Department of Intercultural Communication and Management (ICM)

The ICM researchers are mainly concerned with the challenges of globalisation to enterprises, governments and individuals and these players' contribution to the globalisation. In a number of distincts, but mutually connected areas, they focus on the way globalisation changes and challenges management, organisation and regulation in the private and the public sectors alike. Across various perspectives and themes, special attention is paid to:

1) relations – e.g. between companies and their stakeholders at home and abroad, i.e. employees, consumers, customers, suppliers, subsidiaries, media, government, international and transnational institutions and networks; between government and its stakeholders at home and abroad, i.e. citizens, users, customers, enterprises, media, employees, international and transnational institutions and networks.

2) communication and culture – communication, discourse and mediation as well as culture and area studies.

The Department is responsible for the BSc. and MSc. programmes in International Business Administration and Modern Languages, the BSc. programme in Asian Studies, the BSc. and MSc. programmes in Business Administration and Organizational Communication, the BSc. programme in Business Administration and Political Science and the MSc. programme in Corporate Communication. Furthermore, the Department provides teachers and course coordination for a number of other study programmes at CBS, including CBS Executive.

Major research-related Department events in 2005:

- Jan. 2005: establishment of the Center for Business and Development Studies headed by associate professor Henrik Schaumburg-Müller

- June 2005: conference with Dr. Achilleas Mitsos, European Commission Director-General for Research, as the keynote speaker on the EU framework programme, the social sciences and the humanities (anchor: associate professor Lilie Chouliaraki, manager of the Media Hub)

- May 2005: international research symposium, "Managing Identities: New Media, New Methods", organised by associate professor Eric Guthey

- May 2005: international workshop on interpretative consumer research, organised by professors Suzanne Beckmann and Richard Elliot, Warwick University, in cooperation with the European Institute for the Advancement of Studies in Management

- Oct. 2005: appointment of R. Edward Freeman, Professor of Business Administration, Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, to the post of adjunct professor, with special affiliation to the Center for Corporate Values and Responsibility (anchor: associate professor Mette Morsing, center director)

- Nov. 2005: conference in connection with the final reporting of the LOK project Brand studies headed by professor Majken Schultz, in cooperation with PhD student Yun Mi Antorini and assistant professor Fabian Csaba.

The key area of Department research is the field of tension between local and global issues. ICM research has three centres of gravity: management, organisation and regulation; the international perspective and the cultural and communication analysis perspective. The Department's ability and desire to combine elements of the three centres of gravity with themes from various platforms is what gives its research a particular edge. The Department's academic profile is thus characterised by a highly interdisciplinary approach that is very much inspired by the linguistic and cultural slant of the social sciences.

Seven different platforms characterised by partially overlapping membership and connected themes form the primary internal bases of the Department's researchers and their projects: the Center for Corporate Social Responsibility (associate professor Mette Morsing, centre director); the Center for Business and Development (associate professor Henrik Schaumburg-Müller, centre director); the Media Hub (headed by associate professor Lilie Chouliaraki); the Cultures, Organizations and Management Cluster (associate professor Eric Guthey, cluster coordinator); the Governance Cluster (associate professor Hans Krause Hansen, cluster coordinator). In addition, a number of ICM researchers are also attached to Imagine, the Creative Industries Research (established and managed by professor Brian Moeran, who spent 2005 in Japan as a visiting professor, however) and the Asian Research Center (see ARC).

It is ICM's goal to continue to develop and challenge the interfaces between various centres, clusters and hub structures to ensure that they are the sources of mutual inspiration and innovation and that they each permit the exploration of a more focused agenda by interacting with researchers and practitioners from Denmark and abroad.

We do that by endeavouring to recruit and retain good researchers by cultivating the Department's research infrastructure within and across research groups. In 2005, we applied resources to create an interest in the industry PhD programme within selected themes and to search the EU framework programmes for opportunities. The Department has been fairly successful in connection with the annual allocations of the Danish Social Science Research Council and the Danish Development Research Council, but we are also aware that many, extremely time-consuming applications do not bear fruit.

The Department has obtained a strong position in areas such as corporate branding, mergers and acquisitions, value management, corporate social responsibility, business and development, media, discourse analysis and Japanese economic culture and governance. The Department's cultural and communication analysis approach means that elements of its research feed into and contribute to the field of corporate communications. Similarly, elements of the Department's research contributes to the very broad and comprehensive "area studies", and the related perspectives of the area studies also give rise to different research issues in connection with studies of, e.g. global media, creative industries, governance, international political economics and the social responsibility of enterprises.

Research results

Measured by the number of publications, 2005 saw an upward trend in several categories with many fine performances that support CBS' focus areas. The positive development is the result of a decline in excessive teaching in 2004 and especially in 2005 combined with individual research publication cycles. At the same time this development is also attributable to the emerging new publication trend: the effort to publish research results in international journals, anthologies and monographs is much more targeted than before, while the number of Danish publications and working papers is declining. For example, several researchers have published their results in journals on the CBS TOP 60 list and ICM's list of departments. As regards "proceedings", it should be mentioned that Sven Bislev and Simon Ulrik Kragh were nominated for Best International Paper (track: Management, Education and Learning) at the Academy of Management 2005.

In 2005, ICM participated in the inter-faculty evaluation of communication research at CBS. The final report from the two international evaluators generally described the communication research at CBS in favourable terms, but did not deal specifically with the contributions of the participating units, and it has not been considered by the governing bodies to date.

Despite the decline in excessive teaching, the Department continues to make great demands on the many members of staff who are involved in study reforms and development and receive very modest compensation. The pressure on the already scant research time is expected to continue in 2006 and will be accentuated by the research time reduction.

Research relations to practice

Again in 2005, the CVR Center cooperated with partners in the business community at home and abroad, e.g. via its activities in EABIS, the European Academy of Business in Society. Two projects jointly financed by the LOK allocation and enterprises were completed in 2005: a major 3-year project entitled International Aspects of Corporate Branding (headed by professor Majken Schultz) and a smaller 1-year project: Communication, knowledge sharing and intercultural competence – Danish companies in Japan (associate professor Lisbeth Clausen). Other projects with particular relations to practice include " Outsourcing for Development" (associate professor Michael W. Hansen) and " Franske Business eliter og den ny økonomi" (French business elites and the new economy) (associate professor Mette Zølner) and a project on Creative Organisations (visiting professor David Barry).