Graduate Courses

Spring 2010: MSFS-525 International Business Government Relations in the Global Economy
Faculty: Harrison, Ross

The purpose of this course is to give students a firm grasp of how and why governments and businesses interact the way they do across a wide spectrum of situations and issues, and to impart skills students will need to operate in a business-government relations milieu. In addition to looking at the interaction between business and government per se, we will examine how the structures, environments, interests, agendas, and constituencies of both parties shape the interactive relationship, and drive issue and policy outcomes.

The course will start with an analytic, organizing framework. We will look at governments and examine how their logics, environments, interests and agendas shape their policy responses to issues involving businesses. We will then examine businesses and how their logics, environments, interests and agendas shape their responses to issues involving governments. We will then leverage the frame developed to provide insights into business-government relations across a range of issues, actors, and geographies, in such spheres as environmental policy, intellectual property, developing country debt, national competitiveness, privatization, labor migration, and government regulation.

Spring 2010: CCTP-819 Technology, Culture & Development
Faculty: Singh, JP

This course examines how culture and institutions affect the political economy of technology and development. The main theme of the course is to examine the embeddedness of political economy institutions and property rights in culture. Part I of the course provides a historical look, mainly at Europe, toward understanding the cultural and institutional factors that facilitated or hindered the industrial revolution. We will also examine the implications and lessons to be drawn from applying such factors to the developing world. Part II of the course will examine the cultural and institutional aspects of the field of development communication for poor countries in post-colonial times. Part III of the course examines development project implementation in the context of culture. Issues such as mass media marketing campaigns, microfinance, electronic commerce, and telecommunications restructurings will be covered. Students will be asked to participate in actual development projects underway in Latin America, Asia and Africa through partnerships that CCT/Georgetown has developed.
There will be two other themes developed in the class. One will deal with the notion of cultural hybriditites — the intersection of micro level cultures with national and global ones — and the way that these influence development efforts. The other theme will explore how to translate abstract conceptions of culture and development into creative and common sense-oriented development options. We will also read works which deal with institutions and development and then investigate if they would gain from an insight into cultural issues. The readings are drawn from the works of economists, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, communication scholars, educationists, psychologists, international relations, and development practitioners.

Spring 2010: ACCT-390 Business, Accounting and Finance
Faculty: Solomon, Gerald

This course focuses in detail on basic finance and accounting techniques and will help students to develop a set of accounting and finance skills that can be applied to a variety of business problems. Course topics include the scope and nature of financial management, the tax environment of business, fundamentals of accounting, techniques of financial analysis and control, working capital management, and long-term investment and financing decisions. Case studies will be used.

Fall 2009: CCT-754 Networks and International Development
Faculty: Garcia, Linda

Today’s advances in communication and information technologies are redefining the networks of exchange linking countries worldwide. These structural changes in the global economy pose both opportunities and challenges for the developing world. In this class, we will examine the changes that are taking place, and determine strategies that developing countries might pursue to enhance their future social and economic prospects. As we shall see, how and to what purposes advanced networking technologies and deployed will depend not only on their technical characteristics and capabilities, but also–and perhaps more importantly–on the social, economic, and political forces driving their deployment and use.

Fall 2009: MSFS-583 Global Marketing Strategies
Faculty: Harrison, Ross

The course will focus on the fundamental marketing challenges faced by corporations, nation states and NGO’s. It will start by looking at global and local environments and address how marketing strategies must be adaptive to changes in these environments. We will then focus our analysis on the core disciplines of market definition and market segmentation. From this core we will transition into key areas such as market entry, market development, target marketing, brand management, product development, distribution channel management, customer relations management, advertising strategies, and pricing. Short lectures will introduce these functional topics to the students, but most of the work will be done thru in-class case discussion, analysis and evaluation. Though much of our case work will involve corporations, we will also look at market strategies for non-businesses entities such small countries and NGO’s.

Fall 2009: INAF-523 Globalization: Challenges for Developed Countries
Faculty: Moran, Theodore

This course develops the theoretical and practical tools needed to participate in the design of public policy, conduct business-government relations, and formulate some aspects of corporate strategy in the industrial economies of Europe, Asia and North America. The course focuses on policies to deal with the dilemmas of globalization, and to strengthen the competitiveness of firms, workers, and nations; strategic trade theory and contemporary trade policy; forward pricing, fair pricing, and dumping; outward investment and the A Great Sucking Sound; inward investment and the Who-Is-Us? Debate; critical technology development; foreign acquisitions and national security; and policies to enhance the returns to workers and slow the growing disparity in income. While concentrating on contemporary problems of public policy, business-government relations, and corporate strategy in the United States, the course contrasts dilemmas in North America with the corresponding experience in Europe, Japan, and to a certain extent China

Fall 2009: CCTP-743-01 Ethnography of Communication
Faculty: Dedaic, Mirjana

The ethnography of communication documents and analyzes communicative practices and investigates how they fit into a broader social context. Most commonly understood as a longitudinal qualitative methodology, ethnography is also a theoretical approach and, as will be demonstrated in this course, a dynamic way of seeing and being in the world. In this seminar, we will explore modes of inquiry and analysis that characterize the practice of ethnography of communication. Special attention will be devoted to the various phases of ethnographic fieldwork, from ‘entering the field’, collecting data, to writing/representing one’s findings.

The fieldwork will take place in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Individuals or small groups of students will select a communication site as her/his/their primary fieldwork area. As a researcher in training, you may choose any site to develop your project, including a classroom, courtroom, corporation, health care clinic, restaurant, mediation center, airport, church, fitness center, AIDS residential facility, post office, Congress, soup kitchen, support group, library or any other. Through your fieldwork, you will learn about participant observation, structured observations, interviews, narrative/oral history, and politics of representation. Our understanding of the value of each method will be enhanced through mini-phenomena frequently studied by sociolinguists and ethnographers of communication, and discussion and assessment of each method in terms of issues such as record keeping, objectivity/subjectivity, transcription, coding, and the relationship between theory and methodology.

Summer 2009: CCTP-789 The Global Services Economy
Faculty: Singh, JP

This course will examine the role of global governance processes in the rapid expansion of intangible commercial services flows in the international economy. These flows, heavily dependent on technology, include communication, education, finance, tourism, transport, and professional services. The World Trade Organization estimated world exports of commercial services to be $2.71 trillion in 2006. While overshadowed by merchandise exports of $11-8 trillion in 2007, the global services economy nevertheless represents the cutting-edge of high-tech globalization processes. The share of services in national economies varies from around 50 percent in low and middle-income countries to over 70 percent in high-income countries.

The central concern of this course will be global governance and technological processes that have shaped the evolution of the global services economy. We will specifically examine issues related to services liberalization, intellectual property, communication infrastructures, cultural industries, Internet governance and electronic commerce. We will also visit and/or listen to officials from the following international organizations in particular: International Telecommunication Union (ITU); United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD); World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO); and, World Trade Organization (WTO).

Summer 2009: CCTP-786 Globalization and Conflict Resolution
Faculty: Singh, JP

This course is divided into two modules, with the first week exploring security, human rights and humanitarian actions. It looks at the interactions between states and individuals within an increasingly legalized international context. It explores recent efforts to provide international humanitarian assistance (in cases of natural disasters or in cases of civil wars). The programme also focuses on international efforts to control the spread of weapons as well as on mechanisms for conflict resolution between states. The importance of international organizations will be examined, such as International Red Cross, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Council of Human Rights, as well as the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly or the International Court of Justice. The programme will also evaluate the role of NGOs and private initiatives in the protection of individual rights and the promotion of human security.

The second week covers global and regional integration. This thematic module focuses on the dynamics of trade and financial integration at a global and regional level. On the subject of trade, the module will highlight the role and influence of the World Trade Organization and of selected regional institutions (European Union, NAFTA, Mercosur, APEC). The course will highlight the status and main features of the Doha Round of trade negotiations as well as the current proliferation of preferential trade agreements. It will explore North-South relations through the prism of development, with a discussion on the importance of the UN Commission for Trade and Development as well as UNCTAD. On financial matters, the module will evaluate the need for international management of monetary and capital flows, with a focus on the current role of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and UN ECOSOC.

Spring 2009: INAF-508 Topics: IBD, Business, Government and the Global Economy
Faculty: Busch, Marc

This course offers an introduction to the political economy of international business. In today’s global economy, firms are as much in need of non-market strategies for dealing with governments and non-governmental organizations as they are in need of market strategies for competing with other firms. The aim of this course is to examine how these strategies interact in a marketplace that is increasingly shaped by the “visible hand” of governments and international institutions. In particular, the course surveys issues from the prevalence of so-called “border effects” (i.e., the way political boundaries impede the flow of commerce) to obligations under the World Trade Organization and the growing number of regional trade agreements (i.e., the North American Free Trade Agreement), and from labor and environmental standards to the strength of intellectual property rights.

Spring 2009: CCTP-670-01 Knowledge Management
Faculty: Bedford, Denise

In today’s world the sheer amount data and information crated by and accessible to individuals and organizations overwhelm us. But, the real challenge is the continual struggle to transform these into usable and reusable knowledge. This challenge faces all organizations – corporate enterprises, non-profits, educational institutions and government agencies. This course reaches behind the current fads regarding organizational knowledge management to explore the theoretical foundation for knowledge, its meaning and value, as well as policies and approaches for building capabilities to manage knowledge within and across organizational boundaries. By the end of this course, students will be able to articulate key knowledge management concepts, issues and trends regarding a variety of related topics, which include: Nature and topology of knowledge Knowledge economy Theory, policies, practices and problems for: – Knowledge capture/acquisition – e.g., mentoring, storytelling, social network analysis – Knowledge conversion/transfer e.g., documentation, cognitive learning, collaborative sharing and situated learning – Knowledge reuse/application- e.g., accessibility, infrastructure and reliability – Research strategies and methods – Roles in knowledge management – e.g., managers, intermediaries, facilitators, seekers, practitioners

Fall 2008: CCTP-760-01 Constructing National Identity through Communication
Faculty: Dedaic, Mirjana

We live in times of scattered identities, and the need for one overarching identity capable of unifying us with a larger group of people is deeply felt. It is national identity that provides us that sense of belonging to an imagined larger group that has more power and protective muscle than any other so-called “real” group. We are aware of the significance of our nation, which defines us and justifies our readiness to die and to kill others in its name. In today’s rapidly globalizing world, it is striking that nations survive and prosper, despite claims made by scholars who expected their inevitable extinction.

Benedict Anderson’s theory of the nation as an imagined community has attracted research from many fields, and created a fertile ground for interdisciplinary investigation. In this brand new course we will take an interdisciplinary approach to look into that theory in an innovative way. The course brings together theoretical insights from political science, social anthropology, psychology, linguistics, and communication and media studies to explain how national identity is constructed and why it survives. We will apply the theory to analyzing both American and non-American data discussing issues related to “nation” – globalization, immigration, international business, foreign wars, and many more fields of interest where we construct though communicative acts our “being an American”, “being a South African”, “being an Albanian”, etc., at once a geographical, psychological, normative, and political phenomenon. Our data will come from everyday living in America and elsewhere, from international politics, business and marketing/advertising, the media, national/government documents, pop-culture, and much more.Ultimately, reasons for the salience of national identity among all one’s social identities are explored through the communicative representations and justifications in written, spoken, and visual discourses.

Fall 2008: CCTP-505 Introduction to Communication, Culture and Technology
Faculty: Coventry, Michael and Turner, Jeanine

This course introduces students to some of the main approaches and issues that animate the Communication, Culture & Technology program. Students will explore interdisciplinary approaches to solving intellectual problems in communications, cultural, media, and technology studies. Students will also consider issues in the movement ofrom theoretical work to intellectual and interpretive practice. What does an interdisciplinary practice of communication, culture and technology studies look like? How do contemporary media environments create conditions for or against social change? How are distributed production and social media technologies changing how we work, relate, and interact with one another? How have communication practices influenced–and been influenced by–these new forms of interaction and space? What are the issues of power and agency which cut across these social, cultural, and individual media practices?After an opening section suggesting frameworks for interdisciplinary practice, the course is organized into macro and micro case studies under the following overarching themes:

* Media Industries, Media Use and Political-Social Change
* Social Relationships, New Technologies, and Distributed Production
* Subcultures, Work and Media

These themes—and the individual case studies grouped beneath them—are not comprehensive. Rather, students will explore vital CCT problems using a consistent set of questions from radically divergent disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological perspectives. In this sense, the students will learn approaches to think through problems, rather than a set body of knowledge, theory, or method.