Search results

The purpose of this paper is to develop recommendations for measures assessing intercultural training needs for international human resource management. Based on scientific as well as application‐oriented criteria the aim is to select six measures assessing general intercultural competencies and with the help of behaviour ratings in interactive intercultural exercises to evaluate the psychometric quality and practicability of the questionnaires for training purposes.

Psychometric quality including prognostic power of ICSI, FLCS, NVCCS, ISAS, TIHK, and SIB was tested by correlating subjects' questionnaires results with observations of their actual behaviour in intercultural exercises.

Satisfying psychometric quality and prognostic validity of almost all measures was found. Especially TIHK, ICSI, and FLCS score well for assessing training needs whereas the results for SIB were problematic.

The study observed student participants of the same culture. Replication studies should examine large samples of different cultural backgrounds and manager populations.

Human resource managers may benefit from gaining knowledge about which measures to use for identifying employee's weaknesses in intercultural competence in order to create tailor‐made training interventions.

The study is the first providing information about the psychometric quality, including predictive power, of six measures, that assess intercultural skills to detect intercultural training needs.

Training designs are critical to the success of intercultural training programmes. A common typology for classifying intercultural training designs distinguishes among the following dimensions: experiential discovery versus didactic expository and culture‐specific versus culture‐general training. The purpose of this paper is to assess different intercultural training designs referring to this typology. First, a concept of intercultural competence is developed. Based on this concept experiential training designs are favoured as they allow to train the cognitive, affective and behavioural component of intercultural competencies. In the second part of the paper an empirical study in the USA and Germany is conducted in order to assess whether the degree of intercultural competencies differs between the two nations. As no considerable differences can be identified the benefit of culture‐general training is discussed. Significant skills to be focused on in intercultural training are described and specific measures for pre‐assessment devices in intercultural training are presented.

Negotiators from Asia are increasingly confronted with exchange partners from other regions, particularly Europe. The European culture differs from the Asian culture in many regards, one major aspect being distinct levels of power distance (hierarchy versus egalitarianism). The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of power distance in electronic negotiations between Asia and Europe.

The paper describes an experimental study with a sample of 126 participants investigating the impact of power distance on strategies applied by Asian and European buyers and sellers in computer‐mediated negotiations.

Significant effects of power distance in electronic negotiations were identified. Culture confirms to play a significant role in negotiations. The results indicate that negotiation schemes differ depending on the cultural dimension power distance in Asia and Europe. In the hierarchical (Asian) culture, sellers show more efforts in negotiations, while buyers apply more power‐related negotiation strategies but also tend to take more responsibility. In contrast, in the egalitarian (European) culture, buyers prefer negotiation behavior spreading power.

First, use of a student sample engaging in a negotiation simulation might restrain the generalizability of the findings. Second, the authors investigated only two cultures in Asia and Europe.

The paper describes an experimental study comparing negotiators from Asia and Europe in order to analyze whether culture plays a significant role in electronic negotiations between Asia and Europe. The authors focus on power distance as the main cultural dimension.

Intercultural interfirm relationships have become a new challenge for international management. The purpose of this paper is to explore differences in computer‐mediated negotiation behavior between participants who come from nations which differ as regards two major cultural values: individualism and collectivism.

This is an empirical study with a sample containing 170 negotiators with different cultural backgrounds; it comprises content analysis; and multivariate analysis of variance models.

Comparing negotiators from Asian, North American, and European cultures, it is found that people who come from an individualist culture exhibit different negotiation strategies to individuals from a collectivist culture.

Based on the results management may sensitize negotiators in intercultural interfirm relationships to their counterparts' communication strategies.

The paper highlights how negotiators' cultures affect their strategic orientation.

The paper aims to introduce the papers in this special issue which highlight the importance of cooperation in organizations, and outline future research directions.

Conceptual approaches to cooperation in organizations are described and a brief outline is given to each paper in the special issue.

This special issue brings together studies that enhance our theoretical understanding of cooperation, addressing core issues related to the role of cultural differences, virtual communication, team processes, leader behavior, and the impact of norms on cooperation.

Factors that facilitate or hinder cooperation in organizations are highlighted, and suggestions on how to deal with those issues in practice are provided. The papers facilitate understanding of the role of cultural differences, communication, team processes, and leader behavior on cooperation in organizations.

The paper provides an introduction to the special issue.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

Scans the top 400 management publications in the world to identify the most topical issues and latest concepts. These are presented in an easy‐to‐digest briefing of no more than 1,500 words.

In today's business world, technology rules the roost and global transactions are increasingly becoming the norm. Effective cross‐cultural relations have, therefore, never been more important. But, as philosopher Friedrich Nietzche once pointed out, communicating successfully often involves more than simply using the same language.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to digest format.

Based on the successful hardware and software architecture of Care‐O‐bot^™, a new generation of mobile robots has recently been designed at Fraunhofer Institute of Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA). The robots have been created to communicate with and to entertain visitors in a museum. Their tasks include welcoming visitors, leading a guided tour through the museum or playing with a ball. In this article the hardware platform of the robots and their features such as navigation and communication skills, their safety concept and handling are outlined. Further, the underlying control software of the robots is described. Finally, the application of the robots at the Museum für Kommunikation in Berlin is presented. The robots have been running in this museum daily since 25 March 2000 without noteworthy problems.

The literature identifies the need to understand better the role of universities’ entrepreneurial orientation (EO), even while this remains an unexplored field. This study seeks to overcome this shortcoming and put forward empirical evidence on the EO of universities and it examines the moderating effects of networks, knowledge and trust, market orientation, and implementing sustainable development goals (SDGs) on the design and development of entrepreneurial universities.

To test the conceptual model, the authors used a sample of 125 questionnaires obtained from Portuguese higher education institutions, and it was deployed a structural equation model by a partial least squared as the estimation method.

The results show that the different dimensions of EO significantly influence the design and development of entrepreneurial universities. Furthermore, our findings show how market orientation and SDGs have moderating effects on the development of university entrepreneurship.

As for practical implications, the results point to the influence EO holds over entrepreneurial universities, and this causal relationship undergoes moderation by networks, knowledge and trust, market orientation and SDGs. As such, HEI rectors, deans and directors need to leverage these moderating effects, fostering human capital and universities’ active initiatives and policies to conceive and develop more entrepreneurial universities.

Our research model seeks to contribute to advancing studies on the EO of universities and assists in better understanding EO within the scope of influence of the third university mission as entrepreneurial institutions.