Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Becoming Global Competent ——Methods of Developing Intercultural Sensitivity

Hangzhou, Dec 29th, 2010

Prof. Dr. Hora Tjitra &zhoujia

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

1 Introduction 4

2The Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)

6

3 How to Develop Intercultural Sensitivity ? 7

Cross-cultural & Intercultural Training 8

Intercultural Exposure 10

E-learning 13

4New Approach to Intercultural Training for The Global Manager

15

5 Reference 20

Agenda

Introduction

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Introduction

4

Intercultural Sensitivity (IS) is proved to be a valid predictive factor for intercultural effectiveness (Cui& Van den Berg, 1991)Employees with high intercultural sensitivity scored significantly higher than employees with low intercultural sensitivity in terms of service attentiveness, revenue contribution, interpersonal skills, job satisfaction, and social satisfaction as they relate to cross-cultural encounters (Sizoo, etc, 2005)

How to develop intercultural sensitivity of employees working in international environment is valued by more and more organizations .

The Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)

• The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) was created as a framework to explain the observed and reported experiences of people in intercultural situations.

• The underlying assumption of the model is that: as one’s experience of intercultural difference becomes more sophisticated, one’s competence in intercultural relations increase.

Ethnocentric Stages Ethnorelative Stages

How to Develop Intercultural Sensitivity?

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Cross-Cultural & Intercultural Training Cross-cultural training has been defined as an educative process focused on

promoting intercultural learning through the acquisition of behavioral, cognitive, and effective competencies required for effective interactions across diverse cultures (Landis & Brislin, 1996; Morris & Robie, 2001).

The importance of training:• Cross-cultural training is one of the critical steps in the process of promoting

assignee success and to avert failure (Bennett, etc, 2000)• Cross-cultural training has had a positive impact in interpersonal relationships,

enhancement in job performance, self-development, perception by others, intercultural sensitivity, attribution making, cognitive categories (Altshuler, etc, 2003)

Training Approach: • In usual training, role playing, lectures, case study, cultural assimilator, situation

game, critical incident are sued often.• The training program last from one day to twelve weeks, most companies opt to opt

for two- to three-day programs prior to departure (Bennett, 2000)

Cross-cultural training has been defined as an educative process focused on promoting intercultural learning through the acquisition of behavioral, cognitive, and effective competencies required for effective interactions across diverse cultures (Landis & Brislin, 1996; Morris & Robie, 2001)

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Not all Cross-Cultural Competencies Can Be Taught

• Not all cross-cultural competencies can be taught, and not everyone is equally trainable, Sharon Leiba-O'Sullivan (1999)distinguished the stable traits and dynamic traits of cross-cultural competence. stable competencies are essential for the acquisition of dynamic competencies.

• If the stable competencies constrain acquisition of the dynamic Cross-cultural skills, then organizations should make it a priority to seek individuals who possess some basic level of stable competencies.

• Organizations may then opt to seek out those who possess at least some of the dynamic Cross-cultural competencies as well, in order to minimize training expenditures

stable Personal attribute• Values • Beliefs, norms

Personality traits • Flexibility, Perseverance, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Openness to experience, Conscientiousness etc•Emotional stability

dynamic Personal skills •Stress-management Skills •Conflict-resolution Skills• Foreign language competence, etc

dynamic Cultural knowledge •General (awareness and knowledge of cultural differences)•Specific (knowledge about another culture)•Factual (country's history, politics, etc)•Conceptual (country’s value)•Attribution (awareness of contextually appropriate behavior.)

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

The Effectiveness of Cross-cultural Training:

Summery:

• Training can help trainees develop their intercultural competence within short time

• Not all competencies can be gained through training. It is effective in enhancing trainees’ knowledge, occasionally effective in changing trainees’ behavior, mixed record in facilitating changes in trainee attitudes.

• Focus heavily on cognitive or knowledge-based information and awareness of the target culture. it does not provide the metacognitive skills needed to learn in new situations and cultures

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Intercultural Exposure

• international experience will have positive effect on intercultural sensitivity, as well as global perspective, community, social and public health awareness, and communication skills, awareness of self and culture, and ability to facilitate communication (Zhai, 2000; Goodkin & Savageau, 2001; Martin, 2005; Shaftel, 2007)

• Changes occurred in areas such as self-confidence, adaptability, flexibility, confidence in gathering information in new and unfamiliar settings (Gmelch, 1997).

• Study abroad as a process of learning intercultural competence consisted of three ethno-categories: transition from one culture to another, adjustment to the difference and gaining intercultural sensitivity (Koskinen, Tossavainen ,2004)

• Engle and Engle (2004) state that students in the semester-long program demonstrated gains in intercultural sensitivity and that students in the year-long program showed even greater gains, with their rate of progress increasing in the second term

• Short-term, non-language-based study abroad programs can have a positive impact on intercultural sensitivity. (Andersona, etc, 2004)

Different time duration has different impacts:

Encountering culture differences is beneficial to intercultural sensitivity:

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Weakness & Suggestions

• Compared to training and other methods, it is time and money consuming;

• Students or employees may face psychology stress, and cultural shock;

• When back to home country, especially after long times living in abroad, expatriates may face conflict between their new values and old values.

• Prepared to face the difference of the host culture by exploring their own cultural values, beliefs and practices in the orientation phase.

• Offer intercultural tutoring and mentoring to venture into encounters with local people, during their study or working abroad.

• Afford support or training when the expatriates back to

home country.

Weakness Suggestions

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

E-learning

Teaching culture reveals that with its adaptability and advancement, computer software, computer networks, corpora and corpora-based tools, via different ways, can all play a role in assisting the development of learners’ intercultural competence.

• Blog: blogs are well suited to promote students’ awareness and reflections on the target culture, since study abroad per se might not be enough for students to develop cross- cultural understanding (Kramsch, 1991)

• Email: the e-mail exchanges between the English-Spanish pairs of students helped them develop different components of intercultural communicative competence (O’Dowd, 2006),How ever Belz (2003) found that e-mail conversations between American and German students did not always produce a positive outcome.

• E-forum: students’ e-forum entries demonstrated four types of intercultural competences: (A) interest in knowing other people’s way of life and introducing one’s own culture to others, (B) ability to change perspective, (C) knowledge about one’s own and others’ culture for intercultural communication, and (D) knowledge about intercultural communication processes.

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Strength & Weakness

With the help of computer-mediated communication, the students took a journey of discovery and reflection where their understanding of the behaviors, beliefs, concepts, ways of interacting in their own and the other culture was exchanged, discussed, negotiated, and even refined

• Technical problems remain an issue to be overcome and finding better matches between computer-assisted learning tools and pedagogical objectives is a topic that demands further investigation and exploration.

• E-learning environment is conducive to the development of knowledge and attitudes of intercultural competence, but not necessarily to the development of empathy and intercultural skill

Strength Weakness

New Approach to Intercultural Training for The Global Manager

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

The facet of CQ Features Training methods

Cognitive Total knowledge and experience concerning cultural adaptation of an individual stored in memory

Documentary and experiential methods

Meta cognition Strategy of learning how to learn, or meta learning, Including planning, monitoring, and evaluating

General cultural assimilator or culture based assimilator

Motivation Culture empathy and strong sense of efficacy engage in a problem-solving and strategic approach to overcoming obstacle

Expose an uninitiated person

through a series of short, simple, and controlled intercultural interactions in a classroom setting

Behavior Able to adapt behavior to be appropriate to any given cultural context

Role-plays, narrative plays and theater training

Apply Culture Intelligence to Cross-Cultural Training

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Designing an Intercultural Training

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Strength & Weakness

Strength:• It is uniquely tailored to the strengths and deficits of an individual.• It provides an integrated approach to training dealing with knowledge and

learning, motivational, and behavioral features.• It is built upon a unifying psychological model of cultural adaptation rather than

the piecemeal and country-specific approach to training typically employed.

Weakness:

The effectiveness remains a question, and how to implement is not so clear. Besides, the whole process may last longer than usual training approach. .

Reference

Building the Global Competence for Asian Leaders

Reference

DeJaeghere, J&Zhan, Y (2008).Developing U.S. teachers’ intercultural competence: Does professional development matter? International Journal of Intercultural Relations, Vol. 19,255–268

Altshuler,L;Sussmanb, N; Kachu, E(2003). Assessing changes in intercultural sensitivityamong physician trainees using the intercultural development inventory. International Journal of

Intercultural Relations: 27, 387–401Liaw(2006)E-learning and the development of intercultural competence. Language Learning &

Technology.10, 49-64Korhonen, K(2004). Developing Intercultural Competence as Part of Professional Qualifications. A Training

Experiment. Journal of Intercultural CommunicationKoskinen L&Tossavainen K(2004).Study abroad as a process of learning intercultural competence in

nursing International Journal of Nursing Practice, 10, 111–120Sharon Leiba-O'Sullivan(1999).The Distinction between Stable and Dynamic Cross-Cultural Competencies:

Implications forExpatriate Trainability. Journal of International Business Studies, 30, 709-725Sizoo,S; Plank, R; Iskat, W; Serrie, H(2005)The effect of intercultural sensitivity on employee performance

in cross-cultural service encounters. The Journal of Services Marketing, 19Elola, I; Oskoz, A(2008).Blogging: Fostering Intercultural ,Competence Development in Foreign Language

and Study Abroad Contexts. Foreign language annals, 41, 454-477Earley, P&Peterson, R(2004).The elusive cultural chameleon Cultural intelligence as a new approach to

intercultural training for the global manager. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2004, 3, 100–115.

Martin, J(2005).The relationship between student sojourner perceptions of intercultural competencies and previous sojourn experience.

Bennett, R; Aston, A; Colquhoun, T(2000).Cross-cultural training: a critical step in ensuring the success of international assignments. Human Resource Management, 39, 239–250

Landis, D; Bennett, J; Bennett, M(2004), Handbook of intercultural training.

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