Rouen Business School’s Global Campus Initiative: Assumptions & Assessment

Michael Vande Berg, Ph.D.Rouen Business SchoolAACSB International

Chicago, Illinois8 April, 2013

The value of intercultural competence in the workplace

“There is real business value in employing staff who have the ability to work effectively with individuals and organizations from cultural backgrounds different from their own.

Employees who lack these skills may leave their organizations susceptible to risks including:

• Loss of clients• Damage to reputation• Conflict with Teams

Employers. . . say that educational institutions could do more to equip students with intercultural skills.” *

*“Culture at Work: The Value of Intercultural Skills in the Workplace.”(2013). British Council, IPSOS, & Booz/Allen/Hamilton. http://www.britishcouncil.org/press/research-reveals-value-intercultural-skills-workplace

Intercultural competence: shifting perspective and adapting behavior to other cultural contexts.

Increasing cultural and personal self awareness;

Increasing awareness of others within their own cultural and personal contexts;

Learning techniques for “bridging cultural gaps”—which is to say, interacting with culturally different others in effective and appropriate ways;

Cultivating emotional intelligence—developing the capacities to identify, manage, communicate and apply emotions effectively and appropriately.

Three dominant narratives—”stories”—about Cultural Learning

• Humans learn by coming into contact with cultural difference

• Humans learn by being immersed in cultural difference: “internationalization”

• Humans develop by being immersed in cultural difference—”internationalization”—and then through reflecting on how they & others respond to that difference—”interculturalization”

• Vande Berg, M., Paige, R. M., & Lou, K. H. (Eds.) (2012). Student learning abroad: what our students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

First story: students learn through being exposed to difference “out there”

• Students learn through contact with the new and different.

Students learn through talking about difference.

Second story: students learn through “immersion” in the new and different

Second story: educators structure the learning environment so students are immersed in their experiences with diversity

Common Internationalization Strategies:• Increase number of students studying abroad• Increase number of students working abroad• Increase number of international students on campus• Increase international content of on-campus courses• Hire more international faculty• Encourage or require second language study

But a persistent challenge in stories two and three: Most students prefer sameness rather than difference

Considerable disciplinary evidence also challenges

the first and second stories• The History of Science (Kuhn)• Experiential learning theory (Dewey, Piaget, Kolb)• Organizational Behavior (Hofstede, Trompenaars)• Psychology (Piaget, Lewin, Kelly, Savicki)• Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (Fink, Weimer)• Cultural Anthropology (Boas, Hall, La Brack)• Linguistics (Sapir, Whorf)• Intercultural Relations (Bennett, Bennett, Hammer)• Neuroscience (Zull)• Cognitive Biology (Maturana, Varela)

Researching story two (immersion):The Georgetown Consortium Study (2009)*

• 1,159 study abroad students, 138 control group students (61 separate study abroad programs)

• No significant gain in intercultural competence– “students can be in the vicinity of China and not have a

Chinese experience”Conclusion• Students on study abroad may fully enjoy their stay overseas,

but a large majority do not substantially increase their ability to shift cultural perspective or engage in culturally adapt behavior.

*Vande Berg, M. (2009). Intervening in student learning abroad: A research-based inquiry. (M. Bennett, Guest Ed.) Intercultural Education, Vol. 20, Issue 4, pp. 15-27.

*Vande Berg, M.; Connor-Linton, J.; & Paige, R. M. The Georgetown Consortium Study: Intervening in student learning abroad. Frontiers: the Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad. Vol. XVIII, pp. 1-75.

Developing intercultural competence:Story three

• Neither learning about, nor being immersed in, cultural difference leads to intercultural development.

• Students become “interculturally competent” as they are increasingly able to shift perspective and adapt behavior to new cultural contexts.

• Most students are not at this point developing interculturally through studying abroad.

• Most students do develop interculturally when educators intervene to develop their intercultural competence.

• Effective intervention is guided by intentional assessment.

Vande Berg, M., Paige, R. M. & Lou, K. H. Student learning abroad: What they’re learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Assessing Intercultural Development: Comparative Program Data (IDI=90-point scale*)

SA without facilitation at program site: IDI Gains• Georgetown U. Consortium Study (60 progs.)** +1.32

SA with facilitation across program: IDI Gains• U of Pacific training program +17.46

• AUCP training program (Aix, Marseille) +13.00

• CIEE training program (20 programs, fall, ‘12) +11.34

* Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI): www.idiinventory.com; Hammer, M. (2012). The Intercultural Development Inventory: A new frontier in assessment and development of intercultural competence. In Vande Berg, M., Paige, R. M. & Lou, K. H. (Eds.) (2012). What our students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it.

Rouen Business School research study:Assessing Student Intercultural Development

Research questions:• To what extent are business students, from various

national backgrounds, interculturally competent when they enter business schools that make special efforts to enhance the “internationalization” of their curricula and campuses?

• To what extent do entering students, at each institution and collectively, develop their IC during their first year?

• To what extent does the IC of students develop through studying abroad (semester/year)?

• To what extent does student IC develop during the year following their study abroad?

Rouen Business School Research Study

• Study embedded within New Careers Chair at RBS

• Four partner institutions: Aston Business School, International Business School of Hanze University, Kelley School of Business at Indiana U.-Bloomington, Rouen Business School (lead institution)

• Three student cohorts: entering domestic, entering international, students returning from study or work abroad

• Pre- & post-testing, using Intercultural Development Inventory, at three schools in 2012-13: baseline data

• Assess effectiveness of intercultural interventions at each partner institution in 2013-14: IDI pre- & post-testing