Aims

This course intends to expose a limited group of international students to concrete applications of IHRM principles. With this course, we propose to examine actual situations where Human Resources Management is currently facing issues specifically generated by the multi-cultural dimension of the business. Those situations will be observed and discussed with Human Resources Managers from the Belgian site of several industrial and service companies : DuPont, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Total, McKinsey, Pfizer, Ion Beam Applications and Umi-core, among others. Refering to literature on multi-cultural HRM, found in a proposed bibliography and pro-ceedings of symposiums on that topic, the students will develop their reading of the situations and propose an original approach to them.

Main themes

The students will be grouped in international teams of 5 or 6. Each team will be assigned a company, and re-quired to understand, analyse and explain one of its current issue. The issue will be presented by -and discussed with- the HRM of their assigned company. Each team will prepare a Powerpoint report of their analysis and present it to their fellow-students by mid-December. A written report will be submitted before mid-January to the Professor and to the HRM of the studied organisation. This pedagogic approach requires a limitation of the number of participants to the course : the first 40 students who will register for the course will be admitted, un-der the condition they can prove a basic knowledge of multi-cultural management (and a minimum reading of the authors mentioned above). A test could be organised on the first course.

Content and teaching methods

Each team will be allowed a maximum of three site visits of one-and-a-half hour each to the HRM of the as-signed case company. Starting on the third week of September, appointments for the meetings will be fixed by the teamleader, at dates mutually agreeable. It is not required that all teammembers attend each visit. When possible, the Professor will join on the first one. Discussions will be in English. During the official period of the course -from mid-September until mid-December-, the Professor will make himself available for counseling the teams on their approach of the studied case, normally at the time of the course (Friday 16 :15 - 18 :15), or on request, at any other, mutually agreed, moment. He will also answer questions by telephone (010 475352), fax (010 455180) or e-mail (marc.fourny@acclivity.net), when possible. Most companies are in, or close to, Lou-vain-la-Neuve, but some visits will require travel organisation, which the students are expected to assume them-selves. The most distant company, DuPont, is located in Mechelen, 20 km North of Brussels. A CD containing a selection of articles selected from the proceedings of recent conferences will be handed to each team.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

The basis of the evaluation will be the analysis, resolution and presentation of the case done by the teams. Will be particularly used the following evaluation criteria :
collection of the relevant information about the IHRM situation. correct and accurate reflec-tion of the issue studied
proper use of the theoretical literature and empirical studies for the analysis of the case
adequate reporting and attention-catching presentation to a critique-prone audience the rele-vant use made of the theoretical and empirical material, the adequate collection and analysis of on-site information, and the presentation of sound conclusions.
Ideally, the team would have built an opinion about the way the visited company has adressed the multi-cultural issue facing the HRM, and would make suggestions as to alternative, or better, IHRM policies, approaches and tools. In each team, all members will be given the same score. This intends to reflect the quality of the collective contribution, the exploitation of the team cohesion and complementarity, and the internal work organisation, all of which should transpire during the final presentation.

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