Richting Geven en Grenzen Verleggen

The final lecture of the course, on giving direction and crossing borders, and on what happens when a management style that works in one country fails in another.

Leadership

We start with the leadership style of Steve Jobs, which is admired and criticised in roughly equal measure, and use it to ask what leadership actually is. We classify followers, examine how engaged they are, and introduce situational leadership: the idea that the right style depends on the readiness of the people you lead. Then we return to the opening question. Was Steve Jobs a situational leader?

International Business

The second half crosses borders. BMW and Mercedes both disappointed in the Chinese market, and that gives us the question: what is international business, and why is a model that works at home so hard to transplant?

We contrast globalisation with localisation, define glocalization, and distinguish the types of company that result. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions give us a vocabulary for the differences, and we look at how the Netherlands scores on each of them.

Exam Preparation

The lecture closes with the exam: what the digital test looks like, where it takes place, what a pass means, and worked examples of the three question types, remembering, applying, and analysing. We end with the checklist for completing the course.

Required Readings

• Laasch, O. (2024). Principles of Business & Management: Practicing Ethics, Responsibility, Sustainability (3rd ed.). Chapter 8: Folleading.
• Laasch, O. (2024). Chapter 12: Glocalizing.

About the Course

This lecture is part of Inleiding Verantwoordelijke Organisatie, a first-year course in the BSc in Business Administration at Radboud University. The course examines how organisations create social, environmental, and economic value, and introduces the three dimensions of professional management: ethics, responsibility, and sustainability.

Alongside the lectures, students work in teams on the Young Innovators Project with the regional network organisation Lifeport MKB: each team researches an organisation in the Nijmegen region, visits it, and reports on what it found.