A86047 Human Resources & Project Management in Multicultural Context

The students will be able at the end of the course to analyze and diagnose professional behaviors, in order to understand properly the  human dynamics which evolve within a multicultural  organization and specifically a during  project  process,  including different cultural origins

They will increase the variety of possible behaviors,   enhancing the flexibility of their reactions to critical situations,  where an intervention is required, taking into account the cultural differences and adjusting consequently  their modalities of interactions

They will be provided with the  cultural basics to deals with the main cultural areas, such as the Anglosaxon-European and the  Asian world, with a particular analysis of the Japan case

They will develop the skill of thinking and acting beyond stereotypes and of  fostering the contribution of other culture members,  respecting the different visions they belong to

The student will receive and  develop a  solid background  on the main classic theories and approaches to the multicultural problem in managing people and projects

Furthermore , they will be aware of the most advanced evolutions  of though and schools which are under construction,  to tackle the globalization challenge.

This cultural and cognitive base will allow the students to perform autonomously specific studies  towards  targeted countries and cultures, when they will be asked to perform as far as HR and Project management are concerned

They will be able to refine the models they will learn through the personal experience, thanks to the  methods adopted in the lectures

The contents  forming the programme will be scattered through  the  class lectures, according to the state of students'  pedagogic evolution and in a recursive way.

This because the  didactic strategy asks the same issue to be dealt with in more than a lesson, with different deepness and facets, for a more complete understanding 

The  topics which compose the  overall programme are:

1. Classic schools tackling the multicultural problem
2. The culturalistic school, the convergent school,the contingent school
3. The Hofstede's approach,its validity and limits
4. New schools induced by the globalization and the technological leap
5. The forth way, beyond knowledge and experience ( the Black Box Approach)
6. How  the human resource management faces the cultural differences
7. The main cultural areas and their common aspects : country culture, gender culture, generational cultures, organizational cultures
8. Cultures and subcultures, their interactions
9. Impact  of cultural differences on the project management
10. Fundamentals on complex organizational structures and project processes  and their adaptability to country cultures
11. How cultures influence HR management and project management :

• Hiring , developing and retaining people
• The organizations' influence over the workers' behaviour
• The peculiarity of the projects in HR management
• The role of expatriates in the MNEs
• Finding agreements
• Motivation and commitment
• Negotiation and mediation
• Organizing programs and people in project
• Conflict Management
• Measuring performances
• The problem of marginalities
• The issue of ethics and religion: its impact on work and people management
• The main geographical cultures: Europe, USA, Asia., different visions  of the world and their impact
• Power and Leadership Styles
• Different use of the time
• Impact on Merger and acquisition
• Change management between different cultures
• Cases of success and failure, learning  from the experiences
• Future trends in the multicultural disciplines evolution

The pedagogic method includes the following factors:

•  Theories and  models to   create a common and scientific language
• Examples from the real experience of the teachers
• Vision of Audiovisuals to test the students level of theories mastery
• Students cases to challenge the teachers
• Case studies of success and failures
• Testimonials of managers belonging to different cultures
• Workshop in subgroups and discussion in plenary
• Feedback to the class most significant multicultural behaviors
• Readings at individual level for discussion in plenary

The exam will be in written form, at the end of the course

The students will be able to assess themselves their level of preparation during  the discussions held in class