This syllabus was submitted to the Rhodes College Office of Academic Affairs by the course instructor.
There are two underlying purposes of this course. First, as the organizational environment
becomes increasingly defined as international in nature, the course offers insight into managing a
more complex, culturally diverse, spatially dispersed organization. The course can be beneficial
to individuals who compete across international borders, who face competition from foreign
companies operating in the U.S. or to those who manage a multinational company. Second, the
course is useful for those who are concerned about the problems of contemporary management
as an international perspective is used to examine American firms. Some of the topics that are
studied include managing organizations that compete in declining industries, managing
multicultural diversity, creating new, more flexible organizational designs and incorporating
entrepreneurial activities into organizational structure.
Objectives:
1. To define the notion of culture as it applies to the field of management. To
distinguish between country, business and corporate culture.
2. To build “blended” cultures which combine country, business and corporate
culture. To use blended cultures to design organizations, manage human resources
and plan strategy.
3. To distinguish among those management models which apply to international
business and those which must be modified according to recent research literature.
4. To explore the application of strategy models across international borders and to
identify the implications of using those models on managerial decision-making.
5. To apply a global perspective in dealing with contemporary management
problems in the U.S.
6. To explore the effect of globalization on activities and policies of personnel
management.