Assignment brief 7: Intercultural knowledge and critical evaluation

International Days: 2 May, 3 May, 4 May

One keynote speaker Compulsory on 2 May
All possible sessions (guest speakers) to be attended on 3 May and 4 May due to
absenteeism at study strip because of personal issue.

Talent & Management Development 2

2 May 2016
1 keynote speaker attended

Guest speaker: Mr. Arne Schollaert

Topic: Trade, but fairly now
Works for: Oxfam
Function: Researcher and lobbying

The seminar content was focused on what we do, by presenting graphs of how
Oxfam works and its mission and vision and I found the whole concept of Oxfam
very interesting.
I have chosen the seminar because I am enthusiastic of fair trade and the way
Oxfam contributes to social sustainability and overall poverty, education, injustice.
We all see that nowadays in developing countries political and economic and social
system is weak and corrupt. Rich people control the whole system and I will give an
example: Afghanistan has received large amount of money from various
organizations and governments as donations, loans and so on but these were
distributed by limited people with holding power or rich people.
The seminar pressurized some points of unfair trade system, I will state few of
them. For example, if there is many producers and only one or few
buyers/distributors on the market then buyer would ask cheaper price so producers
has bad conditions as well as consumer by buyer/distributer selling it at higher
prices, another example can be coffee grown in south and mostly used in north and
limited coffee being supplied which cause in higher prices, and many more unfair
trade example where presented related to politics, education etc.
I will not make the report boring by writing about whole history of Oxfam and core
of business and how it contributes to social development. If you visit Oxfam website
you will see they work on projects and make campaigns necessary to bring fair
trade around the globe, to eliminate poverty, education, injustice and so on. I have
learned a lot from this seminar.
I have causes why market fails or why some operated ineffectively because it
depends on various aspects like infrastructure and he also talked about tax
loopholes of big companies which was quite handy to know.

3 May 2016
4 sessions (guest speakers) attended

Guest speaker: Mrs. Mandy Binken and Mr.Joris Van Heeringen

Topic: Global Citizenship now and in the future
Works for: The Hague University
Position: Lecturers

Contents:

About us
About The Hague
About The Hague university
Global citizenship
Quiz time
Discussion in groups
Conclusion

The seminar was straight forward started with presenting information about The
Hague city and details of The Hague university and Artevelde university college in
one slide next to each other about their full time bachelors, no. of employees,
students, different nationalities students, locations etc, and finally started with its
main topic global citizenship by forming group to brainstorm what actually means
global citizenship I preferred to attend this seminar because I would like everyone to
be global citizen to make the global understanding much more easy and wanted to
know how everyone could possibly contribute to this and can this awareness be
reached to everyone around the globe, from people living in cities to villages,
developed to developing countries.
Global citizen is someone who identifies with being part of an emerging world
community to building this communitys values and practices or in other words
global citizens are willing to think beyond boundaries of place, identify and
category, and recognize all human beings as their equals while respecting
humanitys inherent diversity. Within their own spheres of influence, global citizens
seek to imagine and work towards a better world.
I have learned it is important to know how to deal with yourself, other and the
environment where you are living in. According to my experience this is very
important to be considered. In some developing countries people do not take care of
environment and just through their garbage on public ways and so on.
It is also important to know that everybody has different view on the world and to
be aware of the connections in the world moreover having respect for diversity

between people and also have international attitude and international orientation,
social involvement and responsibility. Feeling responsible for your actions, to live in
harmony together you must have knowledge of each other, If you know why people
do certain things you will develop a certain amount of respect for those things.
Almost at the end we had a quiz with multiple choice questions asked from a groups
of four people helping us to integrate or understands the difference that exist
around the globe. Some of questions and answers asked you can find below:
1. Belgium people sleep more hours a day then that they work.
a) True
b) False
2. Which country is famous for its baguette?
a) Holland
b) France
3. How many caravans do we have in the Nederlands?
a) 250,000
b) 500,000
4. How do the people in Sweden say goodbye?
a) Hej da
b) Got Tag
5. In which of the following countries is it rude to finish your whole plate?
a) Holland
b) China
The End

Guest speaker: A.P Van den Heuvel

Topic: Leadership and HRM
Works for: The Hague University of Applied Sciences
Function: Lecturer of economics
Contents

The Hague university of Applied Sciences

The Hague
Holland
Political System in Holland
Political system in business in Holland
Leadership styles
Human Resources Management (HRM)

Seminar was about the content I stated above by describing them basically and not
going into depth but all in all it was quite handy information I have gained in this
seminar and I will express some of important things I have learned according to my
knowledge and experiences.
The Hague University of Applied Sciences have 26000 students of more than 146
different nationalities and 1800 staff, this make The Hague University of Applied
Sciences the most culturally diverse higher education institution in Nederlands.
The Hague University four main goals are:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Quality
Global citizenship
Network university
Internationalization

I consider these goals as to be important for every educational institution to make

their students develop professionally.
I have also a lot about The Hague city and it seems to me an interesting city. I will
tell some important places and institutions and other details about the hague city I
have learnt in this seminar.

The hague is capital city of the province of south Holland

Over 500,000 habitants. native Dutch
The third largest city of the Nederland.
The seat of Dutch government & parliament, the supreme court and the
council of state
Headquarter for over 150 international organizations, mostly in the field of
peace and justice.
Therefore: The Hague is also known as city of peace and justice

I have known the inhabitants percentages that exist in Nederland with an

immigrant background and more about Nederland and its political systems and the
parties which exist in politics and their preferred strategies. The speaker also
emphasize that Nederland political system rely on concept of cooperating and
handshaking whether inside or out of the boundaries.
Organizations in nederlands focuses on HRM, council within Holland exist for staff
expressing their rights as right to debate, right to give advice, right to approval and
right to do proposal. This makes employees happy and energized.
Some of the leadership styles I newly learned and found interesting are:
Paternalistic, democratic, transactional, transformational. This leadership styles are
more open to employees/staff and they are all social and friendly leadership style
other than authoritarian and laissez-faire. If you want to know more about this
leadership styles, please google it. Last but not least I have learnt importance of
HRM and its role within organization, tasks they carry out in a typical organization
and so on. For example:

Recruiting the right people for the right job

Assessments
Conducting job analyses
Planning of human capital
Managing wages and salaries
Planning personal needs
Evaluating performance
Resolving disputes
Coaching and many more.

The End

Guest speaker: Mrs. Irina Bilan

Topic: Foreign currencies, foreign exchange rates and foreign exchange risk
management
Works for: Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi, Romania (faculty of
economics & business administration)
Position: Lecturer

Contents:
I.

II.

III.

Foreign currencies and foreign exchanges rates

o Foreign currencies: concept and forms
o Foreign exchange rates: concept, forms and exchange rates
arrangements
The markets for foreign exchange and foreign currency derivatives
o Spot foreign exchange market
o Forward foreign exchange market
o Foreign currency futures and options
Foreign exchange risk and exposure and their management
o Concepts of foreign exchange exposure and risk
o Types of foreign exchange exposure
o Hedging currency exchange risk and exposure

I have chosen this seminar because I was always keen to learn more about foreign
exchange markets and how this markets operates and how can individual start
doing business with exchanging foreign currencies on this market.
Few months ago I visited a friend of mine and I saw him investing money in different
currencies and I became enthusiastic to learn more about it & probably the seminar
was not consider to enhance me with knowledge required for this business as I
recognized that its separate field of study and depends more on micro and
macroeconomics.
The seminar referred to each topic of contents in general, however I have learned a
lot about history of currency and learnt about foreign currencies and exchanges
rates bases for example; freely convertible currency vs non-convertible or externally
convertible and quotes (direct, indirect). The speaker explained appreciation and
depreciation of currency and its effect which I have learned in IBM.
I am telling you all this just to make myself sure you all know what actually seminar
dealt with and this is not part of my task for TMD2 as we are ask to write state the
contents and write a short reflection and motivation of why have I chose this
seminar. I have learned about the determination of cross exchanges rates and about

the spot foreign exchange market and most of the rest things I have studied in
banking and finance.

The End