Course Description

Do Chinese companies value authority more than U.S. companies?  Do German executives give positive performance reviews more often than their Brazilian counterparts?  How can I argue, express disagreement, and say ‘no’ effectively if I want to be successful in a career in another country?  The answers to these questions may surprise you.  We will pursue them (and many more!) in this class.  We will investigate international cultures and international businesses, and solve real problems that organizations face when they take their products and services to new countries.  With a strong focus on written communication, this course asks you to report on and analyze current and influential approaches to investigating culture, to come up with and describe in writing your unique approaches to investigating culture, and to present plans to a business or organization that advises that client how to expand its international footprint.  This course will be useful to students in the colleges of Business and ACES who will work with colleagues and clients overseas.  It will also be useful to students in the sciences who will work on international research and development teams, and students in the humanities who will study abroad as part of their major. 

Student Learning Outcomes

The broad goals for this course are for students to think critically about and to make decisions about communicating (with an emphasis on written communication) in a business context in different (with a strong emphasis on international) cultures.  This broad goal can be summed up as ‘writing inter-culturally.’

The specific goals of this course are for students to:

Understand that business has a culture, and analyze the ways that both are important to the business writing process.
Understand and analyze writing as a process that includes research (especially of an audience and desired outcomes), drafting, peer and instructor feedback.
Understand and analyze business writing as a process that requires knowledge of and use of genres.
Apply understanding of business writing to increasingly complex business problems.
Analyze, evaluate, and apply popular methods for researching business and culture.
Create and evaluate one’s own original ethos and method for writing in a cultural and business context.
Leverage technology and Illinois’s global footprint.