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2019/2020  KAN-CCDCO2006U  Leading and Managing Intercultural Projects

English Title
Leading and Managing Intercultural Projects

Course information
Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Mandatory
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Quarter
Start time of the course First Quarter
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
Study Board for BSc and MSc in Business, Language and Culture, MSc
Course coordinator
  • Charles Tackney - Department of Management, Society and Communication (MSC)
Main academic disciplines
  • Intercultural studies
  • Project and change management
  • Statistics and quantitative methods
Teaching methods
  • Blended learning
Last updated on 26-06-2019

Relevant links
Learning objectives
  • Define the concept of a “project” and the theory of knowledge essentials for project management leadership.
  • Specify the roles, task, and interests of project participants and stakeholders, and be able to assess aspects of team dynamics, power relations, and organizational strategy for project management.
  • Define and compare the concepts of project risk, uncertainty, and complexity, and present the key conventional and alternative approaches to these terms in project management.
  • Explain the financial and statistical essentials for project management as presented and developed throughout the course, cases, and discussions.
  • Analyze and explain project management functions in contemporary complex organizations. Here, the focus should be on the variance of national or regional employment ecology models and the impact for project leadership and management outcomes.
Course prerequisites
Knowledge of corporate strategy, management theory, and organizational behavior is an advantage, but not a precondition for participation.
Examination
Leading and Managing Intercultural Projects:
Exam ECTS 7,5
Examination form Home assignment - written product
Individual or group exam Individual exam
Size of written product Max. 10 pages
Assignment type Project
Duration Written product to be submitted on specified date and time.
Grading scale 7-point grading scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Autumn
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
Course content, structure and pedagogical approach

This course will take up the leadership tools necessary to design, manage, and evaluate project work by exploring the conceptual foundations for successful project management in today’s globalized, complex organizations and societies. We go beyond simple, and simplistic, “how-to” or best practice approaches to the subject of project management in several respects. First, case analysis will offer detailed study and class discussion on leadership and management of projects. Second, the epistemology of project leadership will be steadily developed from case analysis and research literature on project management. Third, a historical sense of the project leadership and management literature will offer essential context for master’s specialization in Diversity and Change Management through study of the comparative employment ecologies of modern organizations in respect to their national origins and encounters in project sites.

 

Participants will consider how to manage uncertainty and risk associated with project work. We will explore how the human elements of power, politics, and interrelationships play into the success and/or failure of projects. The course will help student grounding in project leadership and management epistemology as a course end in itself, but also as a preparation for study of concepts and practices introduced in other areas of the later DCM curriculum. Such curriculum related themes include culture, complex organizations, strategy, stakeholders, diversity, and geo-political regional differences.
 

Analysis of several project cases that evidence both successful and unsuccessful project management will provide students with practical examples of the themes and principles under discussion. In particular cases, the management of projects in transnational and intercultural contexts will refine student sensibility about the genre of case-based studies: what is provided for reflection – and what is left out.

 

This course aims to help students become reflective and reflexive project managers and leaders, as reflective consumers of project management literature: able to read such material with a proper sense of case literature strengths as well as weaknesses.
Description of the teaching methods
The approach includes assigned readings and lectures with inductive case reading, reflection, and guided class discussion. Case discussions will employ the Harvard Business School style “case method.” Some cases lend themselves to small-group discussion in advance of a plenary summation, other benefit from an instructor-guided discussion.

The learning model presumes regular class attendance for appropriate understanding of the course materials and success regarding the learning objectives. Class discussion will depend upon and presume student preparation of cases prior to each class.
Feedback during the teaching period
Students are expected to file a mid-term project course proposal, consisting of three pages of text, with citations and a References page, according to APA research format: Introduction, Method, Data, Discussion. The topic proposal can come from student experience, course content, or prospective Master's thesis notions. The instructor provides feedback on acceptability of project paper topic, content, structure, language use, and logical flow in this mid-term exercise. The short-term aim is for successful student crafting of a suitable topic for the course project examination. The curriculum design goal, from a longer perspective, is rapid skilling of graduate students for master's thesis conception and crafting.
Student workload
Lectures 30 hours
Exam 34 hours
Preparation 142 hours
Total 206 hours
Expected literature

Literature list will be available on Canvas.
Last updated on 26-06-2019