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This paper reports on how a lecturer in business collaborated within a multidisciplinary study which focused on developing an “intercultural dimension” in teaching and learning in the disciplines in higher education. The case illustrates how, if the intercultural dimension of internationalisation is to be realised in teaching and learning, experts with specific disciplinary knowledge and those with intercultural expertise need to collaborate from the outset to develop a point for point understanding of the implications of internationalisation for the specific discipline. Moreover, it is argued, internationalisation of the discipline is not only an outcome of this process, but the process itself involves transformations which exemplify the development of intercultural awareness.

As graduates in higher education engage with multiple constituencies from around the world, having cultural competency skills is valuable. Intercultural competence enables people to initiate and sustain dialogues among their diverse colleagues and members of the globalized community. In this chapter, Barger examines the role of dialogue education in attaining intercultural competency in graduate courses. According to Vella, dialogue education values inquiry, integrity, and commitment to equity. People should treat others with respect and recognize their knowledge and experience within the community of learning. Dialogue education provides a safe and inclusive place for learners to voice their perspectives and opinions. This chapter utilizes a professor’s reflections with respect to teaching a graduate Intercultural Communication (IC) course in a private liberal-arts college. In the narrative, she discusses teaching and learning strategies to help adult learners understand the importance of intercultural competence and interactions in a multicultural and multilingual world. Barger also examines the integrative reflections of graduate students that took the IC course.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview on the state of the field in intercultural dynamics on competition and cooperation at the individual, team, and organizational levels. The authors integrate previous studies from multiple disciplines to articulate the contextual importance of intercultural dynamics. The authors also suggest three overarching themes to expand the field of research on intercultural dynamics.

The authors use an integrative literature review to articulate the importance of intercultural dynamics, provide an introduction to the new contributions in this special issue, and propose new directions for future research.

Intercultural dynamics research has the potential to expand in three overarching areas: constructive controversy, collaborative communication, and global competency and identity at multiple levels.

Intercultural dynamics is still a nascent field emerging from cross-cultural and strategic management. The authors hope the review lays the groundwork for more studies on intercultural dynamics at the interpersonal, team, organizational, and mixed levels of analysis in both theory building and empirical works.

Understanding intercultural dynamics in competition and cooperation can help individuals and managers in multinationals and born global organizations navigate cultural complexity and foster cooperation.

The authors hope the ideas on intercultural dynamics can facilitate collaboration and reduce conflict in intercultural encounters at the individual, organization, and societal levels.

This paper offers an overview on the state of the field and lays groundwork for more systematic inquiries on intercultural dynamics in competition and cooperation.

This paper aims to present the experiences, beliefs and perceptions of international faculty at a Research 1 institution in the Southern US regarding the perceived differences between their and their students’ and colleagues’ cultures and first languages.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with four international faculty from Europe and Asia who held appointments at a Research 1 institution in the Southern US. The interviews focused on the participants’ communication experiences with students and colleagues from diverse cultural backgrounds.

The findings have implications for academic and professional development and support as they show that understanding cultural aspects of language and communication can be challenging for individuals who may not be aware of possible cultural differences.

This study is unique because it presents stories of faculty from different backgrounds, who were born on different continents and who learned English at different ages but are all working in a linguistically homogeneous context. Also, the originality of the study comes from examining the intercultural communication between the participating faculty and their students, as well as their colleagues.

This paper aims to present the qualitative findings on students’ and teachers’ experiences in communicating and interacting with students and teachers from different ethnic backgrounds in the Malaysian vision schools initiative.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted involving 15 informants comprising of three headteachers, three teachers and nine students. The interviews centred on the informants’ experiences and views living and experiencing the reality of the vision schools which is comprising three major races; Malays, Chinese and Indians; which is represented by the three school types which are a national school, Chinese vernacular and Indian vernacular schools.

The interview data revealed that the intercultural communication in the vision schools had triggered intercultural understanding and awareness of cultural diversity in the schools. However, the interview data with experienced teachers showed some drawbacks of the intercultural dynamics at the school complex. Among the weaknesses were the absence of structured and formal training on intercultural and multicultural education, lack of trust and poor social skills which may have hindered effective intercultural communication from taking place.

This study presents the informants’ experiences and views on the reality of intercultural interaction among students and teachers in the context of the Malaysian vision school initiative.

Recent global migration trends have led to an increased prevalence, and new patterning, of intercultural family configurations. This paper is about intercultural couples and how they manage tensions associated with change as they settle in their new cultural context. The focus is specifically on the role food plays in navigating these tensions and the effects on the couples’ relational cultures.

A qualitative relational–dialectic approach is taken for studying Polish–Irish intercultural couples. Engagement with relevant communities provided multiple points of access to informants.

Intercultural tensions arise as the couples jointly transition, and food consumption represents implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Such tensions are sometimes resolved, but sometimes not, leading to enduring tensions. Dialectical movement causes change, which has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.

This study shows how the ways that tensions are addressed are fundamental to the formation of a relational family identity.

Recommendations emphasise the importance of understanding how the family relational culture develops in the creation of family food practices. Marketers can look at the ways of supporting the intercultural couple retain tradition, while smoothly navigating their new cultural context. Social policy analysts may reflect on the ways that the couples develop an intercultural identity rooted in each other’s culture, and the range of strategies to demonstrate they can synthesise and successfully negotiate the challenges they face.

Dealing simultaneously and separately with a variety of dialectical oppositions around food, intercultural couples weave together elements from each other’s cultures and simultaneously facilitate both relational and social change. Within the relationship, stability–change dialectic is experienced and negotiated, while at the relationship’s nexus with the couple’s social ecology, negotiating conventionality–uniqueness dialectic enables them reproduce or depart from societal conventions, and thus facilitate social change.

Functionalist models of intercultural interaction have serious limitations relying on static and decontextualized culture views. This paper sets out to outline newer developments in anthropological theory in order to provide inspirations to a more dynamic and contextual approach for understanding intercultural communication research in cross‐cultural management (CCM).

The paper analyzes the established approaches to the cultural underpinnings of intercultural communication in CCM and examines how newer developments in anthropology may contribute to this research.

The standard frameworks for classifying cultures in CCM are based on a view of culture as static, formal mental codes and values abstracted from the context of valuation. However, this view, underwriting the dominating research stream, has been abandoned in the discipline of anthropology from which it originated. This theory gap between intercultural communication research in CCM and anthropology tends to exclude from CCM an understanding of how the context of social, organizational and power relationships shapes the role of culture in communication.

The paper proposes to substitute the view of culture as comprising of abstract values and codes as determinants of communication with concepts of culture as dynamically enfolded in practice and socially situated in specific contexts, in order to give new directions to theories on intercultural communication in CCM.

Scant research has compared intercultural communication research in CCM with new anthropological developments. New insights from anthropology are analyzed in order to open up analytical space in CCM.

CISV (formerly Children’s International Summer Villages) is an international charity established in Cincinnati, USA, in 1950. It offers non-formal educational programmes for children and young people from 11 years. In its intercultural programmes English is used as Lingua Franca while space and opportunities are created for participants to use their first languages. A primary aim of the organisation is to promote intercultural friendship and understanding. This chapter has dual aims. Firstly, it provides a review of the impact of intercultural learning in CISV and its unique multilingual practice on development of friendship and Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) among children and youth. Secondly, it investigates the methodological issues in evaluating the development and changes in ICC, specifically, the under-reported problem of ‘inflated’ perceptions with regard to self-assessment questionnaires.

Existing research evidence corroborates the positive and long-term impact of CISV experience on participants’ social development (including friendship), cultural awareness, challenges are also identified. For example, how can programme and activity organisers encourage equitable and active participation when participants’ language proficiency in the shared language is varied? How do we explain the regression in self-assessment of ICC? In this chapter, we compare three different ways of measuring changes and propose a purposely designed predictive and reflective questionnaire (PaRQ). Open questions (‘narrative spaces’) in these questionnaires provide the opportunity for participants to comment on their own perceptions of learning and friendship development.

CISV differs from many other intercultural education organisations in that it offers opportunity for relatively young children, promotes learning and development in a multicultural environment and adopts a language practice that combines English as Lingua Franca (ELF) and a multilingual outlook. Understanding its successes and areas for improvement provides some insight into friendship development in multilingual and intercultural settings.