INTERCULTURAL MANAGEMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES RAVENSBURG-WEINGARTEN

Working as a lecturer for Intercultural Management and teaching the Master students of International Business Administration was a lot of fun this summer semester! I encouraged them to deep dive into the topic of culture. They learned more about what shapes us as individuals and how important culture is for our daily life, especially for successful business relationships across national borders. The students themselves brought quite a bit of experience with different countries and nationalities into the classroom. We used this expericence to illustrate theoretical concepts like the iceberg model, Geert Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, Erin Meyer’s Culture Map and the specifics of cross-cultural communication with many practical examples. At the same time, we also developed solution suggestions for imminent intercultural challenges that some of the students were facing, e. g. training of senior staff in China or the next business trip to Italy as project lead.