International Strategic Communication & Sustainable Development 30 EC

You are taken on a learning journey in which you discover that environmental, social and governmental challenges are interrelated, and an integrated approach is required that undertakes action at various levels simultaneously. Subjects are:

1. Sustainability marketing and communication.
2. Organizational strategy related to sustainability.
3. Nation branding for individual countries and groups of countries (i.e., the EU).
4. The history, politics, and global discourse surrounding the SDGs.
5. Cross-cultural communication theories and experiential learning, and their implica-tions for international collaboration.
6. Communicating sustainable business models and value propositions to diverse audiences.

Term 1

Cultural Encounters (5 EC)

Over a six-week period, students will take part in structured cross-cultural experiences designed to explore how culture operates in practice and how cross-cultural theories can help interpret what they observe. Throughout the program, students will work both collaboratively and individually to analyze cultural differences, identify potential risks and opportunities for cooperation, and demonstrate professional teamwork and intercultural competence. They will apply relevant academic sources and models (such as Hofstede, Trompenaars, Schein, and Meyer) to support their analyses and reflections. The overall aim is to help students develop into more effective cross-cultural professionals. This module carries 5 EC.

International Strategic Communication (5 EC)

International Strategic Communication focuses on building and maintaining sustainable relationships with internal and external stakeholders; for governments, companies, and other organizations, such communication is essential to earn and sustain societal trust—especially in an international context. In this program, students explore how organizations communicate sustainability and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), learning to frame business challenges within at least three SDGs and to recognize how these goals are interconnected.

Assessment is integrated and performance-based: students select an international corporation (e.g., LEGO, IKEA, Scania, or another multinational) and analyze how at least three SDGs are expressed across a minimum of 30 different communication outputs, using relevant corporate/strategic communication theory; they examine how these communications support the organization’s sustainability objectives and strategy, substantiate and position key findings within Van Ruler’s framework, and translate the analysis into a visually compelling TED Talk-style presentation that clearly shows relationships between elements, is grounded in academic sources, and is coherently linked to a chosen sustainability focus.

Sustainable Development (5 EC)

In this 5 EC course, students work in a multidisciplinary setting to learn how to frame (international) societal and business challenges within the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), recognising their interdependence and the need for integrated solutions across domains. The course is grounded in Jeffrey Sachs’ (2015) work on the SDGs, which students critically engage with and compare to perspectives from Wolterstorff and Goudzwaard, with key themes including stewardship (from a Christian worldview), justice and shalom, poverty and human development, resilient cities and urbanisation, biodiversity and responsible use of the earth, and the economic and political dimensions of climate change. Assessment consists of an individual essay in which students critically reflect on Sachs’ framework and demonstrate mastery of core concepts such as stewardship, shalom, resilient cities, poverty, development goals, planet, climate, and biodiversity.

Term 2

Nation Branding (7.5 EC)

In this group assignment students undertake a project in the field of nation branding. First, students do research on the application of the SDGs in several preselected countries. Secondly, they jump into the topic of nation branding and find out how the same preselected countries give shape to their nation brand. We also take a closer look at the nation brand of the European Union, a very particular one as research shows. Finally, students combine the learnings of the two previous assignments and draft advice for the government of one of the preselected nations, so that this government can improve its nation brand from the perspective of the SDGs.
We make extensive use of Simon Anholt’s work on nation branding in this course, and we take recent scientific research for up-to-date examples. The goal of this assignment is to provide students with the opportunity to gain business experience in on sustainable nation branding. This assignment is 7.5EC.

Sustainability Marketing and Communication (7.5 EC)

In this assignment groups of students need to identify a particular sustainability issue in a business or an industry, and they need to critically assess it from the perspective of sustainable international business concepts, theories and frameworks (coming from the works of amongst others Wit (2020) and Beltz & Peattie (2012)). They will have to write a research report, that also includes advice to the organization or industry, and they need to do a presentation. The goal of this assignment is to make students aware of the (un)sustainable impact that businesses have and how this can be improved. This assignment is 7.5EC.