Summer University at K.H. Kempen University College, Geel, Belgium August and September 2011

Module: Dealing with Global Challenges (29/8 - 11/9)

Intended audience

This module is useful for students in the field of: agriculture, biotechnology and environmental studies, technology and chemistry, nutrition and dietetics, social sciences like occupational therapy, orthopaedics, teacher in secondary education, social work and nursery, applied economics like business and supply chain management, entrepreneurship and office management

prerequisites

Students have to be in their second or preferably third year of a bachelor degree programme.

Content

The subject of this module is ‘global challenges’. All professionals, dealing with whatever business at some stage in their jobs need to react on preconditions that come from the outside world. There are six main global challenges that we would like you to get familiar with:

1. a. Technological crisis: developments and limits to growth:  ICT- illiteracy, Moore’s Law leading to FIGI-shocks (Free, Interactive, Global ad Individual)
2. a. Economic crisis: monetary stability and growth leading to (un)employment, wealth, international debt and (de)industrialization
3. a. Inequality in the world: socio-economic inequity, human development indicators, North-South relations and development cooperation
4. a. Demographic crisis: aging society, overpopulation, urbanization and population density leading to migration, refugees and traffic in women
5. a. Commodity crisis: depletion of fossil fuels, minerals and food
6. a. Ecological crisis: climate change, biodiversity-loss, Co2-emission, overshoot and ecological footprint, Rockström-diagram and BAU-assumptions.

The main point however, is how to deal with this challenges. For each of the six challenges above we will suggest and discuss solutions

1. b. International projects and cooperation: success factors, opportunities and challenges
2. b. Globalisation vs. neoliberalism, international political relations and treaties that enhance cooperation and sovereignty, international organisations: UN, NATO, OSCE, Council of Europe, EU
3. b. Liberation theology and pedagogics of the suppressed (Paolo Frère), human rights, social justice and views on humanity or actions proposed by the Copenhagen Consensus
4. b. Theory about diversity, intercultural models and gender, cultural evolutionism, culture clash, cultural relativism, cultural dominance, intercultural communication (Hofstede, Lewis, TOPOI, digital storytelling),
5. b. Millennium goals and food security, Fair Trade and micro credits (Yunus)
6. b. Sustainable development: ecological justice, divergence and convergence resilience, cradle to cradle, Life Cycle Assessment

Module: Windows Server: from scratch to operational (16/8 - 27/8)

Target Audience

The target audience for this module is the IT-aware student, who understands the general concepts of a computer network but wishes to roll out a basic server setup for a small to medium sized company.

Prerequisites

• Fluent navigation of a Windows desktop computer
• A basic idea of the inner workings of a PC, e.g. driver installation and hard drive formatting
• General knowledge of computer networks
• No in-depth knowledge of network protocols, server architectures or virtualization is required

Content

The course starts with a quick introduction to computer networks, IP-addresses, default gateways and routing. Afterwards every student installs a domain controller in virtualized environment, which will be expanded with the necessary server roles gradually. This will begin at a file server with user permissions and continue over a webserver to end with a very basic installation of Exchange mail.

We will use VMware ESXi as virtualization server and Microsoft Server products for all remaining features.

The course will be very hands-on, and the practice of implementing security and backup, administration of the server, detecting, locating and fixing errors will be an integral part of the module.

Module: Dutch for beginners (16/8 - 27/8) (29/8 - 11/9)

This module is a general Dutch course for absolute beginners. The main emphasis is on skills and elementary knowledge of the language.

Students study Dutch as an instrument for giving and receiving information, for expressing thoughts, feelings, experiences and opinions.

All language skills are trained in a realistic and communicative setting. Varied listening and reading exercises provide real life situations in which vocabulary, speech acts and grammar feature in a natural way.

At the centre of the course is an entertaining soap about some foreign students and their friends in Belgium.  

Module: French for beginners (16/8 - 27/8) (29/8 - 11/9)

Target audience :

all students with little or no knowledge of the French language and who need French in their upcoming studies

Prior knowledge :

none

Content :

vocabulary, grammar and speech acts on an A1 level (CEFR for languages)

Module: Business English and UK culture (16/8 - 27/8)

Target Group

You want to develop your speaking , listening, writing and reading skills in a business context. You want to get to know more about British culture. You are in your second or third year of higher education. A business background is not necessary.

Level of English required

You have an intermediate level of English, minimum CEF B1.

Contents

1. Business English
   Communication skills
   Numbers and Trends
   Cultural Differences
   Ethics
   Motivation
   Work Life Balance
   Writing emails
   Grammar/Pronunciation
2. UK culture
   The four nations
   People and Places
   National symbols
   Icons
   ….

Module: Business Intelligence (16/8 - 27/8)

Target Group

You  want to develop an insight in one of the upcoming trends and priorities in business: Business Intelligence or “BI”. At the same time you want to broaden your ICT skills by working with a BI tool.

You are in your second or third year of higher education. You are a business management student or you have an interest in business. Since we will not go deep into the technical aspects, ICT students are welcome to broaden their knowledge, but are not the main target group.

Level of English required

You  have  an intermediate level of English.

Contents

• What is Business Intelligence?
• Why is it important for your business?
• Who are the players on the market?
• Getting acquainted with a BI tool, developing BI user dashboards with that tool.
• The course is very practically oriented.

Module: Management Accounting (29/8 - 11/9)

Lecturer:

Dirk leysen

Course material:

Textbook Management Accounting : C. Horngren, A. Bhimani, S. Datar and G. Foster, Management and cost accounting, 4 edition, 2008, Pearson

Introduction to the course

This course focuses in detail on cast accounting and the use of accounting for decision making and management control in firms.

• Part I: Management and cost accounting fundamentals
• Part II: Accounting information for decision making
• Part III: Planning and budgetary control systems
• Part IV: Management control systems and performance issues
• Part VI: Quality, time and the strategic management of costs.

Structure of the course and course setup.

Each session there will be a plenary lecture (1 hour) and a tutorial (1,5 hour). Total class-time per student is therefore 2,5 hours. The lectures aim at improving the student’s knowledge and insight in management and cost accounting. The lectures will provide course presentations as well as discussions of cases and practical examples. During the tutorials exercises will be treated. These exercises should provide a good and representative preparation for the written exam.

Compulsory for

• BSc International Busines
• Pre-master Accounting
• Pre-master Financial Management
• Pre-master International Business
• Pre-master Logistics & Operations Management
• Pre-master Marketing Research
• Pre-master Strategic Management

Voorkennis

Course Financial Accounting.

Module: Consumer Psychology (16/8 - 27/8)

You’re interested in how humans think and reason. Why do people do what they do, why do they buy what they buy, why do we vote for that specific political candidate. These are all questions that find their answer in the course of consumer psychology.

• You want to gain insight in consumer psychology.
• You want to learn how people make decisions
• You want to know what influences they experience while making consumer decisions.

For starters we dig deeper into the general psychology. We discuss the history of psychology and take a closer look at social psychology and group dynamics. Further on we find out why consumers aren’t rational. We look at a number of influences. These influences can come from the consumer as an individual, or the groups or society to whom we belong. Last but not least we look at the new developments in consumer psychology, namely neuromarketing and transformative consumer research. Neuromarketing uses brain research to know what consumers want and think. Transformative consumer research focuses on the vulnerable consumer as such, not on the marketer who wants to sell his products and services.  

Module: Strategic Management (16/8 - 27/8)

Foreknowlegde of the public

Some knowledge of the meaning of a good sample and descriptive statistics associated to a sample is expected. Also it is expected that the participants are used to work within the MS Windows surroundings.

Contents

The goal of the course is to give an introduction to statistical testing. In particular we give some theoretical background on statistical testing without going deep into mathematical formulas. Some general tests are introduced during the course. Those tests are carried out using the statistical software SPSS. In particular the course is also an introduction to the use of the software package, however the aim is not to give a systematic overview of this package.

Depending on the knowledge on statistics of the participants parts of the contents can change during the course. In particular the following should be considered as the minimal contents.

1. Descriptive statistics: some important numbers related to a sample, summarising a sample
2. How to make a data file in SPSS
3. The concept of probability.
4. Some facts on normal distributions
5. The concept of a confidence interval
6. The p-value (significance) of a statistical test
7. Analyse of differences of mean values

Module: International Marketing (29/8 - 11/9)

Prerequisites

• Kotler's Principles of marketing or Kotler's Framework for Marketing Management
• Fundamentals of general economics and business management

Course weight

• 8 semester hours

Introduction

Big multinationals have been actively building the global marketing reality ever since the second halve of the 20th century.  Whilst academics worldwide have been analyzing, studying and guiding the process in virtually every discipline of company management.

At the turn of the century, this process was vastly speeded up by the internet . Not in the least because the internet gave even the smallest of SME’s  full access to the global economic fast lane . Though not  every sector has been evolving at the same speed, consensus is that today the global  marketing reality itself is inescapable – big or small, companies either join in or ignore the trend at their own peril.

Given the speed of the evolution, everyone involved in studying  the subject has largely focused on either “the big picture”, the big successes, the big stories and/or the technical mainstream of SEO, social media, and other emerging e-tools. Which is the most sensible thing to do for anyone caught in the internet evolution slipstream, trying to survive or get ahead in ongoing the race.

However: the majority of SME’s were not immediately absorbed in this global e-evolution. And those SME’s are now in the process of deciding not if but how, to what extent and at what speed they will join in. 
The internet gives them the capability to become rapidly or even “instantly” international. But although that makes international market development and international market penetration achievable goals for almost every SME, facts and figures proof it does not by itself make for international marketing success.

To create and manage that such international success, a thorough grasp of the available e-tools is  the least of a SME executives problems. The internet makes technical expertise commonly available. And for those not interested in DIY, expertise is relatively easy and cheap to hire.

The key problem lies in acquiring global marketing and management skills both fast, on a need-to-know-now basis and “on a shoestring”.

Unfortunately the vast majority of both textbooks and training programs tend to focus on time-intensive “large picture” thoroughness, expensive intelligence sources and difficult to enter full-service knowledge networks. Which makes a lot of SME’s hesitate to go “the long road”  before taking opportunities to internationalize.

On the other hand on the job learning often proofs to be rather expensive too. Even  if an SME goes international the “easy way” - on specific customer demand that is - expanding existing sales & marketing to fit a different market culture  seldom is without pitfalls. Vexingly often costs occur and opportunities are passed because marketing and sales people fail to read readily available signs  they don’t see the importance or meaning of.

Course positioning: international extension of bachelor education

This course is aimed

• Business management students planning to work in or start their own  SME.
• People working or planning to work in the commercial department of an SME.
• SME-owners and –starters contemplating internationalization

Our starting point is that each and every SME

• knows its own core business enough to be tapped into factual work field evolutions such as technological trends, outsourcing possibilities, …  
• has adequately trained personnel in every function including sales and marketing
• as far as marketing internationalization goes, has its own specific needs, limits and requirements. A  very individual mix depended on both sector, nationality of the company and timing / nature of a specific internationalization ambition.

What this course aims to add is an extension of existing marketing and sales knowledge towards the fundamental observation skills and insights needed to professionally start and  guide an SME on an effective, tailor-made international marketing development trajectory.  

The key concept is: during the course we built a solid working platform as a starting ground for  students to develop and manage their own “internationalization value”  by adding skills, new techniques, sector- and/or problem-specific knowledge, …  if and when the need arises in the course of their career.

During the course we will  explore

• key sources of and insights in available cases & lessons at present learned on the subject of internationalization,
• low-cost routes to reliable intelligence on and guidance towards  the international working environment for any given decision to internationalize an SME’s marketing
• low cost but effective ways to start coming to grips with different market and stakeholder cultures.

What makes this course unique

Starting from a solid theoretical frame, topic-trained observational and networking skills are without doubt the fastest , most effective way to built specific market insights needed to formulate valid working hypotheses.
Problem is that to develop those skills in the context of international marketing, one needs to train observing and networking in different national markets. Which is both expensive and time consuming. Unless you train at a location where “different national markets and international networks” are “at your doorstep”. Which is exactly where they are when you study at KHKempen.

This course directly builds on the opportunities offered by the unique college location:

• 2 hours by train from both Paris, the former  and London the present capital of European marketing internationalization
• 1 hour by train  to Antwerp, the second most multicultural city in the world offering unique cross cultural observation opportunities in both retail and media
• 1 hour by train to  Brussels, the city that seats both the European parliament and offers direct personal contact opportunities with  a major part of international trade organizations.
• Close enough to both the Netherlands and Germany to allow for real life international research experience in the course of the training.

Expect a solid theoretical basis, plenty of observation and network opportunities plus “real life” assignments in close cooperation with experienced international and internationalizing SME’s and their networks.

Course method and evaluation

The course is triple based :

1. Lectures, seminars and group discussion with transcripts provided on electronic platform
2. in field research projects to be published, discussed and group evaluated on electronic platform
3. a group assignment to be presented to and evaluated by both lecturers, students and a panel of SME stakeholders

The course is 360° graded on

• course contribution (33% - individual grade),
• submitted documents (33% - team grades)  
• given presentations (33% team grade with individual bonus/penalty).

Course schedule

• Section 1 : exploring and defining  the concept and possibilities of international marketing
  • Assignment: desk research on degree of internationalization
  • Field: local SME’s
• Section 2: exploring and analyzing information needed on international marketing environment
  • Assignment: observational research on international environment
  • Field: London & Paris
• Section 3: Cross cultural differences: how to observe and accommodate for them
  • Assignment: observational research on international 4P-adaptation to cultural differences
  • Field : Antwerp, Eindhoven, Cologne
• Section 4: exploring and testing available desk research and network sources
  • Assignment: exploratory research of available information through international facilitators
  • Field: Brussels + SME support for e-tools
• Section 5: real life planning and implementation of an international marketing plan
  • Assignment: make a marketing proposal for internationalization of a SME’s market offer
  • Field: local SME’s

Course objective

The main objective of this course is to develop a managerial understanding of both international marketing and the lay of the available intelligence and support sources & networks an SME can tap into to create and manage professional international marketing plans within the means available.

Core competencies

1. Specialized Business knowledge
   • Understanding the international component of business management in general and marketing management in particular
2. Managerial thinking skills
   • Analysis of information needs, information sources and information in the light of particular internationalization ambitions of a given SME
   • Evaluation of short and long term risks, skills and potential gains involved in a given plan for SME marketing internationalization
3. Communication skills
   • Actively taping into available social and professional networks and using own small scale qualitative research to develop and communicate cross cultural marketing insights
   • Both written and oral presentation of assignments
4. Cross cultural interpersonal skills
   • Develop language flexibility through communication with both native and non-native speakers
   • Use of tact and diplomacy through understanding of cultural differences
5. Ethical decision making skills
   • Responsible use of information and reporting, proper analysis – synthesis – evaluation of situations

 

Module: MathCad & Statistics (29/8 - 11/9)

Mathcad is computer software which makes mathematical or engineering calculations very simple. In Mathcad user can perform numerical and symbolic calculations. Mathcad is oriented around a worksheet, in which equations and expressions are displayed graphically (WYSIWYG). A worksheet can contain full text, equations and graphics. After each input, the whole worksheet becomes recalculated.

Possible topics of the lessons:

• Basic Mathcad techniques: entering and editing variables and functions, range variables and arrays.
• Numerical and symbolic calculations
• Plotting functions
• Solving equations: finding the roots of a polynomial, a trigonometric function, a general function. (f.e. sin(x/5) + x/2 - 12)
• Solving a system of equations
• Given a point and a circle (ellipse, ...), finding the line tangent the circle
• Given three elements of a triangle, finding the other elements.
• Graphics: Polar plot, 3D plot, animations * Plotting periodic functions
• Derivatives, partial derivatives and differentials
• Fourier series