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2024/2025  KAN-CCMVI2048U  Organization: Team Dynamics in Multinational Corporations

English Title
Organization: Team Dynamics in Multinational Corporations

Course information
Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Elective
Level Full Degree Master
Duration Summer
Start time of the course Summer
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Min. participants 30
Max. participants 60
Study board
Study Board for cand.merc. and GMA (CM)
Course coordinator
  • Lisbeth Clausen - Department of Management, Society and Communication (MSC)
For academic questions related to the course, please contact course responsible Lisbeth Clausen (lcl.msc@cbs.dk)
Main academic disciplines
  • Management
  • Organisation
  • Organisational behaviour
Teaching methods
  • Face-to-face teaching
Last updated on 07-11-2024

Relevant links
Learning objectives
To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or errors:
  • Explain the challenges of global business managers of multinational corporations at the team level.
  • Define and solve a research question concerning high performing teams in a multinational with focus on organization, communication and competence.
  • Present and discuss the research question and findings in a clear and structured manner.
  • Explain and compare the organizational structure, and organizational behavior theories and models presented in the course.
  • Appropriately select theories and models in a framework to be applied to the practical case(s) (provided in the course) E.g. apply theories and models to describe team dynamics when doing global business in practice.
  • Discuss personal team learnings in light of course theory.
Course prerequisites
Completed Bachelor degree or equivalent. Basic knowledge about organisational behavior.
Examination
Organization: Team Dynamics in Multinational Corporations:
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 The Assignment is released in Digital Exam (DE) at exam start
Duration Written product to be submitted on specified date and time.
Grading scale 7-point grading scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Summer and Summer
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
Retake exam: 72-hour home project assignment, max. 10 pages, new exam question.
If the number of registered candidates for the make-up examination/re-take examination warrants that it may most appropriately be held as an oral examination, the programme office will inform the students that the make-up examination/re-take examination will be held as an oral examination instead..
Description of the exam procedure

Home assignment written in parallel with the course.
Course content, structure and pedagogical approach
The aim of the course is to provide students with knowledge of the dynamics of high performing global teams drawing on organization, communication and competence theories. During the course students will become familiar with organization, organizational design and organization behavior theories and methods to understand and analyze team collaboration in multinational corporations. Each session will focus on the application of a specific model for analysis in relation to a corporate case. Throughout the course students will also be challenged to apply and reflect on personal international experience and knowledge about team work.
 
Note: Students will be assigned a team first day in class and work with this team throughout the course.
 

 1. Team dynamics and management challenges in Multinationals

 2. CSR Communication and Ethics

 3. Organizational culture, diversity and socialization

 4. Leading motivating and managing human resources

 5. Organizational design, structure and processes

 6. Team communication - coherence and conflict

 7. Stakeholder management and crises communication

 8. Power, Decision Making and Politics in Organizations

 9. Work-life balance and well-being

 10. Change and organisational development - RECAP SESSION

 
 
Description of the teaching methods
The course is a combination of class room lectures and discussions of reading material (one/two articles per session) in relation to the assigned CASE companies. During class sessions students will contribute in interactive sessions on behalf of their multinational corporation. Students become corporate case experts. The corporate cases include: Bang and Olufsen, Ecco, Coloplast, Novo Nordisk, Microsoft, Sony and Huawei. Team work activities are assigned in each session. Field work in Copenhagen is part of the engagement. Case work in teams enhances students' learning and collaboration capabilities.
Feedback during the teaching period
Feedback activity and group deliveries take place in each session. The research question will be designed on the first day of class. The CBS Nordic Nine principles are incorporated in course through transformative group learning activities. The class sessions and themes concern leadership, diversity, power, conflict, motivation, organisational design, innovation, sustainability and responsible management in multinational corporations. We critically investigate corporate values as well as their diveristy and work-life balance enabling policies and practices.

The Nordic Nines are:
# 1 You have deep business knowledge placed in a broad context
# 5 You understand ethical dilemmas and have the leadership values to overcome them
# 6 You are critical when thinking and constructive when collaborating
# 9You create value from global connections for local communities
Student workload
Preliminary assignment 20 hours
Classroom attendance - team collaboration 30 hours
Preparation 129 hours
Feedback activity 7 hours
Examination 20 hours
Further Information

6-week course.

 

Preliminary Assignment: The course coordinator uploads Preliminary Assignment on Canvas at the end of May. It is expected that students participate as it will be included in the final exam, but the assignment is without independent assessment and grading.

 

 

This course is based on team work in each session. Deliveries in collaboration with your team are mandatory.

 
Expected literature

Mandatory readings:

Champoux, Joseph, E. (2017). Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups and Organizations (5th Edition). Routledge. A few chapters 
 
CASE BOOK: Clausen, Lisbeth (2021) Team dynamics and diversity: Japanese corporate experiences. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press. p. 250
NOTE: students will purchase ONE case from the above case book. LINK TBA
 
Cornelissen Joep, (2017) Chapter 2-3. Corporate Communication. A guide to theory and practice. London Sage. Fifth Edition.
 
Hatch, Mary Jo; Schultz, Majken (1997). ”Relations between organizational culture, identity and image”. European Journal of Marketing, 31, 5/6
 
Hatch, Mary Jo & Schultz, Majken 2002, 'The dynamics of organizational identity' Human Relations, vol 55, nr. 8, p989-1018.
 
Katzenbach, Jon R. and Smith, Douglas K. (2005) Organizational culture. The Discipline of Teams. Harvard Business Review. July–August
 
Kotter, John, P. (2007) Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail.  Harvard Business Review. January. Vol. 85 Issue 1, p96-103
 
Kotter, John P. (2012) Competitive strategy.  Accelerate. Harvard Business Review, November Issue 
 
Mintzberg, Henry and Van den Heyden, Ludo (1999). Organigraphs: Drawing How Companies Really Work Harvard Business Review.  September–October Issue
 
Mortensen, M., & Gardner, H. K. (2017). The overcommitted organization. Harvard Business Review, 2017(September-October), 58–66.
 
Nielsen, Bo Bernard; Nielsen, Sabina. (2013) Top Management Team Nationality Diversity and Firm Performance : A Multi-level Study. Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2013, p. 373-382
 
Ollier-Malaterre, Arianne and Foucreault, Annie. Cross-National Work-Life Research: Cultural and Structural Impact for Individuals and Organizations. Journal of Management. Vol. 432 No 1 January, 2017 11-136: 115
 
Pentland, Alex. (2012) The New Science of Building Great Teams. Harvard Business Review. April p. 60-70
 
Stahl, G. K., Mäkelä, K., Zander, L., & Maznevski, M. L. (2010). A look at the bright side of multicultural team diversity. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 26(4), 439–447. https:/​/​doi.org/​10.1016/​j.scaman.2010.09.009
 
Stahl, G. K., Maznevski, M. L., Voigt, A., & Jonsen, K. (2010). Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A meta-analysis of research on multicultural work groups. Journal of International Business Studies, 41, 690–709.
 
Addition:

A few changes to the readings may be uploaded on CANVAS at course start.
Last updated on 07-11-2024