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In today’s competitive environment, long-term viability and sustainability of a firm requires a combination of both specialized and knowledge-based resources. Earlier research findings have surfaced the fact that by leveraging knowledge, successful multinational companies in the Western world are able to create a position for capitalizing on market imperfections in the field of human resource development and correspondingly achieving higher returns on their investments. Therefore, the purpose of the paper is to examine the approaches of successful multinational enterprises (MNEs) from newer industrialized and developing economies, especially in the perspective of learning and development initiatives.

The focus of this study is to introspect on the causal that influences toward fostering a better human resource development climate in the international context.

The proposition explores a road map to strategize organizational policies and practices as to how best to serve its expatriate internal customers.

The findings of this study has confirmed the link between cross-cultural training and expatriate adjustment and performance, but still the scope lies in future research to carry out the specific context or conditions influencing the effectiveness of cross-cultural training programs by using quantitative statistical findings of country-wide successful MNE analysis in the learning and development domain and subsequently proposing the benchmarking practices for impersonation by the developing nations.

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.

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.

The purpose of this study is to explore how intercultural competencies impact the employment of young people, and to showcase virtuous examples of practices by the University of Turin and the company Global Mindset Development.

Drawing upon a comprehensive review of relevant literature, this paper highlights the theoretical foundations of intercultural competencies and their relevance to labor market integration. It examines their multidimensional nature, encompassing knowledge, skills, attitudes and awareness necessary for individuals to effectively navigate and engage with diverse cultural contexts. The paper then presents several good and promising practices realized by the University of Turin and the training and consultancy company Global Mindset Development. Furthermore, it addresses potential challenges associated with developing and implementing intercultural competencies in practice.

The study enriches the body of literature on the importance of intercultural competencies for young workers acquired through experiences such as international mobility for labor market integration.

The study presents some innovative approaches to training through experiential and mobility training programs. These new examples of practices can inspire further research and implementation.

The main purpose of this paper is to test the effects of a classical intercultural simulation on participants' ability to modify their behavior in response to collectivistic and individualistic contexts. Moreover, the paper aims to examine moderating effects based on experiential learning and social identity theory.

The learning effects are evaluated through two separate quasi-experimental studies with 152 master students in business economics at a Danish university and 190 bachelor students in international business at a German university.

The analysis shows that intercultural simulations with artificial cultures significantly improve participants' ability to modify their behavior depending on cultural context. Participants who identify with an artificial culture that differs radically from their own take greater advantage of the simulation. The overall duration of international experience moderates participants' learning with a U-shaped effect. Culture-specific experience strengthens the positive effect of the simulation. The comparison of the two conducted studies indicates that previous cognitive teaching enhances learning.

The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of intercultural simulations that guide participants through all phases of the experiential learning cycle. Moreover, they underline the importance of assessing participants' cultural backgrounds before the assignment of training groups.

Prior research on intercultural simulations is often based on qualitative methods and mostly limited to affective outcomes, such as motivation and enjoyment of intercultural interactions. By contrast, this paper quantitatively tests to what extent intercultural simulations improve participants' ability to modify behavior depending on culture.

As employees become more globally and technically savvy, it is inevitable that e‐learning finds its way into the practice of intercultural training. After a decade of providing customized face‐to‐face intercultural training, Cendant Mobility’s intercultural experts are responding to the changing profile of the global workforce. Together with their e‐learning partner, Mentergy, they embarked upon a journey toward developing a blended learning solution that is designed to unlock the potential of e‐learning, while maintaining their commitment to genuinely impactful skill‐based intercultural training. The focus of this article is on challenges and lessons learned which include: maintaining cultural appropriateness; technological accessibility; training trainers for this new modality; and attaining user acceptance for a global rollout of a blended e‐learning intercultural training program.

This article aims to suggest implementing an integrated approach – named intercultural engineering – at university level. Engineering today often takes place across cultures, locations and organizations. As a result, many companies have included cross-cultural training activities into their internal human resource development program. However, current practice neglects the engineering context and might enable sophisticated stereotyping.

This article presents the case of a German bachelor study program in International Industrial Engineering and the theoretical foundations of its design.

Engineering education needs to move beyond simplistic comparative cross-cultural management theory. It needs to acknowledge cultural complexity in engineering through an integrated development of competencies for utilizing the benefits of cultural diversity.

The contribution of this article lies in providing a practical example of how to develop integrated competencies for cultural diversity in engineering, as based on latest theory.