Objectives

This course interrelates cross-cultural communication, language and management skills.

It consists of talks by lecturers from the University of Vic about business culture and by intercultural trainers, consultants and visiting lecturers from foreign universities about the business culture of a specific country.

Learning outcomes

• To make students aware of their own culturally-induced behavior.
• To help students develop understanding of the fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned behaviors.
• To develop student awareness of how culture affects people at work.
• To provide students with language and cross-cultural skills in order to develop empathy with cultural differences.
• To prepare students for interaction with people from cultures other than their own.
• To develop critical and intellectual discussion.
• To acquire pragmatic competence in cross-cultural business settings.

Content

Part 1
Introductory sessions to Business Culture

• The effects of Culture on Business in the global world
• How the vision of culture has changed across time. Historical perspective.
• The meaning of culture. Business and culture.
• Critical review of concepts and definitions (Hall, Hoffstede, Trompenaars, and Richard D. Lewis)
• Cultural stereotypes
• Culture and verbal and non-verbal interaction
• Language conventions and culture
• Directness and indirectness in cross-cultural communication
• face

Part 2
International business culture. Visiting Lecturers will introduce the business peculiarities of different specific areas or regions and explain the way of doing business through their own culture. The talks will cover the following topics:

• Introduction to the culture of the area (cultural images and symbols: personalities, architectural features, popular images, music...) and a short historical perspective of its business culture.
• Examining values and attitudes: commercial values (advertisements and commercials)
• Attitudes and values at work: hierarchies, status, approach to work, negotiation, etc.
• Employment (jobs which pay an hourly wage, jobs with prestige, facts about working hours, benefits or extras eg health insurance, qualifications required, etc.) shopping, housing, dating.
• Meetings and negotiations.
• Verbal and non-verbal communication (greetings, introductions, gestures, space conception, etc.) in the business world.

Evaluation

80% of total attendance to classes and active participation in the course is a compulsory requirement to be assessed.

Evaluation is based on the sum of marks of all the assessed activities done during the
course. The percentages of the assessed activities are the following:
• Class attendance 10%
• Cultural identity presentation 20%
• Final Project 40%
• Test 30%
You need to obtain 50% of the total average to pass the course. All the activities that
have not been done or turned in on the due date cannot be repeated and will count 0
dots.
RESIT test: In the event you fail the course, you can repeat the Final Test (30%) in June.

Methodology

There will be time for discussion, cooperative learning tasks and teamwork about the topics covered during the presentations.