BUS 390 - Supervised Study Abroad

Credits: 4
Planned Offering: Spring (when interest is expressed and departmental resources permit)

Topic for Spring 2011:

BUS 390: Supervised Study Abroad: Leadership and Cross-Cultural Management (4). Prerequisites: Permission of the instructor, other prerequisites as specified by the instructor, and approval of the International Education Committee. Topics of current interest in business administration for which international travel provides a unique opportunity for enhancing understanding. This course focuses on developing both leadership and cross-cultural management skills through immersing students in an intensive, leadership-rich, and culturally diverse environment. Guided by pre-trip lectures and readings on cross-cultural management, course participants live on a 50-foot bareboat yacht while travelling in the British Virgin Islands and the Leeward Islands. Students are required to adapt to their new and unfamiliar surroundings, both in terms of the vessel and the cultures visited. Students are required to assume many new roles and responsibilities on a daily basis. These responsibilities range from leading the crew as skipper, to utilizing newly developed navigational skills to plot the course to the next harbor and assure that the yacht arrives safely, to preparing and serving a meal to the crew. Students complete daily readings on leadership and discuss them with the crew once underway and maintain a daily log that applies the readings to their experience onboard. No prior sailing experience is required. Students engage with locals from a wide variety of cultures (British, French, Dutch, West Indian, Spanish) on a daily basis through a variety of planned activities, including shadowing leaders from various businesses in each port and interviewing local leaders to ascertain their perceptions on “leadership” and “cross-cultural management” issues. Shay