Spring 2024 Business B8778 section 001

Global Immersion South Africa:

Global Immersion South Af

Call Number 14446
Day & Time
Location
F 9:00am-10:30am
680 Kravis Hall
Day & Time
Location
R 9:00am-10:30am
890 Kravis Hall
Points 3
Grading Mode Standard
Approvals Required None
Instructor Brett House
Type LECTURE
Method of Instruction In-Person
Course Description In the short span of three decades, South Africa has transformed itself into a consequential economic and political power, with membership in the G20 and BRICS, and a dynamically evolving business ecosystem. This forward-looking course will consider the opportunities created by South Africa’s multiple identities, the lingering implications of its particular history, its current challenges, and its position at the intersection of advanced and emerging global markets.
Through a combination of lectures, guest speakers, group projects, and site visits, students will have the opportunity to develop an intimate understanding of South Africa’s business environment and to extract insights and lessons on creating impact in a range of economic landscapes. The course will delve into crucial issues that include South Africa’s ongoing post-apartheid transformation, the role of natural resources in South Africa’s past and future, developments in the country’s burgeoning new-economy sectors, prospects for innovation and entrepreneurship, and the possibilities created by ever-greater integration with the rest of the African continent. With a focus on climate change, sustainable development, and social responsibility, this course will also look at how South African business has made tangible progress in grappling with this combination of triple-bottom-line imperatives. We will meet with a diverse collection of business, labour, government, and community leaders from a wide range of sectors, industries, and organizations. Meetings will include multinationals that have adapted themselves to South Africa’s specificities and home-grown businesses that are taking South Africa to the world. We will also enjoy some of the rich cultural diversity of this textured, multilingual, multi-ethnic society. The class will travel to Johannesburg and Cape Town during March 9–16, 2024.
Faculty
The course will be led and facilitated by Brett House, a Professor of Professional Practice in the Economics Division at Columbia Business School. In 1994, Prof. House taught economics at the University of Cape Town and worked with the University’s Development Policy Research Unit (DPRU) and the South African Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU). Also that year, Prof. House was a voter educator and election monitor with the Institute for Democratic Alternatives in South Africa (IDASA) during South Africa’s first elections under universal suffrage, which brought the ANC and President Nelson Mandela to power. Since then and
Web Site Vergil
Department Business
Enrollment 29 students (30 max) as of 11:06AM Saturday, December 7, 2024
Subject Business
Number B8778
Section 001
Division School of Business
Open To Business, Journalism
Section key 20241BUSI8778B001