Study Abroad
Business, Law and Ethics in the European Union
Spring Term 2011
Travel Dates: May 23 - June 4, 2011
Updated: June 24, 2010
Experience the challenge of negotiating an international contract while exploring the dynamics of global business in the European Union (EU). This course focuses on globalization and its impact on business with a particular emphasis on EU and U.S. business and legal perspectives, ethics and culture. The classroom component of the course begins in Minneapolis, Minnesota and ends in Trier, Germany. In Minneapolis, you will meet German business students via e-mail and begin the process of negotiating a contract.
You will then travel to the heart of the EU - Brussels, Belgium - where you will meet with the German students and learn through on-site interactive visits, cultural immersion, discussion and reflection. This adventure includes meetings with executives from multi-national companies, government officials and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and will address business, legal, business ethics and corporate social responsibility issues as well as economic, socioeconomic, political and cultural issues within the European Union and their impact on conducting business in a global economy. The course ends in Trier, Germany, where you will attend classes and finalize your contracts.
The University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business (UST-OCB) and the Center for Ethical Business Cultures (CEBC) jointly offer this 3-credit UST MBA elective course.
To learn more, please visit:
Priority application deadline is August 2, 2010. Final application deadline is February 1, 2011.
Your UST Instructors
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Susan Marsnik, JD is an associate professor in the Department of Ethics and Business Law at the University of St. Thomas Opus College of Business. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. Prior to her academic career, Professor Marsnik practiced law with a boutique law firm where her practice included resolving business disputes and assisting clients on a variety of legal issues. In addition to practicing law, Professor Marsnik worked for ten years as a professional in the book publishing industry and she has experience marketing legal services and consulting law firms on management issues. Her research includes comparative analysis of U.S. and European Union law in a number of areas impacting international business including patent, data privacy, copyright, and sales law.
She has published in law journals and encyclopedias of law, and authored corporate compliance training programs in European Union legal issues used by Fortune 100 companies. Professor Marsnik has lectured, delivered papers, or taught in MBA programs and law schools in the United Kingdom, France, Hungary, Germany and Russia and as a Fulbright Senior Specialist in Egypt.
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Douglas Jondle, Ph.D., MBA is Director of Research at the Center for Ethical Business Cultures. His current research includes evalutating ethical business cultues multiculturally and the development of an Ethical Perception Index. Recent publications include Characteristics of Ethical Business Cultures published in the Journal of Business Ethics (2009 - 85:445-451) and Ethical Business Cultures: A Literature Review and Implications for HRD that was published in the Human Resource Development Review (Volume 8, Issue 2).
Dr. Jondle teaches Business Ethics at the University of St. Thomas – Minnesota and has served as a guest lecturer at the University of St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota on the subject of business ethics and corporate social responsibility. He has developed and facilitated graduate level study abroad programs to Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg and the United Kingdom for the University of St. Thomas and the University of Minnesota.
From 1989 to 1997, Jondle was a research station manager for Cargill where he was responsible for product development, was involved in and coordinated numerous agronomic trait technology projects including transgenic modifications and was research coordinator for Cargill’s joint venture with the All Union Research Institute in Dnipropetrovs’k, Ukraine. As a manager with Cargill, Inc., he has traveled throughout Europe including Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Russia and Ukraine.
Your Fachhochschule Instructor
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Michael Hakenberg, Ph.D., JD, LL.M. is a German national living in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. He is a professor for German and International Business Law at the Business Department of the University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule) Trier, Germany. Dr. Hakenberg received his juris doctor degree (1981) and a Ph.D. in public international law (1987) from the University of Würzburg in Germany. He also holds a master of laws degree from the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor (1983). Dr. Hakenberg is a member of the New York Bar and worked as a lawyer in Seattle, Munich, Stuttgart (Rechtsanwalt) and with an Italian Bank in Luxembourg.
In his work he dealt extensively with mergers & acquisitions, corporate and banking law, and international transactional work.
In October 1992 Dr. Hakenberg joined the University of Applied Sciences (Fachhochschule; http://www.fh-trier.de) in Trier. His main areas of teaching and research are German, EU and international business law, banking and financial law, and he publishes regularly in these areas. During the spring semester 2003 he was a visiting professor at the University of St. Thomas. Dr. Hakenberg also teaches at the Luxemburg European Campus of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
