Campus

International Summer School Schmalkalden

An Introduction to our special International Programme at the University of Applied Sciences

Schmalkalden

Campus

IntroductionIntroduction

The International Summer School Schmalkalden 2009 focuses on the challenges confronting the world economy under the conditions of cross-cultural management. The second millennium ended by bringing a truly global dimension to economic activity: the prerogative of the market extended its reach even to those countries which had resisted it for decades;

the well-advanced internationalisation of economic relationships has resulted in significant interdependence between regions and countries and an increasing integration of previously peripheral societies into the world economy. Matching these empirical trends, theories of 'globalisation' have grown in influence in academic and public policy circles since the end of the Cold War. According to this emerging orthodoxy, long-standing conditions of time, space and territoriality have been transformed, or even made obsolete, by world-wide trends.

Campus

The third millennium has begun in the realisation that world-wide economic activity does not necessarily entail a growing similarity between systems of economic governance or between business practices, despite the ever increasing importance of multinational companies and the free flow of capital around the globe. Instead, inherited tradition and cultural difference are said to play a more important role than ever before as global trade and investment bring once nationally-orientated economies and firms into intimate contact and hence intense competition with one another. These developments make the role of contrasting and sometimes conflicting cultural value-systems highly relevant in two regards: first, differing approaches to the means and purposes of economic activity deriving from non-Western philosophies and cultures have consequences for the way in which, for example, Asian, Latin-American or African countries understand their role in the international economy and the trade policies they adopt as a consequence. Second, individual firms interested in expanding their activities to countries where ‘western’ technocratic rationalism is confronted by religious-based value systems (e.g. Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity or Islam), have to be able to adjust their market-entry, negotiating and trading strategies to ‘fit in’ with local conventions and sensibilities.

Campus

The challenges of the new economic reality do not, however, stop there. The enormous increase in international financial transactions, especially on the currency markets, over the past decades has been one of the clearest indications of the interconnected nature of today’s world economy. Financial crises, for example, are no longer limited to one country, or even one continent, but have global implications. At the same time international capital flows and international trade act as a motor of further globalisation, linking the fates of the richest and poorest economies. With new communications techniques facilitating 24-hour round-the-world financial transactions, nation states are said to have lost much of their capacity to maintain control of, and to steer, their economies. Consequently the possibility and desirability of government intervention in pursuit of traditional goals such as stable economic growth, high levels of employment, the survival of national industries and equality via the welfare state, are increasingly called into question. The developed democratic states face competing and possibly contradictory demands: the creation of appropriate conditions for economic growth in global markets (flexibility) versus the maintenance of social cohesion (regulation). The ever-more integrated world economy is also made responsible for global ecological damage, financial and economic instability, starvation and mass migratory pressures, and the gap in wealth and health that separates the rich West from the poor rest.

Campus

Paradoxically, it is at the very time that the market is universally recognised as the only viable form of economic and social organisation, and the challenges and alternatives to it least effective and credible, that the victory of a liberal world economic order is more likely to engender pessimism and fear than faith in a new era of growth and development. Some of the most trenchant and fundamental recent critiques of global markets have notably come from practitioners and former proponents of free market capitalism. The speculator George Soros has commented that he finds ”it easier to imagine the collapse of the global marketplace than the continuation of the present regime”, while one-time neo-liberal advisor to Margaret Thatcher, Prof. John Gray, now believes that ”by allowing ... freedom to world markets we ensure that the age of globalisation will be remembered as another turn in the history of servitude”.

Campus

The fear of an impending economic crash as a result of the advent of international ‘turbo-capitalism’ is, however, perhaps less indicative of the state of the real economy than it appears. The exaggerated sense of a world economy out of control is encouraging the view that capitalism's problems stem from excess, from growing too fast, and that it needs to be reined back. With governments announcing action plans involving some extension of international regulation, control and containment, today's instinct for restraint in business and finance (as shown by decreasing levels of investment and the growth of ‘risk management’) is likely to be reinforced. A possible real danger in the major economies is that the hype about a global crisis will strengthen the impulse of business and political leaders to downplay the international economy’s potential for growth. The mentality which both inflates the difficulties and then reacts by saying 'hold back' could be a bigger threat to economic and social progress than either the possibility of a traditional economic crisis in the West, or the fall-out from financial disarray elsewhere.

Campus

Guest professors from different countries and continents are invited to give us their views on these issues. The wide variety of countries, cultures and religions represented by our international students provides a timely and unique opportunity to investigate the impact of contrasting cultural-religious value systems on international business. Our goal is that students participating in the ISSS will be offered, and be able to develop through the exchange of perspectives and experiences, detailed knowledge and understanding of the complex and interwoven challenges facing economies and firms in the new millennium. In addition, the growing importance of religious values and their economic implications will be examined in multicultural classes and develop the students’ cross-cultural abilities to prevent Huntington’s “clash of civilizations”.

ISSS 09 ISSS 09 ProgrammeProgramme 1st week 1st week13th International Summer School Schmalkalden (ISSS):

International Economics and Cross-Cultural Management08 June – 14 June 2009

1st week

week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

08.06.-14.06. 8:00-20:00 arrival at

Schmalkalden

room C 301building CFaculty of

Business andEconomics

(“Wirtschaft“)Blechhammer

98574Schmalkalden

11:00-12:00C 201Richert

Obligatory Registration

12-14 C 201Wymer

12-14 C 207 Vallejo

14-16 C 201Ward

14-16 C 207Castañeda

16:45-17:30

SchmalkaldenTour

18:00-22:00Opening

CeremonyWilhelmsburg

Castle

22:00-2:00Opening PartyStudents’ Club

10-14 C 201Wymer

10-14 C 207Vallejo

14-18 C 201Ward

14-18 C 207Castañeda

10-13 C 201Wymer

10-13 C 207Vallejo

14-17 C 201Ward

14-17 CCastañeda

W10-12 C 201 Wymer

10-12 C 207Vallejo

12-14 C 201Ward

12-14 C 207Castañeda

16:00-17:00C 201 exam

Wymer

16:00-17:00C 207 exam

Vallejo

18:00-19:00C 201 exam

Ward

18:00-19:00C 207 examCastañeda

09:55 – 20:00Trip to Weimar

and Erfurt

bus stop Näherstiller

Straße(opposite

to Aldisupermarket)

09:55 – 16:00Trip to

WartburgCastle

bus stop Näherstiller

Straße(opposite

to Aldisupermarket)

ISSS 09 Programme 2nd weekISSS 09 Programme 2nd week13th International Summer School Schmalkalden (ISSS):

International Economics and Cross-Cultural Management15 June – 21 June 2009

2nd week

week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

15.06.-21.06. 10-14 C 104Schmidt

10-14 C 201Luther

14-18 C 201García

14-18 C 207Herbert

10-14 C 201García

10-14 C 207Herbert

14-18 C 104Schmidt

14-18 C 201Luther

20-22Schmalympics

OpeningCeremonyon Campus

22-24Schmalympics

Party on Campus

10-20Schmalympicssports events

20-2Schmalympics

VictoryCeremony

22-1Midnight-Sun

Lecturein the forest

10-14 C 104Schmidt

10-14 C 201Luther

14-18 C 201García

14-18 C 207Herbert

21-22Schmalympics

Closing Ceremony

22-1Schmalympics

Party on Campus

10:00-11:00C 104 exam

Schmidt

10:00-11:00C 201 exam

Luther

11:30-12:30 C 201 exam

García

11:30-12:30C 201 exam

Herbert

Trip to Berlinand Potsdam

13:25 departure

NäherstillerStraße

opposite to Aldi

ca. 18:30 arrival at Berlin

Berlin Potsdam

ISSS 09 Programme 3rd weekISSS 09 Programme 3rd week13th International Summer School Schmalkalden (ISSS):

International Economics and Cross-Cultural Management22 June – 27 June 2009

3rd week

week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday

22.06.-27.06. 10-14 C 201Chittick

10-14 C 207Luther

14-18 C 201Gordon

14-18 C 207Barbosa

10-14 C 201Chittick

10-14 C 207Luther

14-18 C 201Gordon

14-18 C 207Barbosa

21-2International

PartyStudents‘ Club

10-13 C 201Chittick

10-13 C 207Luther

14-17 C 201Gordon

14-17 C 207Barbosa

10:00-11:00C 201 exam

Chittick

10:00-11:00C 207 exam

Luther

12:00-13:00C 201 exam

Gordon

12:00-13:00C 207 exam

Barbosa

18:00-6:00Thuringian

ForestMidnight-Sun

LectureRichert

meeting point:C 101

14:00-16:00accommodation

check(please stay

at home)

17:30photo of all

ISSS studentsat

WilhelmsburgCastle

18-22Graduation Ceremony

at Wilhelmsburg

Castle

22-lateGood-by PartyStudents‘ Club

:9:00

check out & departure

(early morning)

Campus

The campus & its buildingsThe campus & its buildings

Klick on the buildings on the map to get further information

Building D

Building C

Building S

Building A

Building F

Building E

Building B

Building H

Building I

Building K

Building G

Building R

Campus

Building A – Office BuildingBuilding A – Office Building

Campus

Building B – Computer Science & Building B – Computer Science & Electrical EngineeringElectrical Engineering

Campus

Building C – Business & EconomicsBuilding C – Business & Economics

• basement– StuRa office– lavatories

• ground floor:– PC room– class rooms– information boards

• first floor– class rooms– Aula

• second floor– Professors‘ offices– ISSS offices C 301 and 307

Campus

Building C -inside-Building C -inside-

Campus

Building D – Business LawBuilding D – Business Law

Campus

Building E – Mechanical EngineeringBuilding E – Mechanical Engineering

Campus

Building F – Computer ScienceBuilding F – Computer Science

Campus

Building G - GymBuilding G - Gym

Campus

Building H - AuditoriaBuilding H - Auditoria

Campus

Building I - LibraryBuilding I - Library

• opening hours:http://fh-sm.de/Oeffnungszeiten.html

• outside reading area• meeting & multimedia rooms• single studying rooms• several PCs and workplaces• WLAN available in all rooms

& LAN access in single studying rooms

Campus

Building K - Building K - RectorateRectorate

Campus

Building R – Mensa & CafeteriaBuilding R – Mensa & Cafeteria• Mensa

– opening hours:Mon – Thu: 7 a.m. – 2 p.m.Fri: 7 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

– breakfast buffet– lunch menu

– 4-6 different meals– including vegetarian meal– salat buffet– plan of menus on web:http://www.studentenwerk-erfurt-ilmenau.de/mensen/speiseplan.php?mensaid=4

• Cafeteria– opening hours:

Mon-Thu 14 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Campus

Building S - DormitoryBuilding S - Dormitory• ground floor:

– BAföG - office– Studentenwerk – officewashing cards 5€ or 10€(each washing or drying 2,20€)– washing machines & dryer– students‘ club opening hours:

Mo + Wed – Fri: 8 – 12 p.m.Tuesday: 8 p.m. – 2 a.m.

• 1st – 5th floor: apartments;rooms in student communities up to three people– own room– shared bathroom & kitchen

Campus

Schmalkalden – The citySchmalkalden – The city

city information:http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http://

www.stadt.schmalkalden.de&langpair=de|en&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=/language_tools

webcam Schmalkalden:http://www.antenne-sm.de/Webcam/Webcam.html

weather in Schmalkalden:http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/GMXX4082_c.html?force_units=1

picture: Touristinformation Schmalkalden©www.schmalkalden.de/(blick_durch_die_altstadt_zum_schloss_wilhelmsburg.jpg)

Campus

Church “St. Georg“Church “St. Georg“

Schmalkalden is on the 'GermanTimber-Framed Houses Trail'. The listed buildings in the historic town centre, with their air of medieval romance, are particularly attractive, as are the late-gothictown church of St. George and the Wilhelmsburg Castle.

Campus

Castle “Wilhelmsburg“Castle “Wilhelmsburg“

This is the only Hessian castle in Thuringia and was built between1585 and 1590. It exhibits wonderful wall paintings and stucco work. In thecastle church there is a small,still playable organ which countsamong the most impressivelisted musical instruments northof the Alps.

picture: Touristinformation Schmalkalden©www.schmalkalden.de/ ( 1.schloss_wilhelmsburg.jpg; 2.schlossanlage_wilhelmsburg.jpg)

Campus

The historical centre of SchmalkaldenThe historical centre of Schmalkalden

Schmalkalden is one of the oldest and most beautiful towns in Thuringia, situated between steep,romantic hills and woods. The town was first officiallymentioned in 874 and has had an eventful history since then.

picture: Touristinformation Schmalkalden©www.schmalkalden.de/(fachwerkensemble_mohrengasse.jpg)

Campus

Martin Luther‘s house in the historical centreMartin Luther‘s house in the historical centre

In 1531 the protestant nobilityformed the 'League of Schmalkalden' against the emperor Charles V.Subsequently Martin Lutherpublished the ‘SchmalkaldenArticles’, one of the foundingdocuments of the Protestantreligion, here in 1537.

picture: Touristinformation Schmalkalden©www.schmalkalden.de/(lutherhaus.jpg)

Campus

Partneruniversities worldwidePartneruniversities worldwide

Campus

Partneruniversities - EuropePartneruniversities - Europe

Klick on the stars on the map to get further information

Campus

Partneruniversities – AmericaPartneruniversities – America

Klick on the stars on the map to get further information

Campus

Partneruniversities – Asia & AustraliaPartneruniversities – Asia & Australia

Klick on the stars on the map to get further information

Campus

ISSS – IMPRESSIONSISSS – IMPRESSIONS

Campus

Campus

Campus

Campus

Campus

Campus

Campus

Campus

Campus

See you soon in Schmalkalden!

Enroll now and enjoy a great time at the ISSS