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2024/2025  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 (also offered as elective)
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
  • Esben Karmark - Department of Management, Society and Communication (MSC)
Main academic disciplines
  • Corporate governance
  • Globalisation and international business
  • Project and change management
Teaching methods
  • Blended learning
Last updated on 27-06-2024

Relevant links
Learning objectives
Students completing the course should be able to:
  • Define the concept of a “project” and the theory of knowledge issue essentials for successful project management leadership in an international, globalized context.
  • 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 essentials for project management, when appropriate, 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 their impact for project leadership and strategic management outcomes.
  • Demonstrate good academic writing skills. These skills include clear and accurate academic written English, the correct use of relevant terminology, appropriate logical flow, and proper use of citations and references.
Course prerequisites
Knowledge of corporate strategy, management theory, and organizational behavior is an advantage, but not a precondition for participation.
Prerequisites for registering for the exam (activities during the teaching period)
Number of compulsory activities which must be approved (see section 13 of the Programme Regulations): 1
Compulsory home assignments
Students must pass one compulsory assignment in academic English to be eligible to attend the exam. This assignment is also the individual student's project proposal for the Project Report.

For students who due to documented illness cannot participate in the compulsory assignment, a retake will be planned.
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
Release of assignment Subject chosen by students themselves, see guidelines if any
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” approaches to 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 further specialization in the Diversity and Change Management master's program.

 

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 the study of concepts and practices later introduced in the 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 outcomes provides students with a range of practical examples in case discussions. In particular cases, the management of projects in transnational and intercultural contexts will refine student sensitivity to the larger 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 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 sessions will also include small-group presentations of the cases.

The learning model presumes regular class attendance and active participation for thorough understanding of the course materials and success. Class discussions 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, offering an original research issue. The proposal consists of three pages of text, with citations and a References page, using APA research format: Introduction, Method, Data, Discussion.

The research issue proposal is student inspired, not assigned. The inspiration can come from student experience, course content, or prospective Master's thesis notions. One instructor provides feedback on acceptability of project paper topic for the course, including content, structure, and logical flow in this mid-term exercise. Another instructor assesses the same document in terms of academic English written competence levels. details. 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.

As noted, students receive detailed feedback on their academic English through assessment and individual feedback.
Student workload
Lectures 30 hours
Academic Writing in English lectures 10 hours
Exam 34 hours
Preparation 132 hours
Total 206 hours
Expected literature

Lueke, R. 2004. Managing Projects Large and Small: The Fundamental Skills for Delivering on Budget and on Time . Cambridge: Harvard Business Press. 

 

Lonergan, Bernard JF 1988. Cognitional Structure. Chapter 14 in Collection. Volume 3 in  The Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan (Edited by FE Crowe and RM Doran, pp. 205 - 221). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 

 

A case course pack updated annually and made available to students through Harvard Business Publishing.  

 

Additional readings as detailed in the course folder.
Last updated on 27-06-2024