Incorporating culture in business class

In some ways, business is business. It doesn’t matter where or who you are, the same economic principles apply. But in many many more ways, culture, language, geography, and many other factors make doing business around the world quite challenging. Next year when I teach business, I feel like one of the most important takeaways for my students will be helping them understand some of the ways business is done in many parts of the world, and asking the students to make connections so they can navigate through their own journeys when the time comes.

I still own 10% of a 20 million dollar per year company in America. When I was CEO of a billion dollar project last year, most of the funding for the project (being built in America) was from China. I will be teaching non-Chinese students in my classroom, which will be located in China. I help fund a non-profit that does incredible humanitarian work in East Africa, and I have advised or mentored a few people in Northern Europe. All of this experience gives me some ability to share useful ideas with the students, but it barely scratches the surface on ways that culture influence business practice. My first responsibility will be to help the students understand how important these differences are, so they will be motivated to learn them and respect them.

It is very important for students to learn and respect cultural differences in business in order for these students to succeed later on. All of my students will be children of expatriates and will understand right away much of the significance of appreciating other cultures. I hope that we will have enough of a diversity of students that we can actually build on what each of the students bring to the classroom. These will be well-travelled students who appreciate culture and diversity.

How will I know they are developing cultural competence? I think the best ways to assess this will be to integrate Chinese and other cultures into the business projects we complete. As I have touched on earlier, I plan to have the students compete in small groups to form effective businesses. While it is entirely possible some of these students will be creating online businesses, most will likely be doing something in the community. I will also ask students to reflect on the impact of culture on their multiple projects, and I think making culture an area of emphasis will help me to determine how well the students are integrating culturally.