scholarly journals Multicultural Teamwork as a Source of Experiential Learning and Intercultural Development

2011 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 143 ◽  
Author(s):  
María del Carmen Méndez García ◽  
María Luisa Pérez Cañado
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Theoretical Consideration ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Global Teams ◽  
Intercultural Development ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Life Long Learning ◽  
Multicultural Team

This paper delves into multicultural teamwork as a source of experiential learning. It starts with a theoretical consideration of work in global teams, with a particular stress on the possibilities they offer for experiential learning on a cooperative and collaborative basis. From a practical sphere, the paper presents part of the results yielded by a study on multicultural teamwork dynamics in which the opportunities these types of groups provide for learning on the spot are explored in the light of the team members’ development of key components of intercultural competence. The paper concludes with a reflection on the relevance of experiential learning for multicultural team workers’ life-long learning.

scholarly journals The power of individual cultural values in global virtual teams

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audra I. Mockaitis ◽  
Elizabeth L. Rose ◽  
Peter Zettinig
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Virtual Team ◽  
Global Teams ◽  
Global Virtual Teams ◽  
Team Processes ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Relationship

This paper investigates the perceptions of members of 43 culturally diverse global virtual teams, with respect to team processes and outcomes. Despite widespread acknowledgement of the challenges presented by cultural differences in the context of global teams, little is known about the effect of these differences on team dynamics in the absence of face-to-face interaction. Using a student-based sample, we study the relationship between global virtual team members’ individualistic and collectivistic orientations and their evaluations of trust, interdependence, communication and information sharing, and conflict during the team task. Our results suggest that a collectivist orientation is associated with more favorable impressions regarding global virtual team processes and that cultural differences are not concealed by virtual means of communication.

scholarly journals Pedagogical Approaches To Intercultural Competence Development

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Venera-Mihaela Cojocariu
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Skill Development ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Explanatory Models ◽  
Competence Development ◽  
Global Community ◽  
Full Agreement ◽  
Pedagogical Approaches

The volume generously provided by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2020 and edited by Christine E. Poteau entitled Pedagogical Approaches to Intercultural Competence Development is organized into seven chapters. Beyond the generic theme of interest under which they come together (Pedagogical Approaches to Intercultural Competence Development) and which gives unity to the volume, each chapter is a small universe in itself, unique, interesting, topical, and attractive as a perspective of approach, design, arguments, contents, applications, implications, bibliography. Therefore, the volume can be covered in full, as a holistic approach to the phenomenon, or by chapters, depending on the interest of the reader and his area of ​​expertise. In full agreement with the theme (and, as it were, to increase the diversity of perspectives), it is proposed as a volume that brings together contributions from different geographical and socio-cultural areas (Brazil, Hawaii, Israel, Japan, USA, Ukraine), to researchers and educators with backgrounds in various fields, concerned with the same major problem (enhancing pedagogical approaches and expanding intercultural competence skill development) and finding solutions that, beyond their immediate focus can allow the emergence of suggestions with a higher degree of applicability or generation of explanatory models. That is why, although the analyses are focused on different specific aspects of the problem (in each chapter), the perspective of approach/solution is one that rises towards the global, in which the answers and proposals of the authors are related to the interdisciplinary approach (e.g.: the need to globalize curricula and identify diverse pedagogical challenges in the development of intercultural competence). One of the effects aimed at following this journalistic approach refers precisely to the development of initiatives across fields of experiential learning and the initiation of cooperation programs for a stronger global community.

scholarly journals Building an Inclusive Campus: Developing Students’ Intercultural Competencies Through an Interreligious and Intercultural Diversity Program

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Amy Rose Green ◽  
Adriana Tulissi ◽  
Seth Erais ◽  
Sharon Lynn Cairns ◽  
Debbie Bruckner
Keyword(s):  
Secondary Students ◽  
Personal Growth ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Intercultural Development ◽  
Intercultural Development Inventory ◽  
Post Secondary ◽  
Intercultural Competencies ◽  
Quantitative Results ◽  
Intercultural Engagement ◽  
Insight Into

Post-secondary institutions are increasingly recognizing the need to foster intercultural competence (ICC) in students; however, the ways in which these institutions can do so has not been fully explored. The purpose of the current mixed methods study was to investigate changes in post-secondary students’ ICC (N = 35) following participation in an interreligious and intercultural diversity program, based upon changes in students’ scores on the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). A thematic analysis of post-program questionnaires was used to triangulate the data and provide more insight into changes experienced by participants. Quantitative results revealed significant increases in students’ overall ICC, and significant decreases in the discrepancy between students’ perceived ICC and their actual ICC. Qualitative results revealed five overall themes: (1) shifting perspectives, (2) enhancing intercultural engagement skills, (3) connecting, (4) inspiring action, and (5) personal growth. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The Role of Virtual Multicultural Teams in Corporate Culture

2011 ◽  
pp. 62-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amira El Guindi ◽  
Sherif Kamel
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Teams ◽  
Corporate Culture ◽  
Multicultural Teams ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Global Organizations ◽  
Team Members ◽  
The World ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Multicultural Team

Information and communication technologies are impacting today’s organizations and businesses in many diverse ways. The implications are perceived at the individual, organizational, and national levels. The old accustomed-to boundaries of national economies and markets are giving way to globalization and newly emerging trends. Competition is increasing, and due to the forces of change, the world market will sweep aside the small market players to make way for global organizations that are capable of penetrating the world markets through a massive global outreach strategy. In that respect, there is a need to invest in innovative business models such as virtual multicultural teams that are capable of handling the pressures of growing competition while capitalizing on the evolution of information and communication technology. Global organizations need to operate through a very flexible structure that allows freedom and speed, and replaces the hierarchical models with structures that are flatter and adequate for stronger and more efficient communication. Such a structure will allow bottom-up decision making and self-management and will capitalize on the advantages of employing multicultural teams; the diversified capacities, knowledge and business perception of these teams will be conducive to more in-depth innovation and creativity. Virtual teams can provide an organization with a solid opportunity to compete, making it easier to adapt to different situations and reducing conflicts. This chapter reflects the results of a study conducted in Egypt that targeted the determination of the possibility of reducing multicultural team conflicts by establishing a corporate culture that could have a strong influence on team members using virtual teams. The study covered six organizations operating through virtual multicultural teams and describes the analysis of the findings that relate to the role of corporate culture, the management style, and conflict resolution, among other elements. Global organizations face the challenge of operating through global multicultural teams whose members—coming from different cultural backgrounds—often stumble into conflicts that influence the overall performance of the organization. The core issue of this study is the impact of multicultural team conflicts on the overall organizational performance. Therefore, the objective of the study was to examine the relationship between corporate culture and multicultural team conflicts and to determine whether it is possible to reduce multicultural team conflicts by building a corporate culture in which all individual cultures would fit and where the management plays a vital role in transmitting the corporate culture to different teams in order to help global organizations become more efficient using virtual multicultural teams.

scholarly journals A Questão Cultural e sua Influência na Gestão de Equipes de Projetos Globais

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Lima ◽  
Leandro Alves Patah
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Style ◽  
Project Manager ◽  
Project Teams ◽  
Global Teams ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Several Variables ◽  
Qualitative Descriptive ◽  
Global Project ◽  
Research Show

The interactions between the project manager and team members may be affected by several variables, such as culture, leadership style of the project manager, and the complexity of the developed tasks. Focused in this context, the objective of this paper is to investigate and describe how the culture issue can affect the anagement of global project teams. It is a qualitative, descriptive study conducted in a large multinational company in the automotive sector. The results of this research show that cultural issues can influence both positively and negatively the management of project global teams and the managers of these projects have to deal with several management challenges that require the adoption of certain ways of dealing with culture impacts in managing their teams to minimize potential problems in this context.

scholarly journals The Role of Pedagogical Variables in Intercultural Development: a Study of Faculty-led Programs

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Allison Spenader ◽  
Peggy Retka
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Study Abroad ◽  
Academic Program ◽  
Intercultural Development ◽  
Intercultural Development Inventory ◽  
Study Abroad Programs ◽  
Service Learning Projects ◽  
Cultural Interventions ◽  
Learning Projects

This study investigates the intercultural development in several semester-long study abroad programs at the undergraduate level, using the Intercultural Development Inventory, or IDI. Our faculty-led cohort model utilizes a study abroad seminar incorporating an experiential learning project to provide pedagogical supports and cultural interventions to students during their sojourn. Our study compares mean IDI scores of various cohorts across multiple personal, contextual and pedagogical variables.  While no correlation was found between English vs. foreign language contexts, housing types or academic program types, we did find differences between programs based on the type of experiential learning project used in the course. Our findings indicate that service-learning projects are associated with greater intercultural gains than other types of experiential learning projects.

scholarly journals Building Intercultural Competence Through Intercultural Competency Certification Of Undergraduate Students

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Maria G. Fabregas Janeiro ◽  
Ricardo Lopez Fabre ◽  
Jose Pablo Nuno de la Parra
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Initial Level ◽  
Intercultural Sensitivity ◽  
Developmental Model ◽  
Intercultural Development ◽  
Intercultural Development Inventory ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
Intercultural Competency ◽  
Travel Abroad

The Intercultural Competency Certificate (CCI in Spanish) designed for the Universidad Popular Automa del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP University) is a theory based comprehensive plan to develop undergraduate students intercultural competence. This Certificate is based in the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) developed by Milton Bennett (1993) and will be assessed by the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) v.3 developed by Bennett & Hammer (Hammer, 2009; Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003). The main purpose of the Intercultural Competency Certificate is to develop students intercultural competence at least to the acceptance level of the DMIS continuum. To achieve this goal, the students will have to develop of necessary knowledge, skill and attitudes (Deardorff, 2006). This Certificate proposes to develop attitudes, knowledge and skills through certain activities as learning a new language, take international classes, reflect about intercultural differences, interact with people from other cultures, travel abroad and receive coaching by a professional who will guide them through tailor-make experiences according to the initial level of intercultural competence, measured by the IDI v.3 at the beginning of the Certification.

Reflection and Intercultural Competence Development

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciara Nardon
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Intercultural Development ◽  
Intercultural Learning ◽  
Behavioral Skills ◽  
Cultural Experiences ◽  
Diverse Environment ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
Intercultural Interactions

Increasing levels of cultural diversity requires a system of higher education structured to facilitate intercultural learning and develop individuals who are prepared to work in a culturally diverse environment, and can make decisions and manage people cognizant of cultural differences. Three main approaches to facilitate intercultural learning in the classroom have emerged: transfer of cultural knowledge, cultural experiences, and reflection on experience. Each of these approaches has a role to play at different stages of intercultural development. Three stages of intercultural development are proposed: (1) Monocultural stage, referring to a stage in which individuals are unaware of cultural differences; (2) Cross-cultural stage, in which individuals recognize and understand cultural differences but lack behavioral skills to deal with them; and (3) Intercultural stage, in which individuals can draw on a repertoire of behaviors to influence and shape intercultural interactions in ways that facilitate understanding and create opportunities for cooperation. Reflection on experience is proposed to be particularly useful to support the development of intercultural competence. Reflection is a thinking process focusing on examining a thought, event, or situation to make it more comprehensible and to learn from it. A four-step reflection process is proposed: (1) Describe experience; (2) Reflect on experience; (3) Learn from experience; and (4) Apply learning. Suggestions on using reflection in the classroom are proposed.

Global Teams

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia C. Gluesing
Keyword(s):  
Influence Factors ◽  
Global Teams ◽  
Contextual Influences ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Roles And Responsibilities ◽  
Global Team ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Geographic Boundaries ◽  
Culture Distance ◽  
Global Work

Global teams have become a basic building block for organizing work that crosses geographic boundaries. They are an alternative to more traditional forms of hierarchy-based organizing and form the foundation of what is becoming known as the global networked organization. Global teams connect people who are geographically dispersed and work together on specific projects or tasks, crossing national, cultural, organizational, and linguistic boundaries. While global teams hold promise for organizing global work, they face conditions of complexity: (1) a multiplicity of different cultural contexts, governmental requirements, and multiple diverse stakeholders; (2) interdependence brought about by global flows of capital, information, and value chains; and, (3) ambiguity of meanings despite the fact that there is plenty of information. Management scholars have conducted most of the research about global teams from 1990 to 2018. These studies have shed light on global teaming processes, including communication and collaboration, facilitation and brokerage, leadership, language and identity, shared meaning, trust, power, national and organizational culture, distance, time, and technology. Some of the factors shown to improve global team effectiveness are as follows: a clear mission and objectives, explicit expectations for members’ roles and responsibilities, facilitating relationships among team members that leads to shared knowledge and a team identity, managing cultural, language and other contextual challenges, and monitoring and managing changing environmental conditions. While knowledge has grown about how global teams function, there is still much to learn about the complexity of multilevel cultural interactions in global teams and how different influence factors interact to affect performance. In-depth, longitudinal studies by anthropologists can provide such insights. The role of anthropologists is to assist the development of global teams by bringing nuance to the ways culture manifests in team member interactions and how social relationships are enacted and understood. Anthropologists can help build a richer understanding of contextual influences and the perceptions embedded in culture that shape sense-making across multiple contexts.

Developing Cultural Competence

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Erika Cornelius Smith
Keyword(s):  
Experiential Learning ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Business Practices ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Study ◽  
Business Decision ◽  
Short Term Study ◽  
The Impact

The growing popularity of short-term study abroad and faculty-led immersion offer scholars and educators a new opportunity to study the impact of cross-cultural experiential learning practices on fostering cross-cultural competency among business students. Rising foreign direct investment, international trade, the growing significance of emerging markets, and other socio-political elements of globalization are reshaping 21st century business practices. Pedagogies of business education, including sales and marketing education, must adapt to these changes and provide an emphasis on cross-cultural understanding and its impact on business decision making, along with fostering skills for cultural sensitivity. This article will review two relevant theoretical frameworks, transformative learning theory, and experiential learning theory, which describe the processes by which students develop intercultural competence, particularly with respect to faculty-led, short-term study immersion programs. It will outline a series of best practices for designing, measuring, and implementing such programs in higher education and conclude with brief recommendations for future research.

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