Teaching Cross-Cultural Management Skills

Abstract

Students who envisage careers in international business must learn to manage cultural differences on three levels: self, interpersonal, and organizational. Five related and synergistic exercises give students experience in dealing with and solving real-world problems in crosscultural management on all three levels. The multicultural college campus offers resources that are tapped by students and usually provides a situation of longstanding separation, alienation, or even hostility among various cultural groups that has defied decades of official ministrations. Through the five exercises students ire empowered as cross-cultural managers within their own work organization (i.e., the college) and prove to be highly successful in solving cross-cultural problems. The techniques learned in these exercises provide effective preparation for future management positions in the international arena.