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The leaders of the future will have to lead with intercultural competence and with the ability to facilitate this development of competence in others. The development of skills in undergraduate students to meet this challenge is paramount to the establishment of effective leadership for the future. Within this study, researchers address the challenge by quantitatively examining intercultural competency outcomes students derive from leadership-based study abroad experiences. For five years, researchers utilized a pre-post intercultural competency survey of student participants in a leadership education study abroad program in Zambia, Africa. Using the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (IES), data was analyzed for seventy-eight students who participated in this five-week study abroad course. The results demonstrate statistically significant growth on students’ intercultural competency across all ten measures of dimensions and sub-scales. Recommendations provide a framework for leadership educators to employ pedagogies that influence intercultural development within study abroad as a means of developing global leadership in their students.

There are many studies regarding the value of gaining cultural awareness, but limited empirical evidence has been shared on programs that use integrated learning and capacity building interventions to specifically build cultural competence in aspiring undergraduate leaders. This qualitative case study examined the effects of interventions designed to build intercultural competence in first-year honors students participating in a leadership development program using co-curricular activities, undergraduate research, and a short-term education abroad. Data collected from two cohorts who completed the first year of the program revealed students’ perceptions of their short-term education abroad experience’s impact on their intercultural competence and leadership development. The study demonstrates the value of integrated leadership and intercultural competence development among undergraduate students.

This study was conducted to achieve the following objectives: (1) determine the differences and reasons for using outgroup OSNs by gender, age and student groups (Mainland and Hong Kong [HK] students); (2) uncover the impact of online social networks (OSNs) on the development of Mainland–HK friendships and (3) determine the roles of different OSNs (social networking sites [SNSs] and instant messaging platforms [IMPs]) in the development of intercultural friendships in the real world.

To explore how OSNs facilitate (or inhibit) intercultural interactions, 198 students completed a questionnaire and 24 students participated in follow-up semi-structured interviews examining the role of OSNs in intercultural friendship development.

Results revealed that demographic and motivational preferences for using outgroup-OSNs differed among students. Both IMPs and SNSs helped students maintain friendships using little effort, whereas it tended to strengthen their existing social networks, rather than helping to start new friendships. IMPs helped develop a sense of “presence awareness”, strengthening pre-existing friendships and solidifying offline connections. SNSs also assisted students in exploring their shared interests while revealing their values and cultural differences.

The authors’ findings offered empirical evidence on social exchange theory and anxiety-uncertainty management theory regarding the perceived benefit of OSNs on students' friendship development.

The study sheds light on the differences between Mainland Chinese and HK students, including participants' perceptions of different friendship stages.

This study is interested in the roles of different SNSs and IMPs in intercultural friendship development, especially their strengths and weaknesses as perceived by students. Also, the authors are curious about how students select and use IMPs and SNSs differently according to their individual preferences and needs. To the authors’ knowledge, the dynamic link between online communication and intercultural friendship development has not been thoroughly examined in the field of intercultural communication.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the intercultural sensitivity of students in teacher educational programs at higher education institutes (HEIs) in Georgia.

This research explored the intercultural sensitivity among 355 randomly selected students in teacher education programs at higher education institutions in Georgia. A questionnaire based on the Development Model of Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS) and Cushner et al. (2006) model of sources of cultural identity was developed as a research instrument and adjusted to the Georgian context to measure the students’ intercultural sensitivity.

The results showed that a majority of the students were in the ethnocentric phase of intercultural sensitivity, as defined by Bennett (1993); students in teachers’ educational programs were selectively sensitive to different sources of cultural identity; students were selectively tolerant to different groups in the population with the same source of cultural identity and the level of educational attainment, as well as the location of the higher education institution affected students’ level of intercultural sensitivity.

The findings of this study carry valuable practical importance as they can be used to improve teacher education programs at higher education institutions in Georgia.

The study has scientific value in that the instrument used to assess intercultural sensitivity was developed for the Georgian context, and students’ intercultural sensitivity to 12 different sources of cultural identity was investigated.

Intercultural awareness and skills are important competencies for hospitality and tourism management program graduates due to the internationalization of the tourism industry. Graduates will work with coworkers and serve customers from diverse cultural backgrounds. With the exponential growth of China’s tourism industry, an examination of intercultural awareness and skills education in China’s hospitality and tourism higher education is needed. This study employed a qualitative approach by interviewing 11 educators in Chinese mainland universities on their views of the current status of intercultural awareness education, their role in this learning process, and how their program offerings enhance students’ learning of cultural diversity. Implications for administrators and faculty members are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to show how individuals perceive the quality of intercultural interactions at work in multinational subsidiaries and to address the question of what actually prevails in their accounts, i.e., “the dark side” or “the bright side.”

The authors report the findings from five subsidiaries located in Poland and interviews with 68 employees of these companies.

The “bright side” dominated the interviewees’ accounts. The phenomenon of high social identity complexity or common in-group identity can help explain the findings. The results also shed some new light on the associations between the context of subsidiaries and the perception of the quality of intercultural interactions.

The paper contributes to the literature on cultural diversity and intercultural interactions in multinational subsidiaries. As the “bright side” of interactions was emphasized in the interviews, it particularly supports positive cross-cultural scholarship studies. Yet the explorative research does not allow for a broader generalization of the results.

Managers of multinational corporations (MNCs) should do the following: shape the context of MNCs to influence the dynamics of intercultural interactions and the way they are seen by their employees; emphasize common in-group identity to help their employees to adopt more favorable attitudes toward intercultural interactions; look for individuals with multicultural identity who display more positive approaches to intercultural contacts; place emphasis on recruiting individuals fluent in the MNC’s functional language; offer language training for the staff; and recruit employees with significant needs for development who will perceive more opportunities in intercultural contacts.

The research demonstrates that the multicultural workplace of MNCs may be recognized by employees as activating the positive potential of the individuals and organizations that make up a society.

The accounts of intercultural interactions are analyzed to illuminate some significant foundations of how individuals perceive such interactions. The study provides a qualitative lens and highlights the positive approach to intercultural interactions. It may redress the imbalance in prior research and satisfy the need for positive cross-cultural scholarship.

Based on the necessity for universities through the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to switch to online teaching from one day to the other, this study aims to show how a combination of different online teaching approaches makes it possible to activate reflection as an enabler of intercultural competency development even though real experience, interaction and exchange elements could not be implemented as usual.

This study is based on insights on experiential learning using intercultural competence development through the mechanism of reflection in combination with findings from on- and offline learning settings and informal learning processes. Adapting Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle, this study presents an online course design for an undergraduate course in intercultural competencies. This study delineates an assessment of the course based on student evaluation results and excerpts of student essays.

This study demonstrates how the acquisition of important future skills such as reflection skills can be successfully mastered by combining different online teaching approaches. This study also shows that Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle continues to yield critical benefits when adapted it to the “new reality.”

This study provides a case study on how business schools can deal with special challenges in courses where competencies are taught, which are usually developed through real experiences or informal learning. An application to other types of experiential learning activities is considered valuable. It is useful to further adopt elements in a post-COVID-19 teaching environment. Especially using apps as described can contribute to make learning more tailored to each student. As such, this paper contributes to the body of research on the importance of reflection skills in an educational and virtual context.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the journal entries of study abroad students from a college of business that participated in four separate nine-day study abroad programs to identify whether the development of intercultural maturity is possible in a short-term study abroad program and if learning and development differ based on race/cultural background.

This study used content analysis of student journals. The journal entries of 33 students from four different short-term study abroad trips served as the data from which a qualitative content analysis using nvivo was conducted.

Development of intercultural maturity can, in fact, occur from a short-term (10-day) study abroad program. Student development progressed through the first two levels of the Intercultural Maturity Framework, with multicultural students progressing further. All students achieved first and second levels of the Developmental Trajectory of Intercultural Maturity on the King and Baxter Magolda (2005) framework in all three areas, including cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal.

The author realizes the limitations of one form of data, the journal, and thus proposes for the future both pre-travel questions to encourage further critical thinking and learning and additional methods of obtaining data.

This study suggests that it might be advantageous to re-design the experience, whereby the students are guided with particular questions before or at the start of the study abroad program, to propel them forward in the process of critical reflection and development of intercultural maturity.

This study specifically applies the framework of King and Baxter Magolda’s (2005) Intercultural Maturity framework to examine the extent to which intercultural maturity of business students can be developed within the constraints of a short-term (nine-day) study abroad program. It also adds the dimension of comparing multicultural student development to non-multicultural student development.