Tri-National Competencies Across Borders and Corporate Social Responsibility

INTRODUCTION

This project, Tri-National Competencies Across Borders and Corporate Social Responsibility, will develop specific international skills and ensure a greater understanding of corporate social responsibility for the next generation of NAFTA managers. Future managers will learn how to promote corporate social responsibility as a critical element in the North American marketplace. They will also learn how to manage across social, cultural, and linguistic borders, understand the role of business in society, and make their companies more competitive.

The proposed project is an integrated approach to action-learning and capacity-building. It will help students to develop competencies necessary for transcending both national and social borders. First, the term "national borders" refers to the customs, national security, and health and safety regulations of national governments. Second, the term "social borders" refers to the perceptual filters and conceptual screens used by all human groups and which are evident in cultural, ethnic, and linguistic traits.

Managing Across National Borders: Canada, Mexico, and the United States have significantly reduced many of the barriers to the free flow of goods, services, capital, and labor across their borders with the implementation of NAFTA. Some major controls remain, of course, in specific areas. NAFTA is liberalizing economic flows within the broader rules of the World Trade Organization and the NAFTA marketplace is deeply affected by the global impact of WTO policies. This complex relationship is very evident if we consider, for example, the growing importance of China and India in the world marketplace and their influence on the evolution of business forces inside NAFTA. This is impelling North American firms to reconsider their global production and global sourcing strategies. The current economic policy debates inside Canada, Mexico, and the United States all show how government and business leaders are attempting to grasp how developments inside one's own nation or region are linked to developments in distant countries through the operation of international market dynamics.

Students who aspire to be effective, ethical business leaders must therefore understand the ground rules of this new, complex, and interrelated global economy. They must grasp the basic rules of the game as devised by NAFTA itself, the WTO, and individual national governments. Future managers within the North American marketplace must be prepared to work effectively with the staffs of their own firms, to negotiate with their suppliers, to understand the needs of their customers, and to satisfy the regulatory requirements of various government agencies. Furthermore, their staff members, suppliers, customers, and relevant government bodies are no longer located exclusively inside their own country but instead are part of a rapidly developing NAFTA and global marketplace. Future managers need the tools to relate effectively to all of these important cross-border constituencies.

Managing Across Social, Cultural, and Linguistic Borders: These young managers face a different kind of border when they interact with customers and suppliers in another country with different social, cultural, and linguistic characteristics. National borders are very visible, but social and cultural borders are often subtle and invisible. A manager can communicate, plan, and negotiate most effectively when she understands the different filters, signals, and signifiers which her counterparts are using. In order to do this, of course, she must understand her own society, culture, and language in the context of a global perspective.

Tri-National Competencies Across Borders: Business analysts have emphasized a core set of international competencies for some time. In 2003 a Wall Street Journal survey indicated that the three most important competencies for corporate recruiters of MBA graduates today are the skills of communication, teamwork; and analysis.[1] It is fair to say that all NAFTA universities are grappling with the question of how to develop students' international skills and competencies so that they may pursue productive careers in a truly global, interactive marketplace.

This project will address this challenge by creating international skill training modules. These training modules focus on the three most critical skills identified in the above paragraph. It develops these skills in a cross-cultural context. The training modules move to a more specific level. For example, they will examine how NAFTA students can strengthen cross-cultural communications skills when interviewing executives in a NAFTA company. How do members of the tri-national team allocate functional roles inside the team in order to implement tasks successfully? How does a tri-national team condense its thinking into a coherent written analysis and an effective oral presentation to managers of a NAFTA firm? The project builds a bridge between the more general analysis of the economic challenges facing the NAFTA market and the concrete, "micro" level of challenges facing an individual company in the state of Vermont, for example, or the province of Quebec, or the state of Querétaro. Learning outcomes of the project move from the specific increased substantive and skills learning of the students to the wider constituencies of universities and communities in NAFTA countries through publication of "best practices" findings in appropriate journals, consortium web sites, and/or book form.

PROPOSED PROJECT

This project, Tri-National Competencies Across Borders and Corporate Social Responsibility, is submitted by six (6) academic institutions of higher education working under the guidelines of the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico. The members of the consortium include two institutions from the United States:

the University of Vermont as the lead institution and
Western Illinois University as the partner institution;

two institutions from Mexico:

the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro as the lead institution and
Universidad Panamericana as the partner institution;

and two institutions from Canada:

the Université de Sherbrooke as the lead institution and
Université de Moncton as the partner institution.

These institutions have joined together to form the proposed consortium that will create innovative curricular and experiential teaching formats for developing tri-national competencies for students in order to prepare them to work effectively across borders inside the NAFTA marketplace. Please refer to the Letters of Support from University Presidents, Provosts, Deans and Department Chairpersons from each partner institution and to the Institutional Description section for detailed information.

The main focus of the program is to foster student exchanges with an innovative dimension: the student exchanges and the virtual student projects will all be shaped under a tri-national team framework, cutting across nationalities and also cutting across categories of social class, cultural background, and linguistic heritage. It is not enough for the student to travel to a different university in a different NAFTA country. That student must work day-to-day with students in the other participating NAFTA institutions and build solid personal and working relationships. This framework mirrors the framework of the business world today: whether a manager works in a small firm or a large multinational corporation, he must relate to people inside and outside his firm. Even if the firm does not export, it must understand the nature of its competitors in other countries and how they are entering its markets. This project provides a unique opportunity for capacity enhancement for future leaders in fields including corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, leadership, and business ethics.

Working in a tri-national team, the student will acquire tri-national competencies in three key areas:

Cross-cultural communication: This element of the program will focus on two dimensions of communication skill development: interpersonal competencies and presentational competencies. Regarding the first dimension, an enormous amount of managerial activity involves interpersonal processes such as dialogue, listening, conflict resolution, decision making, team building, leadership, change management, and more. The focus on interpersonal processes will deepen students' understanding of the ways in which cross-cultural factors relate to the many manifestations of interpersonal communication in management. This module will devote special attention to translating deeper understanding and appreciation among students to greater interpersonal competency regarding these and other expressions of managerial communication.

The second dimension of cross-cultural communication skill development will involve presentational competencies. Formal presentations represent one of the most essential communication channels for managers. This element of the program will rely on such foundational concepts as structure, content, delivery, language, nonverbal factors, and audience analysis. Students will learn the essentials of effective presentations, coupled with how cross-cultural factors can influence effectiveness.

Cross-cultural team skills: Our interests in teams are threefold: First, teams as educational vehicles provide an excellent context for students to learn from their common academic experiences as well as from each other. Second, the tri-national composition of learning teams in the program will provide ongoing adaptive contexts for students from different countries and regions within countries to learn to work together on projects of consequence for both themselves as well as other stakeholders in the regions of the six respective universities. Third, the use of teams is generally a fact of life in most organizations. This trend toward teams will only grow as the interpersonal support and technological capabilities for effective team work become more widespread. Managers who can skillfully create, lead, and work within diverse, multicultural team contexts will be essential resources for competitive organizations.

Students in our tri-national learning teams will develop understanding and facility with regard to many important team issues, including: stages of team development and their performance implications; how compositional factors such as individual learning style, cognitive style, various individual personality dimensions, and gender-related factors can influence team dynamics; how various communication styles and leadership styles relate to team functioning; decision-making issues; communication dynamics; the role that conflict plays in team performance; the role of diversity in influencing team innovation; how various team member roles affect team performance; how national cultural values can impact team work; and more. An exceptionally effective way for students to learn deeply about multicultural teams is to live and work within them, striving together, learning from one another, and from academic and business experts on the various subjects of importance to high performance team work.

Cross-cultural analysis: Students will learn analytical skills for examining the strategic challenges facing an industry or a company through learning the basic concepts of strategic business analysis and then through examination of published business cases, followed by live field cases. Teams will analyze individual companies or sectors and make presentations to the executives of those firms.

The project focuses on a critical substantive theme in addition to developing the skill set of tri-national competencies in communication, teamwork, and analysis. The different elements of the project focus on the theme of corporate social responsibility. There is, of course, a growing debate on corporate social responsibility in Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Many analysts and civic leaders have criticized the business communities in each of these NAFTA countries for a variety of alleged failings in the areas of finance, accounting, human resource management, and the natural environment. But how does an individual company in Sherbrooke, or Querétaro, or Burlington, or Peoria, or Guadalajara, or Moncton translate the concept of corporate social responsibility from a vague generality to an operational rule guiding the daily activities of the firm? This project proposes no easy answers to the students. Instead, this project will create several learning environments for the students to grapple with this fundamental question, through analyses of written cases, field work with individual companies, interviews with executives, dialogue with their team members from the other participating schools, and presentations to company executives, government officials, and community leaders. These learning environments will trigger a feedback loop: how are companies in our back yard defining corporate social responsibility? What effects does their definition have on how they apply those principles to their daily operations? Considering their track records so far, how do we, the students, think that they should carry out this task in the future? Change the definition? Change the application? Deal differently with the stakeholders? Alter their market strategies? This feedback loop will be energized not only by their dialogues with their own team members from other schools and other NAFTA countries. It will also be encouraged by participating faculty and, especially, by the responses of the participating company executives. At the end of each of these exercises, modules, and courses, it is safe to say that everyone's views will be broadened. As the students participate and delve into the theme of corporate social responsibility, the academic training will ultimately cultivate distinctive tri-national competencies and will provide a variety of opportunities for students and faculty to travel, study, and gain professional experience in one or two of the two host countries. Each activity will provide students with solid academic knowledge along with the language training and a rich cultural experience.

In summary, members of the newly formed consortium are committed to working collaboratively to achieve the following:

the development of frameworks for successful student mobility that include the recognition and mobility of academic credits;
the cooperation of faculty members within the fields of communication, team skills, organizational behavior, and business strategy, working together in the development of new joint curricula to be delivered by traditional and non-traditional means;
opportunities for students to work towards achieving a second language proficiency;
opportunities for students and faculty to work together to conduct research within the universities' regions;
developing a model for the professional recognition and certification of programs, faculty and students; and
the opportunity to join forces, share resources and develop graduates who have developed the international competencies of communication, team work, and strategic analysis in a tri-national, NAFTA context.

The Objectives and Timetable section provides detailed information and description of the stated objectives.

Consortium Members: Project directors, Deans, and administrators of the consortium member institutions have worked on project planning during two meetings, one at the University of Vermont in December 2003 and the second meeting at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro in February 2004. In addition, the respective project directors have been in regular communication via telephone and email.

Proposed Consortium Activities: The following project activities are designed to achieve the goals of developing tri-national competencies and understanding corporate social responsibility.

Option I - Corporate Social Responsibility in a Tri-National Arena: The goals of this first option are to create a learning environment which challenges the student to gain cross-cultural competencies of communication, team work, and analysis and to use these competencies to study real-world companies which are struggling to apply principles of corporate social responsibility in their everyday operations. By working in a team composed of students from different countries, regions, and linguistic backgrounds, the student will learn firsthand, experientially, what it means truly to understand their business associates in order to manage effectively. This option achieves its goals by the application of the following activities:

Fall Semester Course: The student is assigned to a team composed of one student from each of the participating schools. The six participating institutions each select four students for this option, so the fall semester Tri-National Arena course has four teams of six students each.

In Week One, all 24 students and selected faculty mentors meet at one location. Selective reading, classroom delivery, and discussion of basic team, interpersonal, and communication concepts accompany intensive "teams" type exercises in problem solving, planning, communication, diversity, and other issues of relevance to team members. These experiences will accelerate bonding among new team members, and help to "preview" many of the national, cultural, social, and linguistic borders which exist. To deepen their learning, team members will write about and discuss their experiences from Week One.

After Week One, the students return to their home campuses, where competency-building occupies the remaining weeks of the fall semester course. The students improve their skills in communication and team work by learning how to conduct strategic analyses of businesses, first by using published cases. Within this general focus, and working with their virtual team members in the other five institutions, students continue writing short analyses of tri-national team processes, performance, interpersonal communication, and other topics.

On October 1, the students begin the online course of the World Bank Institute (WBI) on Corporate Social Responsibility. They integrate these themes into their ongoing analytical work, functioning in their teams, communicating through email and the web. Teams interact virtually with selected officials of the WBI in exercises to enhance their understanding and application of concepts of corporate social responsibility for the live casework they will conduct in the spring semester. The WBI online course runs through November. At the end of the term, teams report on their WBI experience and prepare a written self-analysis.

A "bridging" event will link the Fall and Spring semesters: Near the beginning of the Spring semester all teams convene in one location for a four-five day meeting, with the following three broad aims:

Teams receive a published case one day and must prepare and present it publicly the next day, receiving feedback on it at that time;
Faculty and teams discuss issues of securing firms which teams will work with in the Spring semester, and of preparing cases, and teams have one day to develop and present plans incorporating this information, with feedback provided;
Teams conduct a self-assessment for the entire event.

Spring Semester Course: During the spring semester, each team selects a real-world company to analyze, using the competencies which they have developed in the fall. For example, how does one open up communication with the executives of a company, especially a company in a different country, with different customs and a different language? How does one establish the ground rules for interviewing executives, for obtaining public information and for obtaining non-public, non-published information about the company and the industry?

The students now are learning in an iterative fashion, with the faculty mentors intervening to remind, to inform, and give additional resources to them, in order to help them perfect their skills of communication, team work, and analysis. Near the end of this spring semester, each team makes a presentation to the executives company it has been analyzing. The executives of the firm will give feedback gained by the company.

An experimental course at the University of Vermont, conducted together with Concordia University, has already tested this model, studying three companies in Quebec and Vermont. The model is effective and the participating company executives all stated that they obtained new insights and perspectives from this exercise.

Summer Internship: The Tri-National Team Year concludes with a ten-week summer internship. For this, the six-member teams are reconfigured into groups of four. Each group is assigned to a company site in the region surrounding a participating school. Therefore, each participating school will organize an internship experience for a group of four students at one company site. Each group will analyze the company and/or carry out a special research project in cooperation with executives of the company.

Working with organizations such as the World Bank Institute and the Organization of American States, each student group will emphasize a subject area or guiding question relevant to the company providing the internship. Virtually or in real space, the officials of the selected international organizations will serve as resources for the interns and the company for an assessment of the internship activity at the end of the ten-week experience. Through other funding sources, efforts will be made to bring the Tri-National Teams to one location for a "retrospective" of the year's accomplishments and a "closure" celebration.

For delivery of the course, faculty will also be learning to work through barriers of nationality, culture, and language, just as the students. Although specific details of this process will be decided during the first planning year, in general outline these faculty members will video conference occasionally, and communicate through email and web instruments in order to regularly share observations, ideas, and problem solve as they implement the pedagogical methods of the course. At the end of the Tri-National Team Year, each student will receive an "Award of Completion in NAFTA Tri-National Competencies." The language of the Tri-National Team Year will be English in all six participating schools. This year experience will also be open to upper division and MBA students.

Option II - Tri-National Summer Experience: The theme of this Tri-National summer course will be based on "The Reality of Successful Business in the NAFTA Countries." Students will learn how corporate social responsibility contributes to ethical, sustainable competitiveness. The course will be a five-week long program during the months of May-June with a planned 10 day learning module in each country (not including a few travel days). It will be conducted sequentially on three of the campuses of the six member institutions on a rotating basis.

We anticipate that 5-7 students and one faculty member from each institution will participate.

NAFTA requires future leaders to understand issues involving trade, the environment, public health, economic development, economies, and marketing. Today's students must comprehend the different perspectives of business, public policy, corruption, ethics, language and culture in the international marketplace and how all these elements play a role in corporate and social responsible behaviors. The Tri-National Summer Experience provides students with a unique opportunity to experience first hand these different perspectives and to examine today's challenges and tomorrow's opportunity for business. Additionally, each of the regions of each institutional partner boasts a rich cultural heritage that will serve to enhance students' appreciation of art and culture. By participating in "Tri-National Summer Experience" students from all six institutions will be able to experience each country's views, business and cultural, in North America. The academic content will be complemented with presentations by experts in the field, business visits, and cultural activities.

Option III - Semester NAFTA Certificate Program: The NAFTA Certificate Semester is structured around a set of courses which reflect the specialty strengths of each participating school. Students who opt for this option will be required to select four courses from a list of courses in the specialty area. At the conclusion of the semester, the student will obtain a NAFTA Certificate of Completion in field such as the following: NAFTA Certificate in Environmental Management, University of Vermont; NAFTA Certificate in Agribusiness, Western Illinois University; NAFTA Certificate in International Marketing at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro; NAFTA Certificate in International Finance at the Universidad Panamericana; NAFTA Certificate in International Management, University of Sherbrooke; NAFTA Certificate in International Management, University of Moncton.

The consortium leaders know that they must use incentives to encourage students to participate in a semester exchange. This option was designed to give the students a value-added educational experience. Each university will identify a set of eight courses to choose from and each student must select a minimum of three of these courses to receive the NAFTA Certificate. Students will also be enrolled in at least two more courses that will complement their degree plan. They will be required to meet the language requirements of the host institution. Based on the level of language proficiency, some students will be encouraged to take advanced language courses at the home institution prior to enrollment in the semester program and will also have the opportunity to enroll in an intensive language program at the host institution the summer or semester prior to the academic program. This semester option will be open only to undergraduate students.

Option IV- Regular Semester Exchange: The project will provide opportunities for students from the six partner institutions to select an individual plan of study for a semester exchange. One requirement for this option will be to require that these students take the World Bank Institute online course on corporate social responsibility. It is anticipated that two students per institution will choose this option each academic year.

Option V- Intensive Summer Language: In order to encourage students to participate in the different options under this project, a team of students (ten to twenty) and a faculty member will travel to partner institutions and participate in an intensive summer immersion language program. The host institution will arrange for language instruction four hours a day, five days a week. In addition, students will take a regular academic course to be team-taught by the accompanying faculty and a faculty member at the host institution. Students will be encouraged to remain at the host institution to complete the fall semester as part of one of the options for the semester exchange program.

Student Mobility: The consortium partners recognize that successful exchanges of students (undergraduate and graduate) require constant cooperation among numerous institutional departments. The institutions will reflect upon past exchange programs and proactively address common anticipated needs of students. Over a four-year period, it is anticipated that approximately 100+ students from the United States will participate in the exchange program. Therefore, the members of the consortium agree to the following principles:

Reciprocity of Courses and Credits: Institutions pledge to give credit to its students for courses completed at host institution, honoring content, credit hours toward degree the plan.
Costs to the Students: The consortium will develop a system by which student expenditures will be approximately the same as at the home institutions. Costs are divided as follows:
Tuition/Fees: Students will pay tuition at their home institutions.
Other Required Fees: Health insurance fees will be paid in the host country unless a mechanism exists to waive local insurance (if comparable insurance is already carried by the student).
Room and Board Costs: These will be determined based on the housing of each host institution.
Books and Lab Fees: An average for each institution will be established.
Transportation: This will be added to the student expense.

Once the total cost of participating in any of the proposed activities is established, the excess over normal costs will be subsidized/covered by the grant. As a result, low-income students will remain eligible and each participating institution will consider their study abroad students as if they are home-based. Therefore, students who are dependent on financial aid will be able to apply it for their study abroad expenses.

Student Recruitment: We will design marketing and promotion strategies during the first six months of the planning year and we will implement them by the Spring Semester of the year 2005. Direct mailings will inform all eligible students have the information about the program and the opportunities it offers.

A special priority will be outreach to under-served groups of students in the dimensions of ethnicity, sex, and economic status. We will work with the campus student associations representing these categories and organize information and outreach sessions to high school seniors, first-year and second-year undergraduates as well as entering MBA students. This special priority is particularly appropriate for this project because of its emphasis on imparting cross-cultural skills to bridge the divisions of national and social borders.

Other strategies will include video conferencing, brochures, formal presentations, a web page for the program and links to member institutions. Since all participating universities have infrastructures to deal with international students, the most efficient system will be one that follows the normal procedures. This includes admissions criteria, language requirements, registration systems and billing systems. Flexibility has been built into the budget each year to allow students to remain at their host institution for a full academic year of study. Each institution will process the stipend as regulated by internal requirements.

Innovative Curriculum, Teaching Materials, Methods and Modules: The consortium's work will bring faculty together to create and deliver innovative, timely curricula and modules/material, grounded in state-of-the-art instructional methods and delivery systems. Several examples of potential innovative curriculum development activities are:

Modules exploring various analytical frameworks and field applications for examining corporate social responsibility in and between the cultures of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Modules focusing on interpersonal communication skills, presentational communication skills, team development skills, and analytical competencies in multicultural, tri-national contexts.
Utilization of state-of-the-art technological means and software enabling students and faculty at our respective institutions to interact in real time on matters and issues of timely, mutual educational interest within and between our tri-national settings.

Joint Research Projects: The work of this consortium will provide opportunities for participating students as well as faculty to engage in collaborative research. The tri-national teams will be conducting case research, engaging in field study of organizations, and in some instances eventually writing their own business cases. These teams will also regularly examine issues related to communication, team, and analytical skills in tri-national contexts. Participating faculty will also have the opportunity to collaborate in areas of research of mutual interest. The work of both tri-national student teams and faculty teams, and subsets thereof, can serve as vital sources of learning among student participants, as ongoing inputs to the teaching processes and curricula at our respective institutions.

Memorandum of Agreement: The memorandum of agreement will serve as an official agreement to form the consortium and strengthen and promote cooperation, represent the commitment of resources and outline the parameters under which all of the proposed activities will occur including the student and faculty exchanges and budgetary commitment.

Planning Calendar for the 2004 - 2008 Academic Years: Meetings and work sessions with representatives of the institutions of the consortium will take place during the planning year. These meetings will establish solid relationships among the faculty and staff and will provide opportunities to develop and plan each of the proposed academic options, develop a plan for curriculum development and faculty research projects. Please refer to the Objectives and Timetable section for detailed information.

Year One, The Planning Year: 2004-2005.

This first year will be devoted to planning the specific activities, logistics, communications and administrative support systems necessary for the smooth functioning of the substantive project activities in Years Two, Three, and Four. Project Directors, other relevant faculty members and administrative persons will have several planning sessions during Year One. Please refer to the Appendix for the Planning Timetable for specific meetings. These sessions will focus on substance and on method. Regarding substance: faculty members will write the syllabi for each academic component, identifying clearly the institutions and faculty members responsible for each element of the learning experience. Faculty participants will create the reading lists and identify other resources needed. Regarding method: project directors and administrative support staff will establish communication plans to make sure that all six institutions will be using effective email, fax, telephone, and web platform systems. These meetings will schedule "test runs' to ensure that all participants can communicate and work effectively across institutional and national borders.

Year Two, The "New Product Delivery" Year: 2005-2006.

The faculty and administrative staff begin to carry out the student mobility activities in Year Two, so this is an extremely important year. Faculty members begin to teach all curricular elements and to carry out the team-building activities. As this year unfolds, the project directors will match the actual operation of the project with the written Planning Timetable. At the end of this year, faculty will meet to identify successful aspects and weak points in the delivery of the student mobility activities and the learning experiences. This will permit us to correct mistakes and weaknesses and build on the strengths of Year Two, going into Year Three. Relevant faculty and administrative staff continue to work together using email, fax, telephone, web platforms and real-space work sessions.

Year Three, The "Correct, Revise, Strengthen" Year: 2006-2007.

This year delivers the same range of substantive academic learning experiences, but we have strengthened the curriculum and made the student mobility activities more efficient and satisfying for the students. We are accumulating and documenting the "best practices" for the Tri-National Competencies project, which places us in a good position to prepare for the sustainability phase in Year Four. Relevant faculty and administrative staff continue to work together using email, fax, telephone, web platforms and real-space work sessions.

Year Four, "Moving to Sustainability": 2007-2008.

In Year Four we will lay the foundation for sustaining the Tri-National Competencies project after the grant terminates in 2008. We have built ongoing relationships with the business community as well as other stakeholders in our six regions. We will identify sources of support, financial and cooperative, to prepare the transition to sustainability in Year Four Plus One, the post-FIPSE period. Relevant faculty and administrative staff continue to work together using email, fax, telephone, web platforms and real-space work sessions. During Year Four, we will assess the life of the project, using external evaluators as well as the ongoing assessment logs created during these four years, in order to write a Final Evaluation Report and Recommendations. We will distribute this Report through the project website so that other institutions may learn from our successes, our mistakes, and our own assessments of this entire period.

Project Evaluation: Project directors and administrative leaders will develop pecific evaluation methods and instruments, integrated into Annual Reports and Final Evaluation Report. These will be guided by a "utilization-focused evaluation" approach (Patton, 1986). Such an evaluation approach focused on generating evaluation information that can be readily used by program participants and key stake holders to gauge ongoing progress, identify needed areas for improvement, and foster replication of successful program elements. Evaluation methods to be used include being guided by the program's "time-table and expected outcomes." The evaluation will be carried out annually and will consist of both formative and summative evaluations conducted externally as well as internally.

External corporate evaluators will provide essential and valuable feedback during the life of the project. These evaluators include the following executives:

Teresa Montemayor - Product Marketing Manager High Performance Processors, IBM
Rick Peyser - Director of Social Advocacy, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters
Yola Carlough - Head of Social Mission, Ben & Jerry's
Janice Shade - Senior Marketing Manager, Seventh Generation

The resumes of the corporate external evaluators will be found in the Appendix.

The main purpose of the formative evaluation is to furnish information that will guide program improvement. The summative evaluation will provide a summary judgment on the program's performance and whether specific goals and objectives were met. The external evaluator will provide an unbiased appraisal of the project outcome. This useful analysis will provide valuable information to the project directors to aid in the development of future initiatives. The continuous evaluation plan will be a process of refinement and development beginning in September 2004 and will continue for the life of the program. The evaluation will use the following instruments: Administrative History, Entrance/Exit Questionnaires, Follow-up Interviews, Academic Performance, Participant Performance. The evaluation will outline what has been accomplished and what has been ineffective, the reasons for these results and the factors inhibiting success. Proposed changes to meet the objectives will be addressed throughout the year, and a history of the project will be maintained to accurately construct the year-end evaluation.

Institutionalization and Sustainability of the Project: The project will build partnerships with public and private sector organizations in each of the three countries. Many of the programmatic activities will become routine operational behaviors and will be supported and sustained through regular campus budgetary resources and partnerships. As the program is implemented, the already strong commitment from member institutions will allow this multinational relationship to remain in effect indefinitely.

CONCLUSION

As globalization and technology inexorably shrink the world yet magnify the potential impact of organizations on it, two related exigencies are clear: the business world needs managers who can function effectively across borders—cultural, linguistic, and societal—as well as managers who understand and can harness the enormous potential for positive social impact embodied in organizations. The project proposed here will develop students from NAFTA countries along these very lines—for strength in cross-cultural communication, team, and analytical competencies; for full appreciation of the complex social responsibilities that modern cross-cultural businesses and managers must eventually embrace for the long term benefit of all. We believe that Tri-National Competencies Across Borders and Corporate Social Responsibility will enable a select group of future NAFTA managers to take essential (and replicable) steps in meeting the needs of a small and interdependent world.

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[1] Ronald Alsop, "A New Winner," Wall Street Journal (September 17, 2003), p. R4.