Seminar Topics
American Business in the Global Economy
The management concepts, techniques and systems that are taught and practiced in North America are based on North American culture and value systems, which may or may not work in a different cultural context. This seminar provides a comparative perspective on culture and its impact on management thought and practice. It also explores differences in management practices and corporate cultures between North America, Western Europe, and the Pacific Rim.
Corporate Governance, Ethics and Social Responsibility
The day-long seminar will examine business’s social role, with a focus on principles of individual and organizational ethics and social responsibility. Topics will include creating ethical organizational infrastructures and cultures, understanding ethical decision-making processes and barriers, and challenges inherent in corporate social responsibility programs. The seminar will also explore the principles and practices of sound, responsible corporate governance, with a focus on those activities that help to manage risk and reputation and encourage ethical and socially responsible behavior.
The Legal Environment of American Business
The seminar will explore a number of substantive legal topics impacting on business including: Product Liability and Consumer Protection, Torts (civil wrongs), Employment Law, Criminal Law, Intellectual Property, Governmental Regulation, Litigation and Dispute Settlement and Constitutional Law. The class will also examine the relationship between law and ethics. The professor will use lecture, case studies, film clips and group work.
Entrepreneurial Thinking: A U.S. Context
Overview: Entrepreneurship in the United States thrives at very high levels. As a result the United States outranks the rest of the world on key entrepreneurial framework conditions such as financial support, entrepreneurship education and training, and social norms favoring entrepreneurship. In light of this context, the seminar focuses on the way U.S. entrepreneurs think and develop their ability to find and exploit opportunities. Participants learn how to determine and pursue their goals by applying entrepreneurial thinking and behaviors to any business situation. The seminar presents simple frameworks that help participants organize their activities over time as they learn to follow the natural entrepreneurial process. The frameworks used encompass an understanding of the process of starting and growing a business and revolve around a model that links customer needs, the business model, infrastructure needed to operate the business model, and the resources required, for that specific business model.
Business Innovation through Advanced Information Technology
This seminar discusses particularly from the North American perspective how innovative organizations are using advanced IT solutions to transform the way they do business and how they discover new opportunities created by new technologies. The seminar covers several examples using cases and published reports, and its goal is to help participants understand how they can enable and encourage similar technology-based innovation processes. The seminar emphasizes the importance of understanding both business and technology in making IT-based business innovation a reality.
Customer Focus in U.S. Business Culture
The focus of marketing is increasingly shifting from product and brand management to customer relationship management and there is growing sentiment that perhaps we should think less about our brands and more about our customers. This seminar focuses on the concept of customer focus and customer relationship management in the U.S. business culture. It explores concepts, tools, and methods of customer relationship management (CRM).
