Advancing intercultural competencies for global collaboration

Abstract

Globalization is not a rite of passage, and culture appears to be the most neglected and underestimated source of challenge in global professional services. Academic research on national culture and cultural differences has identified dimensions with an effect on the functioning not only of societies and individuals, but also of organizations and project teams. Once cultural differences are recognized and understood, there is a better chance of building bridges across cultural gaps instead of seeking to achieve feigned homogeneity. Global managers need to develop a set of twelve affective, behavioural, and cognitive competencies for successful intercultural interaction. A targeted development of these key competencies requires a sound appraisal to identify individual strengths and limitations. They can be assessed and developed using ICCA™ (Intercultural Communication and Collaboration Appraisal) as a diagnosis framework. At its core, ICCA™ looks at the areas in which one’s environment is “different” from the culture one is going to work with. And using the Q methodology as a psychometric measurement tool, it charts a path towards advancing intercultural competencies by studying the manager’s subjective viewpoints.