INTERNATIONAL VISITORS

Prof Dr Dr Claude-Hélène Mayer

Claude-Hélène Mayer holds a Masters in Cultural Anthropology and a Doctorate in Political Sciences from the Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany. She also holds a Phd in Management from Rhodes University and has been a Post-doc fellow from March 2007 to December 2008.

Since 2009 she is Professor of Intercultural Business Communication at the University of Applied Studies in Hamburg, Germany and Senior Research Associate at the Department of Management at Rhodes University.

Her research areas are transcultural conflict management in organizations, transcultural mediation, managerial identity and values as well as health and salutogenesis in transcultural management, and (health) counselling in transcultural organizations.

Prof Terence Jackson

This year, Rhodes University welcomes Professor Terence Jackson from Middlesex University in London, England. For the next six weeks, Prof Jackson will be working on a research project with Professor Lynette Louw, Head of Department of Management.

This research project forms part of his earlier work regarding management from a cross- cultural perspective. With a degree in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Organizational Psychology, authoring seven books as well as the lead
editor of the journal: International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Prof Jackson hopes to make full use of his trip to gather information that will “address socially important issues such as those surrounding HIV and AIDS and health issues”. He also said that he “would like to further develop the relationship between Middlesex and Rhodes”.

On 19th February, Prof Jackson held his public lecture entitled “Management in Africa: The Cross Cultural Imperative”
at the Barratt 3. His research probes at the question: “How appropriate is the knowledge and theories that comes mostly
from the United States applicable here?” He also warned students to “beware of what you’re taught and how you apply it to the organization you work in” due to the cross cultural characteristic of organizations.

Prof Jackson is no stranger to South Africa or Rhodes, he has been here six times before doing research work. He explained “in London we were experiencing the worst snow fall in 20 years. Apart from, being excited about my work here, I was looking forward to the sunshine”.

As a distinguished intellectual and researcher, Prof Jackson proves to be quite the workaholic when he comments that his spare time is intertwined with his work. “I don’t have any spare time, I like my research work and like seeing a product at the end of the day... I’m quite creative too and enjoy do-it-yourself work when I have the time,” he said. 

PETER O.VAN DER MEER - LECTURER

Peter O. van der Meer (1968) is senior lecturer at the Utrecht University School of Economics. His main focus areas are entrepreneurship, strategic management and marketing for SMME's. His book on entrepreneurship (“Ondernemerschap in Hoofdlijnen”) is used to teach entrepreneurship at several large Dutch universities of applied sciences.
He lectured the PDEM 2009 and 2010 classes on Entrepreneurship

p.o.vandermeer@uu.nl