Intercultural Management: Vital Skills for IB Students
The Center for Global Business is committed to equipping students with the knowledge and skills they need to navigate the complexities of the global environment. As evidenced by the importance of poor cultural fit in global M&A failures, understanding culture’s role in international collaborations of all kinds is vital.
Intercultural Management, taught by CGB Director Deirdre Mendez, provides students with a chance to benefit from her research and expertise using her book The Culture Solution. Available to all UT undergraduates, the course guides students in understanding how diverse cultural groups view business interaction, processes, and problem-solving. It builds skills and strategies for managing multicultural teams, resolving conflict, and achieving cultural synergies. As they learn, students apply course concepts to their own experience working on intercultural teams.
The course derives from Mendez’ work as an international business consultant, during which she honed her method for teaching intercultural problem-solving. “The opportunity to offer students the same skills I was teaching executives — before they even entered the workforce — was one of my principal motivations for coming back to academia”, she says. “It’s thrilling to watch students’ abilities evolve as they learn to build strong intercultural relationships and leverage the strengths of multicultural perspectives.”
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