Languages, Culture and Societies
Céline DAVESNE
Head of department
The Department of Languages, Cultures and Society’s mission is to ensure efficient and innovative linguistic and cultural education (through the use of blogs, business games, exercises and quizzes on the e-learning platform Moodle) while helping students become aware of the globalized world they will be working and evolving in (management of diversity, cross-cultural issues, culture…)
Linguistic Skills and Economic Performance: Taking on the Challenge of Internationalization
To prepare students to face today’s global market we need to understand what this global market looks like, its patterns and more precisely its linguistic patterns. To communicate and trade properly, companies have to take this data into account and educational institutions have to analyse it and see how they can efficiently train their students to match the needs of the market. Knowing your way around a linguistic and cultural map of the globalized world in which companies and managers must constantly evolve, is a big asset. Once unknown, the impact of linguistic and cultural barriers on commercial exchanges, in terms of economic consequences, has recently been identified and assessed. A December 2005 study, ordered by the European Commission, ELAN (Effects on the European Union Economy of Shortages of Foreign Language Skills in Enterprise) has established a direct link between a company’s employees’ linguistic skills, and their commercial performance abroad. The study brought to light that 11% of European SMEs (small and medium enterprises) have lost at least one exporting contract because of insufficient linguistic skills, which translates into about 100 billion Euros of loss per year for the EU’s economy. This figure is staggering when put into perspective: every additional billion Euros of export creates 15,000 new jobs (MEDEF).
It is in this particular context that the LCS Department has created its program Preparing for global Management, aiming to provide our students with the linguistic and cultural tools and skills, to allow them to evolve in the organizations of tomorrow. To do so, we have put pedagogical innovations into place, which bring French and International students together. Take, for instance, the Cross-Cultural Seminar. This integration seminar allows 1st year MGE students to work on a multicultural project with students from all over the world (30 different nationalities in 2010), in a short amount of time (3-day immersion), in English, and on a problem relating to Exploring a new world : global culture, local identities ? The simulation game is also a way of implementing the School’s vision in an international context (650 students).
Lessons to comprehend the complexity of today’s worlds
Globalization, so often described, is not only a matter of economics, but above all, a cultural upsetting/upheaval. To act in a globalized universe is, first, to understand it, to understand others, to understand their culture, and to understand their system of references. A grande école must prepare its students for the complexity of today’s worlds, as much for their personal construction, as well as for their professional success. What the Anglo-Saxons call « soft skills » plays a decisive role, growing more and more decisive, in an environment that requires a great ability to adapt. The LCS Department offers a wide range of courses associating social sciences (geopolitics, sociology, history..) and cultural studies, and having high-level specialists as lecturers (geopoliticians, sociologists, specialists in Russia or in Africa). Students can also discover or go into detail about questions that broaden their horizons and enrich their minds.
Economics and the Management of Culture
The department also proposes courses and pedagogical activities in the culture industry: cinema, music, books, live entertainment… This industry, one of the more dynamic ones in today’s economy (currently, the number one sector of export in the USA), offers students passionate about music or art, attractive careers, internships, and thesis subjects that provide them with the opportunity to further their knowledge in this singular and captivating industry.
