Developing management student cultural fluency for the real world: A situated cultural learning approach
Abstract
Purpose
To connect students with the real world of management practice, the purpose of this paper is to extend and operationalize the situated cultural learning approach (SiCuLA) through five learning processes occurring within communities of practice. These include integration of cultural contexts, authentic activities, reflections, facilitation, and the construction of a collaborative learning community.
Design/methodology/approach
To investigate the complex processes and principles of cultural learning, a multi-method approach is applied to an extensive comparative study of default and intervened cases within three management classes. Evidence is drawn from multiple sources of qualitative data including class observations, meeting minutes, focus groups, and group interviews with students and instructors.
Findings
Results indicated that in default cases, little explicit attention was given to a situated perspective of culture, or to the rich sources of cultural knowledge available among members of the classroom community. In contrast, following the intervention cases where SiCuLA was applied, there was strong evidence that much more attention was given to enhancing student contextual knowledge. Nonetheless, there were some challenges in applying these processes within the classroom context.
Originality/value
This is the first study to extend and operationalize SiCuLA in a classroom setting. More importantly, the evidence forms the empirical basis for deriving theoretical principles for cross-cultural management (CCM) education and training. It contributes to studying cultural contexts as sources of knowledge for learning through active co-participation. It also contributes to positive CCM learning with an emphasis on human agency that encourages students to take more responsibility and ownership of their cultural learning.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation for providing funding and feedback during the course of the first author’s 2016 UQ Teaching Fellowship. The authors also thank Professor Robyn Gillies for her valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. The authors also wish to thank Dr Mathew Collier and Dr Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini for their valuable comments on the earlier versions of this paper.
Citation
Zhu, Y., Okimoto, T.G., Roan, A. and Xu, H. (2017), "Developing management student cultural fluency for the real world: A situated cultural learning approach", Education + Training, Vol. 59 No. 4, pp. 353-373. https://doi.org/10.1108/ET-03-2016-0059
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited