining a chosen intercultural or organizational culture issue.
  • Apply appropriate readings, theories and concepts taught during the course to analyse the assumptions and observations presented in the student exchange logbook or reports of fieldwork ‘at home’.
  • Reflect critically on his/her own cultural assumptions and situatedness, with a point of departure in experiences abroad or during fieldwork ‘at home’.
Examination
Culture and Organisation:
Exam ECTS 7,5
Examination form Home assignment - written product
Individual or group exam Individual
CEO is designed to integrate with the 5th semester course in Organisation and Corporate Communication and the 3rd Year Project.
Size of written product Max. 10 pages
•The course concludes with a 10-standard page essay, 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 a second 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 4-6, will sign up to a theme (e.g. ‘difference’ ‘culture shock’, ‘communication’, ‘experience’) and will also during the course be required to make two compulsory joint presentations concerning the exchange logbook and their ‘fieldwork at home’ at two workshops, where they will reflect on their experiences in the light of the theoretical concepts taught during the course. Opponent groups and a teacher give feedback on presentations.
Assignment type Written assignment
Duration Written product to be submitted on specified date and time.
Grading scale 7-step scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Summer
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
Course content and structure

 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 & 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 Module 1 (including Workshop 1) using exercises, presentations and opponent sessions. Students, organised in groups across their language classes, will discuss their exchange experiences at the workshop. Data will be drawn from an electronic media platform (the ‘exchange log book) accessible only to the class group, which they are required to post on during their exchange. Students will, at the same time, be introduced to different approaches to culture, self and identity (e.g. essentialist, constructivist, symbolist, structural-functionalist, post-modern). Second, during Module 2, students will be introduced to major theories of organisational culture, and will be required to carry out a short fieldwork at a Danish organisation (CBS or another organisation of their choice), where they will apply ethnographic and organisational research techniques taught during the course with a view to learning how to carry out a cultural analysis of a familiar environment. Students will thus 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. The ethnographic and organisational culture inquiry techniques students learn during the course are also intended to be of further use during their 3rd Year Project.
 
Guidelines for the exchange log book will be distributed at the end of the 3rd semester before the students leave for their semester abroad.

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 at an organization 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.
Expected literature

To be announced on Learn

Last updated on 11-08-2015