Engineering Across Cultures and Nations

Catalog description

Explores cultural differences and impact on business practices and team dynamics working on virtual project teams with global partner universities. Engineering Across Cultures and Nations is a core course in the Engineering Leadership and Innovation Management graduate program and focuses on the primary knowledge areas and essential competencies required for successful engineers to live and work in today's global marketplace. Within the context of engineering, the course will examine individual and cultural differences and how they impact communication and team dynamics. Students who complete the course will be able to understand sources of conflict that can arise from multicultural teams and effectively use the tools and resources discussed in class to manage individual and team motivation and minimize or effectively deal with conflict, while harvesting the benefits of diversity as they work on a real world virtual team project. Within an engineering context, students who complete this course will be able to: demonstrate a proficiency in team-building, leadership, and service; construct creative solutions to engineering issues incorporating cultural differences among team members, suppliers, and customers; critically analyze personal and team-member competencies and biases; formulate and apply strategies to improve team dynamics, compose effective feedback, recognition, motivation, and corrective guidance for international/intercultural team members; evaluate business opportunities within international and cross-cultural markets; and examine moral, ethical, and legal dilemmas in cross-cultural environments. These topics will be explored in an engineering context through engineering projects, guest lecturers, and discussions. The overall objective of this course is to provide students with a conceptual understanding of the impacts of multi-cultural influence on engineering problems and the leadership theory applicable for effective team performance.