By Nathalie van Meurs

For three days in November, approximately 30 young researchers and half a dozen senior researchers came together to discuss the impact of values and norms on education and training for intercultural assignments and management. This workshop, sponsored by the E.U. and hosted by the University of Regensburg in Germany, took place in Schloss Spindlhoff, just outside Regensburg, in a picturesque town along the river Regen.

Most of the researchers that came together on the Tuesday the 25^th of November were from Europe, although some came from as far as New Zealand, U.S.A., and Canada. Interestingly, Eastern European universities were more prominently represented than West European institutes. Furthermore, most of the young researchers were women, but all of the seniors were men. The workshop was promisingly interdisciplinary, which amplified the overlap in the fields, such as economics, language, psychology, and political studies, and the potential for future cooperation. The days were organized as such that senior researchers gave keynote presentations in the morning, followed by poster sessions with presentations by young researchers after lunch. Each day ended with a special dinner or outing around the town Regenstauf. The entire event was organised by Stefan Schmid and Uli Zeutschel, with the help of Astrid and Gaby, overlooked by Prof. Fink and Prof. Thomas.

After the welcoming speeches, Prof. Alexander Thomas from Regensburg University opened with a discussion on International Scientific Cooperation. He rightly highlighted the Anglo- American domination within the social sciences. He urged young researchers to maintain an open perspective to culture - what it means and how it should be researched - with an emphasis on the dangers of imposing (Western) methods upon cultures where such measures just do not suffice. Prof. Nicolas Bibu from Romania followed with an in depth analysis of the need for democratic processes when cooperating across borders. His message was positive, however, it remains to be seen in practice whether all cultures embrace this quintessentially ‘Western’ perspective of work relations.

The sessions after lunch concerned Intercultural Interaction at the Workplace and Stereotypes, Attitudes, and Cultural Identity. Before researchers would give their presentations in succession, all participants of the workshop had some time to explore the different posters, for example to determine what could result in future cooperation. Once presentations commenced, however, switching between sessions during the presentations hardly occurred.

In Session I, Maria Babekova-Becker (Germany) talked about communication in German- Slovak working environment, which concerned an empirical-didactic project that concentrated on obstacles, stereotypes in German-Slovak communication and on successful strategies to solve communicative problems. The didactic project part showed how to implement the empirical material in intercultural training for managers and management students in Slovakia. Barbara Brenner’s (Austria) talk was concerned with how internationally operating organizations transfer their Management Control Systems across cultures. The vast majority of studies investigated were using a value- dimensional conception of culture and resort to Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. Barbara posed that findings have been contradictory and it seems that exploring the relation between context and culture might shed more light on the transferability of Management Control across cultures.

Dr. Otilia Zorkociova and Denisa Baranova (Slovakia) posed that is the high standard of knowledge, experience and skills of motivated people, assistance granted to develop their creativity and thinking that have become the primary sources of competitiveness. Following the May 2004 enlargement of the European Union a wave of mergers and acquisitions may be expected to take place and many Slovak businesses lacking their own Corporate Identity are likely to adopt the Corporate Identity concept from the partner company applicable in the domestic setting, accomplishing a win-win situation.

Dr. Amanda Dunkel and Dr. Sylvia Meierewert (Austria) talked about Culture Standards and their impact on teamwork, focusing on Austrian, German, Hungarian and Spanish culture differences. They analyzed 201 qualitative interviews and found that critical incidents can be explained by “Hierarchy and Independence”, “Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Differences” as well as “Rule Orientation”, can further be categorized along the “Five- Phase-Model” (Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning) of team development by Tuckman and Jensen (1977). Anne- Katrin Neyer (Austria) was also interested in critical incidents, as she asked herself to what extent does cultural identity of individuals and to what extend does organisational culture influence the performance of multi-cultural teams in international organisations? She proposed firstly to identify the relationship between norms and values of team members (cultural orientation) and their group identity feeling, subsequently suggesting how factors other than cultural diversity, e.g. task characteristics, team size, the kind of team composition, might have an influence on multi- cultural team effectiveness.

Dr. Ronald Fischer’s (Germany/New Zealand) talk concerned organisational justice and culture in Europe. The paper presented data from Britain and former East Germany showing that employees perceive identical organisational events differently, depending on their values and socialsation experiences living in either a state-socialist or free-market capitalist society. These perceptions are shown to influence the work attitudes and work behaviour of employees, creating challenges for managers and decision-makers working with people from different cultural and socio-political backgrounds, especially considering the eastward expansion of the European Union. Julia Hecker’s (Germany/U.K.) study showed that Germans tend to focus on tasks and direct communication when influencing the other party. In contrast, when Turkish participants influenced others they were concerned about their subordinates’ feelings, about harmony and about a fair distribution of workload.

Dr. Balazs Heidrick (Hungary) showed that multicultural teams are most effective in creative processes in business settings such as marketing tasks and R&D. Typical challenges of the interviewed multicultural teams were: role of the leader, communication (language) and the differences related to deadlines and schedules. Finally, Victoria Orange (Great Britain/France) presented a comparative study of French and British management styles and their approach to cross-cultural training. She found that a British manager’s task is to coordinate and define responsibility, authority is functional, specific, impersonal and change is negotiated whilst a French manager’s task is to bring people together around objectives and define himself in terms of authority and status, authority is personalised, diffused, centralised and change is made from the top-down and is structural. French managers are not sure that cross-cultural training would be useful for their staff, although they do think it would increase respect of their organisation and those of other cultures if training were given, British managers, on the other hand, are convinced that training would be useful for their staff in order to understand customers from other cultures better and thus be more competitive and successful. The main themes for further discussion that came forward were the issue of a main language in multi cultural teams and the issue of a universal application of culturally standard methodology.

Session II pertained to stereotypes, attitudes, and cultural identity. Anneli Veisson (Estonia) talked about integration of Ethnic Groups in Estonia: Openness of Estonian National Identity and European Identity, which concerned relations of Estonians with the Russian minority. Earlier findings suggest that the openness of Estonian national identity is quite small. Another focus of interest is whether people living in Estonia consider themselves European, and whether European identity could mean a common identity for Estonians and Russians. Dr. Siyka Chavdarova-Kostova and Zornitza Ganeva (Bulgaria) presented a paper the problem of stereotypes and prejudices in Bulgaria and its projections in the sphere of education. Actual examples of intolerant attitude to “different” children in the Bulgarian school during the last years as well typical prejudices with respect to the representatives of minority groups in Bulgaria were presented. Based on European census data, Jan Suchacek from the Check Republic posed that phenomena connected with the European civilisation stream induced a long lasting relevant global crisis. European entity can atone its blame for this crisis referring back to old and tested values such as an appropriate educational systems and soft law norms, which show the way how to harmonize chaotic global development.

Gema Albacente (Spain) and Dr. Daniel Fuss (Germany) presented an E.U. project about language, values, and European identities. Data from the research project ‘Youth and European Identity’ show significant national differences with regard to the average number of mastered languages and the frequency of “intense” stays abroad. Albacente’s and Fuss’s statistical findings indicate that the more languages an individual speaks, the stronger its identification with Europe. Language skills and foreign country experiences tend to go together with a general orientation towards values of openness in contrast to conservative values.

Magdalena Slusarczyk from Jagiellonian University Cracow, presented a methodical and didactic concept in foreign language teaching called intercultural approach. The assumption of this approach is, that the cultural differences between language course participants can be a teaching aid not only obstacle. This approach may also help to change negative national stereotypes during the teaching and learning process. Paulina Sekula, also from Cracow, analysed whether the contemporary German-Polish cross-border contacts provide the potential for changing negative mutual stereotypes. It provided evidence that not all conditions for optimal intergroup contact have been fulfilled equally in these relations. Sekula argues there is a need to investigate whether these conditions of German-Polish cross-border cooperation influence the shape and dynamics of mutual attitudes.

Finally, Nathalie van Meurs – yours truly - (Holland) also presented in this session. The paper concerned the predictive validity of Schwartz’s cultural value types in terms of Dutch (higher on Self Transcendence) and British (higher on Self Enhancement) managers’ conflict management behaviour. Findings showed that 3 out of 4 of the Schwartz values types had predictive validity and further exploration of European managers’ behaviour and its relation with cultural values looks promising. In sum, themes brought forward for further discussion were whether European values can be taken as a true border and the need for enrichment of intercultural experience. Overall, the two sessions taken together brought forward two perspectives: the purpose and intention of research projects and a need to hear more about the Schwartz model.

The next day, Dr. Yochanan Altman (U.K.) further explored the Schwartz cultural values, arguing a case for their use in research. He made a comparison with Hofstede’s values and asked the audience to predict where Germany, China, and the U.S.A. would lie on the circumplex model made out of Egalitarianism, Intellectual and Affective Autonomy, Mastery, Hierarchy, Embeddedness, and Harmony. This was followed by a presentation by Prof. Pawel Boski (Poland) about values and identities in European identification. He focused on the motives and reasons of Poles supporting or rejecting Poland’s imminent joining of the European Union across different social classes, it was quite an interesting talk because he talked a lot about indigenous Polish values, neo-liberal ideology and traditional values being threatened by the European Union. There and throughout the workshop Prof. Boski emphasized the issues related to researching stereotyping and the need for locally valid tools to study cultures. Prof. Dan Landis (U.S.A.) presented how the theory of expertise can be applied to intercultural training, introducing a model of intercultural behavior, and finally discussed where the field of intercultural training seems to be headed in the near term. These were some reflections based on the forthcoming handbook for cross-cultural training, reviewing some general models underlying various training programmes and critically evaluating the state of the art from both an academic and practitioners’ perspective.

In Session III, Constanze Adolf (Germany) proposed that the development of intercultural informal networks of relationships as a kind of self-organizing processes in the European Parliament can be understood as the evolution of a "learning through networks system". This learning perspective suggests that the networks offer a set of important resources to overcome challenging intercultural situations and influence intercultural knowledge. Claudius Brandas (Romania) focused on analysis and development support systems for intercultural knowledge management. He intends to analyze the use of IT in the intercultural relations and knowledge management in order to develop more powerful tools to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of intercultural teams and communities.

Martin Lukes (Czech Republic) and Ute Stephan (Germany) conducted cross-cultural research on entrepreneurship, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe. Their main focus is on culture of entrepreneurship consisting of four behavioral syndromes: openness to change, initiative and risk-taking, efficacy beliefs, and responsibility taking. They analysed differences between the cultures and prepared training courses and events aimed at supporting entrepreneurial potential. Verena Stengel (Germany) evaluated long-lasting training designs based on cooperative learning methods. One special focus is on the variables mediating the intercultural learning process in cooperative learning settings. Stanislava Zaprianova (Bulgaria) stressed that it is possible for groups of expatriates to be trained successfully in the hosting country. The conclusion is that the "sponsor" of such an activity should be a powerful body (like the US government in this case). The 'sponsor' should be aware of the negative input that expatriates who have failed to culturally adjust can bring to both their organizations/themselves and the host nationals. The famous know how and cross-cultural sensitivity training programs of Peace Corps can be a model for how some structures of EU can operate as well. Dana Bencikova and Maria Roskova from Slovakia looked at teaching English and German for specific purposes. Specifically, they focused on common dialogue being essential for the contemporary society and the need for global communication with competent and adequately prepared specialists in the field of marketing and management being the precondition for successful cooperation.

In sum, interesting ideas that were brought forward are that entrepreneurs are ‘made’ in East and ‘born’ in West Europe, that institutional support (EU parliament) is important, and that language learning equals culture learning.

Session IV, which concerned intercultural contact in non-profit and exchange organizations, brought forward 4 main themes: 1) Adaptation and development in cultural transitions through surveys and action research 2) Team success involves performance and integration – but what are the criteria and is this theory based? 3) The level of analysis: national, organizational, or individual – otherwise statistical results may not be valid 4) Diversity of research concerns a reflection of approaches and practice. How applied is applied and how important is a multi- method approach?

Celine Chang and Heike Abt (Germany) talked about the long-term effects of the participation in international youth exchange programs on personality development, which were investigated using a multiple method approach. Interviewees regard international youth exchange as important, with effects such as increase if self-efficacy and learning processes and motivate individuals to engage in more abroad experiences. Anne-Marie Masogret (Spain/New Zealand) examined how variables such as motivation for employment, previous experiences and expectations, cross-cultural contact, and variables associated with communication within the host community, related to the sociocultural adjustment and job performance of British sojourners employed as English instructors in Spain. Higher levels of sociocultural adjustment were related to prior experiences with the language and culture of the host community, low levels of language use anxiety, a positive attitude toward the host community and a desire to interact with them, whereas job performance was associated with positive attitudes toward the language program, and perceived cultural similarity. Nora Grasseli (Hungary) posed that people go through a difficult phase during an intercultural experience. Her aim is to develop and test a method that helps individuals to get through this period of life. The process is considered successful if the employing organisation of the individual also takes the advantage of the transition. Alta Paneras (Greece), finally, proposed a plan of a longitudinal study aiming to assess the affective, cognitive and behavioral responses of international students moving to another country for university studies and to identify the independent and mediating variables that contribute to positive or negative experiences of acculturation.  A cross-cultural study is important to identify the different factors related to country or origin and host country that influence the acculturation process.

The final day commenced with a keynote presentation by Nigel Holden (U.K./Denmark), who talked about knowledge transfer and German management, in particular about pragmatic observations and difficulties involved with intercultural research. Prof. Holden has gained feedback from German employees, which he presented with the general conclusion that these findings were not culture specific and that the concept of culture may be overused when interculturalists diagnose multinational issues. The academic aspect of the 3-day workshop was concluded with a panel discussion, in which the need for enthusiasm for one’s research subject, the lack of female senior researchers, and the balance of quality research or ‘publish or perish’ came to the fore. Throughout the workshop, the team of Stefan, Uli, Gaby, and Astrid were careful to engage participants in the ideas and issues that presentations and discussions had generated – this made the conference intense, but also a valuable experience. The day and workshop ended with a visit to the Mayor of Regensburg in the Kurfürstensaal. This was the second of four InterKnow workshops. More information (including how to participate) can be obtained via