Walter Hutchens’ Blog

Next January I plan to lead, along with another business school colleague, a travel course to China. It will be the fifth time I have done so, and I am looking forward to it.

For each previous trip I arranged pre-departure meetings in which I lectured about Chinese history, culture and current events, trying to give participants a crash course to enrich their experiences abroad (I usually required them to read a couple of books before we left, too).

As I have been thinking about the upcoming trip, I have, as always, felt that there is just way too much to say in only a few pre-departure meetings.

Each time this angst flares up I am reminded I should offer a semester-long, US-based course on doing business in China. I would enjoy teaching such a course, and I know it would be a great prelude to a travel course, laying a much richer foundation than I can possibly do in a few short meetings. For various reasons (some better excuses than others), I have never gotten around to drafting such a syllabus and proposing that course.

Well, this semester I am on family leave, enjoying a wonderful university benefit prompted by my son’s birth in November. That has allowed me to ruminate more on this, and finally I have done something about it. I have drafted a syllabus and formally proposed a new course for the fall semester of 2009.

Here’s the description I’ve come up with:

Fundamentals of Doing Business in China, BU 396, is designed to help you better understand China and operate in a China-influenced world. We will examine China’s economic development, its role in the global economy and the opportunities and challenges that confront nation-states, firms and individuals because of China’s ongoing transformations. Study of discrete topics (such as negotiating styles and banquet etiquette) and of specific sectors (such as foreign direct investment in real estate, banking or telecommunications) is informed by an overview of the historical, cultural, legal and political environment that often generates special characteristics when transactions involve China (forthcoming Fall 2009).

My draft syllabus is here. Comments and suggestions are welcome. I would be especially happy to get suggestions for readings, multimedia resources or cases that would be particularly good for a basic, intro. class on China. (There will of course be a range, but I assume many of the students will have virtually no China background, and the readings need to be in English).

I am glad I finally got around to doing this. Thinking about how to organize a “crash course” really is not that different than thinking about how to organize a longer course—one just has to prune even more painfully for the shorter version.

It will be great fun to add a semester-long China course to my repertoire. After being obsessed with China for nearly 20 years (actually, since I was myself a college student with no China background), it’s about time!