Tine
I would put them in groups with some scenarios to discuss which relate to typical dimensions of cross national difference.
The literature is not short of such examples, Trompenaars uses some good questions
eg.
You are driving in a car driven by a close friend. He is driving over the speed limit and hits a pedestrian. If you testify in court that he was within the speed limit you may save him from serious consequences. Would you: -
a) Testify that he was within the speed limit
b) Not testify?
This tends to draw out disagreement between people from universalist versus particularist cultures (eg much of Northern Europe versus much of Southern Europe)
Or set a scenario which pitches individual striving against group affiliation.
Or a question about the amount of direction a manager should provide in a scenario. (Italians tend to want firm directions Finnish students tend to be mystified that the manager should be expected to provide any :-)
This approach can work quite well - although of course the student's differences do not by any means always map onto the literature - there is a great deal of individual variation in any culture. Actually it is the conversation which ensues which is important and is capable of engaging them in a richer thinking about culture than can be provided by the very limited picture provided by any survey instrument.
However, I did learn an important lesson from one group of MBA students who I set such a series of tasks and asked to report back. They said the following:-
Actually in the end we decided that although there may be some minor cultural differences between us, we are all from fairly wealthy families, speak more than one language, buy similar brands, are internationally mobile and well travelled, have seen many of the same films and TV programmes, all have business experience, and are of a similar age. Our conclusion is that for most of us we have more in common with each other than with many of the people in our home countries.
I felt they had a good point - for some of our students the class gulf is greater than the national cultural gulf.
good luck
Mark
Prof. Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
Director, Programmes and Curriculum, OU Business School
& Professor of Organisational Behaviour
Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes MK7 6AA
United Kingdom
e-mail:
m.p.fenton-ocreevy@open.ac.uk
(DL) +44 (0)1908-655804
Fax: +44 (0)1908-655898
________________________________
From: International Management Division Discussion on behalf of Tine Koehler
Sent: Thu 15/03/2007 02:35
To:
IMD-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Seeking advice: How to use GLOBE study for teaching
Hello Everybody,
I have a question concerning the use of findings from the GLOBE study for teaching.
I am teaching a cross-cultural management class this semester. Together with a Finnish colleague, I created a collaboration between my American and his Finnish students. This coming week we would like our students to discuss leadership characteristics of their respective cultures. We would like to use the GLOBE study as basis for an exercise or an in-depth class discussion that can be extended into an email discussion that the students will continue to have after class.
Would anybody have suggestions or advice from his or her own teachings for such an exercise or for starting points for a discussion?
Ideally, we would like them to discover their cultural differences in preferred leadership characteristics on their own rather than just presenting results from GLOBE or other studies.
Thank you very much in advance. I appreciate any input or ideas you might have.
Tine Koehler
Tine Koehler, MA
Doctoral Candidate
Industrial & Organizational Psychology
George Mason University
tkoehler@gmu.edu