Tel. 660-5611; ggere@soc.duke.edu 111
Social Sciences Bldg.
Office hours: Tuesday, 4-5 pm or by appointment.
Theme –
Technology, Jobs, and
Outsourcing
Integrative learning is a fundamental challenge in
our contemporary world. The Markets
& Management Studies Program at Duke is premised on the idea that an interdisciplinary
perspective offers the best training for people who will be pursuing careers in
business, government, or the non-profit sector. This Capstone course is intended to help M&M
students pull together material from core courses in the program, but it is
meant to facilitate integrative learning in other ways as well. You will learn how to work in teams to
identify and resolve problems confronting companies, industries, and
communities today. This is a difficult
assignment because you will be expected to blend your diverse perspectives and
backgrounds, to bridge theory and facts, and to convince the participants or
stakeholders in the situation you are analyzing that you have a realistic
contribution to make. In this regard,
you must move beyond the passive learner role ordinarily associated with
students to become both engaged researchers and policy advocates.
Many
of the M&M Capstone Courses embody particular themes. This course will focus on the theme of
Technology and Jobs in the Global Economy.
As a result, it can count for students who are pursuing either the
“Technology and Society” or “Global Economy” course clusters in the M&M
Program.
One
of the key questions in the contemporary era of globalization is: How can countries maintain international
competitiveness and get ahead in the global economy, and still create an
adequate number of good jobs for their workforce? The popular press and daily news shows are
full of stories about how the global outsourcing strategies of U.S.
corporations has led to an alarming offshore migration of not only blue-collar
factory jobs, but also white-collar office work and knowledge-intensive
professional jobs. The obvious concern
is whether this is good or bad for the
This
course will explore these issues by looking at the impact of globalization on
As
in all M&M Capstone courses, there will be a team project. This semester, the team project will involve
looking five or six major industries in
In
terms of the content of the course, I have provided a set of readings and
assignments for the first month of the semester. However, I would like to leave the specific
definition of topics for your team projects and the latter portion of the
semester open while I learn more about your specific interests, and based in
part on the outcome of our discussions during the initial part of the Capstone
course. There is no shortage of relevant
countries, companies, and industries we could consider, and part of our mission
will be to create a useful and innovative M&M Capstone experience for you
at Duke. Thus, this syllabus will be
“filled in” as the semester progresses.
Blackboard and
Most of materials related to this course will be
available through Blackboard https://courses.duke.edu/.
All students in Soc. 142 will be expected to log into Blackboard on a regular
basis for announcements, course documents, supplementary lecture materials, and
convenient communication tools such as group pages, student drop boxes, and
discussion boards. E-mail will be an
important form of communication in this course, so check your e-mail accounts
frequently.
One book will be read for the course, and it is
available at the Duke University Bookstore:
Peter Dicken. Global
Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century, 4th
edition.
Several
of the articles assigned for the course are available through E-Reserves at
Perkins Library: http://www.lib.duke.edu/access/reserves/.
The remainder of the readings can be accessed via Blackboard.
Jan. 7 Introduction
to the course.
Jan. 12 The
Peter Engardio, Aaron
Bernstein, and Manjeet Kripalani, “Is Your Job Next?” Business Week,
February 3, 2003, pp. 50-60.
Lisa DiCarlo,
“White-Collar Outsourcing: The Most Significant Trend in 2003,” Forbes.com,
Dec. 23, 2003.
ABC News, This Week with
George Stephanopoulos – “Jobs and the current state of the
CNN News, Lou Dobbs Tonight – “China and the
U.S. Economy,” Dec. 9, 2003, interview with Thea Lee (AFL-CIO), Sen. Charles
Schumer (D-New York), and Stephen Roach, chief global economist, Morgan
Stanley.
Jan. 14 The Organization of the
Global Economy: International Production
Networks
Peter Dicken, Global Shift, 4th ed. (2003), chs. 1-3.
Jan. 19 Martin
Luther King, Jr. Day holiday (no class)
Jan. 21 Find a company or an industry that has had significant recent experiences in global outsourcing. Document and support this case with one or two newspaper and magazine articles, company or industry reports, or whatever seems appropriate. Discuss in class.
Jan. 26 [Class cancelled because of snow
and ice]
Jan. 28 Winners
and Losers: Immigration and Labor Market Dynamics in North Carolina
Guest speaker: Emilio Parrado, Assistant Professor,
Department of Sociology, Duke.
[You can consult the website “Stop the Invasion” <http://www.stoptheinvasion.com/index.html>
which is extremely one-sided politically, but it is fair in attacking both high
and low-skilled, legal and illegal migration.]
Student rapporteurs: Sarah Stogner and Stephan Kretzschmar
Feb. 2 An Indian Entrepreneur’s
Personal Odyssey with Outsourcing
Guest speaker: Vivek Wadhwa, Founder and Chairman,
Relativity Technologies, Raleigh, NC.
< bio available at http://www.relativity.com/who_we_are.htm >
Student rapporteurs: William Hanenberg and Chris Cox
Feb. 4 Individual
Experiences with the Offshoring of Jobs and Global Outsourcing
Guest speakers: Robert Ferrier, electrical engineer for 15
years and former IBM employee in their Personal Computers division; and S.
Sridhar, IT software professional with 18 years experience as both purchaser
and provider of IT services in the United States, Europe, and India.
Student rapporteurs: Margaret Lea and Jim Scharrer.
Feb. 9 Identifying
Industries for Team Projects
Discussion of potential team
projects, part I.
Feb. 11 Discussion
of potential team projects, part II.
Written suggestions as inputs for class.
Feb. 16 Overview of Duke’s Library and Web Resources for research on global industries (Eric Smith, Perkins Library).
Feb. 18 Initial team reports on the
structure, timeline, and resources available for each of the four industries to
be studied.
Feb. 23 Developing
a common globalization template for the industry studies.
Feb. 25 Applying
our globalization template to the North Carolina furniture industry.
March 1 Furniture case (cont’d).
March 3 Furniture case (cont’d).
SPRING RECESS
March 15 Guest speaker: Steven Burke, Vice-President for Corporate
Affairs, North Carolina Biotechnology Center, Research Triangle Park <http://www.ncbiotech.org/>.
Student
rapporteurs: Julie Kalishman and Jason
Zimmermann.
March 17 Review
templates for course web site and industry webpages.
March 22 Introduction to Dreamweaver: Deen Freelon (OIT).
March 24 Work
on uploading materials to webpage (ICC).
March 29 Review
class with Deepa George.
March 31 Introduction to video clips
for guest speakers profiles: Patrick
Murphy (CIT).
Work on uploading materials
to webpage (ICC).
April 5 Guest speaker: Dr. Larry Keen, Vice President for Economic and Workforce Development, North Carolina Community College System.
Student rapporteurs: Alivia Sholtz and Blake Jorgensen.
April
7 Review industry websites.
April 12 Socially Responsible
Investments: How Do They Work? Are They
Effective?
Guest lecturer:
Donald E. Platner, Vice President, Christian Brothers Investment
Services, Inc. New York, NY.
Student rapporteurs:
Jeff Raileanu and Jake Ramey.
April 13 Tuesday PANEL:
7:30-9:30 pm, 130 Sociology/Psychology Building (Zener Auditorium). [This panel takes the place of the April 14th
class.]
Guest speakers for the panel on “Global Outsourcing:
Threat or Necessity for U.S. Competitiveness?”
April 19 Marketing of course web
project: To whom will it be distributed
in North Carolina? What are the key
messages for each constituency:
managers, workers, state policy makers, community leaders, the general
public?
April 21 What have we learned?
Last updated on March 16, 2004