American business schools offer degrees in business administration. The focus is primarily on analyzing quantifiable factors. The predominant subjects are finance, accounting, statistics. The methods are data-driven, structured and rigorous. The goal is to be as scientific as possible.
As of 2012 there were 662 business schools in the United States. Out of 436 schools reporting, over 168,000 students were enrolled in Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) programs in 2012 alone. From 2008-2009, 347,985 Bachelor’s degrees, 168,375 Master’s Degrees and 2,123 Ph.D.s were conferred in Business and Management. Many Americans believe in the the discipline of business administration.
State of research: the state of knowledge at a specific point in time, as found in scientific or academic literature, including all agreement and disagreement. The first step in the study of any subject is to understand the current state of research.
For Germans the past is present, relevant, of great importance. The past explains who we are, where we come from, how the present has become the way it is. For them the past is not history in the sense of gone, over, goodbye, irrelevant. History is present and future, a part of their identity.
Old buildings, with their stairwells and staircases, ceilings and facades, and many other kinds of cultural monuments are protected in Germany by Denkmalschutz – laws requiring their protection and preservation – even if they are in dire need of reburbishment or reconstruction.
Entire sections of German towns can be placed under Denkmalschutz. History is heritage. Heritage is identity. The battle for and against Stuttgart 21 – a modernization of Stuttgart‘s main train station – went on for several years and became the prominent issue in recent state-wide elections in Baden-Württemberg.
Outdoor museums in Germany show how people of past epochs lived and worked. Castles from the Middle Ages with their fascinating guided tours are popular daytrip destinations. In every German village, town and city one finds remnants of the past. Town gates, walls, even moats, and chapels are integrated seamlessly into the modern.
In elementary schools children learn Heimatkunde – history of their local region. The Heimatfilm – movies set in a specific region such as Bavaria or the Black Forest – remain a constant in the German media landscape, keeping alive regional customs and traditions. Many detective tv series are regionally based, one week in Hamburg in the north, the next in Leipzig in the East, the one thereafter in Cologne in the Rhineland.
For Germans, all new knowledge is based on previous knowledge. Before Germans accept new knowledge, they need to see how it flows from current knowledge.
Academic works in Germany, including Master‘s and Ph.D. level theses, almost always begin with a full account of relevant context information: definition of terms, lengthy description of topic, current status of research, methodology applied. The context can amount to as much as one-third of the length of the paper. Some universities expect that it exceed one-half.
Perhaps because of the high cost of tuition at American universities, Americans typically view students as customers and schools as businesses. As such, teachers will attempt to cater to the needs of their students – if a certain process doesn’t interest the customers (students), the teacher will change it in order to keep the customers attentive.
During their classes, if American teachers notice that students aren’t paying attention, they will often include several amusing anecdotes that they tell throughout the class to keep their students’ focus.
For example, during a physics class, it would not be uncommon for an American professor to stop the lecture to talk to students about how Herman Weyl (one of the early proponents of group theory) had an affair with Erwin Schrodinger’s (the physicist who’s best known not only for his quantum mechanics equation but also for his potentially dead cat) wife, or how Murray Gell-Mann (who won the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics) was so narcissistic that he once warned his cab driver not to cash his check, because he believed that his signature was worth more than his cab fare had been.
American teachers will also include anecdotal stories from their own lives if these stories have any relevance to the subject matter. For example, if the teacher is describing a discovery made at CERN, he/she might talk about a colleague who worked there.
Impersonal, detached; difficult to understand; theoretical; insufficiently factual; no attempt at pictorial representation or narrative content.
Objective: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations.
To be scientific, academic, scholarly in the German context means to be objective and abstract. Objectivity, in turn, means to be unbiased, free of value judgement. Germans do their best to avoid communicating their personal opinion. They address the subject matter as an objective neutral. If it all, personal opinion is communicated at the conclusion and as discreetly as possible.
German school textbooks rarely explain their content via concrete examples. The focus is on principles which are explained only sparingly in case studies. Mathematical formulas and abstract statements are preferred.
This is also the case when German learn foreign languages. They first learn the grammar, then apply those rules to writing and finally to speaking.
Mid-1990s. University of Bonn. Professor Dr. Schmidt enters the classroom with books and papers under his arm, and his little bell. The topic: Game Theory in the Context of International Politics.
A graduate student moves to the front of the room to give his presentation. Hardly a minute into it a shrill ding-a-ling pierces the air. The students don’t dare move a muscle. “Ladies and gentleman. Time and again I simply must impress upon you the need to define the terms you use. You cannot simply throw complex terms around the room without having first clearly defined them!“
A few students risk rolling their eyes. The presenter sweats, squirms and stammers his way through his material. Professor Dr. Schmidt sits down in his chair, his left arm on his desk, in his hand his little friend the bell– ready to get shrill at a moment’s notice.
Career Development offices at American universities advise on personal branding tactics in order to improve the career prospects of undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students. Yale University, for example, helps students understand how best to use LinkedIn in order to network with contacts and employers.
When uploading a photo, students are advised: “To be mindful of the image you want to project. Be sure that it is appropriate for the audience who will be viewing it.”
The office also recommends that students join Ivy League groups and alumni networks to take advantage of connections with other elite universities. Further, Yale students are advised “to connect with those with whom you share common interests.“
Personal branding is not new. People have always taken into consideration how they are perceived by those they are trying to persuade. It is natural that the marketing techniques used to sell products are being applied to selling a person, or a person’s skills, experience, value.
Books, seminars and companies advise individuals on how to best manage their reputation in the Internet. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and other forums and communities exert influence on how people are perceived. Perceptions are personal and subjective. Branding means presenting the messenger in the most positive light.
See what books Amazon offers on personal branding.
As children Americans learn at an early age to be on – or to be put onto – center stage. As early as Kindergarten, in Show and Tell, they are asked to bring something personal into school: a toy, a stuffed animal, one of their favorite books. They stand before their peers and present.
They practice not only speaking in front of a group – the first experience with public speaking – they learn how to speak about themselves and their feelings. And when they do, they seek from the other children attention, positive feedback, ultimately approval. They are in presentation mode.
It is the same with letter-writing. American children are taught not only to feel free to begin sentences with I. They are encouraged to write in the active, not passive, form. They should write from their individual, personal perspective. Letters are per definition a personal and consciously subjective form of communication.
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