Teaching Cross-Cultural Competence in a Smart Machine Age

The business world is in a state of flux due in part to the advent of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, smart robots, and nanotechnology. The dawn of this ‘Smart Machine Age' has significant implications for business education, which will need to be transformed with a new focus on imparting knowledge, skills, and abilities suitable for the new workplace environment. Among the skill sets that are in highest demand according to employers is cross-cultural competence (CC). Scholarly interest in CC has grown exponentially in recent years and there is an emerging consensus that it is best taught through non-traditional pedagogies centered on experiential learning. This chapter explores the efficacy of international service learning as a tool for teaching CC, with a focus on an innovative social entrepreneurship project undertaken at Florida International University. The project involves a partnership between a student organization, an NGO, and a women's self-help group in India.

Reaching Out: The Lived Experiences of Self-Becoming Through International Service-Learning

Research findings generally agree that international-service-learning (ISL) experiences may contribute to changes in the self in service learners. However, few studies have investigated how the self is experienced and rediscovered in the process of ISL. The purpose of this study was to investigate how students experienced their own self-becoming in interpersonal encounters with locals during ISL experiences. Seven in-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with seven college students engaged in a 21-day ISL project in Ghana; their accounts were analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Three major themes emerged from the data analysis: (1) experiencing a gap, (2) launching out into the deep, and (3) embracing new possibilities. The findings provide a basis for future research and demonstrate the potential of ISL to help students explore and reconstruct their sense of self.

Communicating Ethical Engagement Abroad: A Content Analysis of Service-Learning Study Abroad Third-Party Provider Websites

This article shares the results of a study that analyzed the website content of eight third-party providers that offer service-learning study abroad programs to college students. The study looked specifically at the information about service-learning projects and how host communities, community partners, and target populations are portrayed or represented within that content. Data are analyzed through the lens of two ethical guidelines for international service-learning defined by The Forum on Education Abroad: prioritization of human dignity and community autonomy; and recognizing the risk of paternalism, exploitation, and neocolonial behavior. The findings of this study serve to provide baseline data about the public information shared by international service-learning program providers about service projects and partners as well as insights into how organizations that produce web content about service-learning partnerships can design information that meets ethical standards related to upholding dignity, respecting autonomy, and challenging paternalism.

A Paradigm Shift in International Service-Learning: The Imperative for Reciprocal Learning

The US-based authors argue that the practice of what we currently call “international service-learning” does not generally achieve its most important goals in the context of the global South, especially those based on the development of mutually beneficial relationships with host communities. The primary impediments to achieving this goal in any interaction between students and vulnerable peoples are: (1) the belief that a student’s reflection on their experience is sufficient, both to evaluate community impact and to promote student learning; (2) the assumption that service always has positive results; and most critically; (3) the concept of service itself. While something new and positive can be created to replace international service-learning, the changes required to do so are so fundamental that the result will be something completely different from the way that international service-learning is conducted today. We argue for the need to reframe international service-learning with a focus on reciprocal learning or risk continuing to function as a neocolonial practice with likely harm to communities and to our students as we engage in practices that reify global inequality.