Stakeholders’ Perceptions on the Project

As previously mentioned, many of the research instruments implemented in the first international edition were designed to gather students’ feedback on the course and its effect on their learning process, and we were able to use the information to make the necessary improvements to the second edition. 

For the second edition, as well as using information obtained from peer and self-evaluation surveys and reflection papers we were able to focus the surveys distributed in the second edition towards specific aspects that we had identified as relevant lines of research. 

Given the online multi-cultural nature of the both the GIM and the professional environment that many of our students will find themselves working in in the future, we felt it appropriate to investigate the following three aspects³: 

1. Intercultural Communication Competence

The huge-scale levels of immigration and migration witnessed nowadays has made cultural intelligence a highly sought after educational goals for many people, including business school students. In fact, global executives in a recent survey pointed out that the most valuable skill for them was their “ability to influence people from other cultures” (Smith, Caver, Saslow, & Thomas, 2010, p. 15). Often societies “develop their children into uncultured adults who are capable of working effectively with people who are like them” (Javidan, 2013, p. 506). However, growing levels of globalization across many sectors and industries means that it is becoming more and more crucial to be able to communicate, collaborate and perform efficiently when working with people who are not necessarily like us. This entails “working with people who have different cultural, political and institutional backgrounds, and as a result, see the world, interpret the world, and react to the world differently” (Javidan, 2013, p. 506). With this in mind, we designed a 10-question survey, based on the assessment manual of a European project entitled the INCA project (European Commission, 2009). This survey was distributed at two points during the 12-week module, and students were asked to assess how well they succeed in working with people of different cultures. The main findings from this questionnaire are detailed below.

Overall, students’ intercultural communication competence increased slightly over the course of the GIM, from 6.3 to 6.5. In fact, students assigned a higher valuation to all but one of the survey’s items. The item “I see working with people from different cultures and/or linguistic backgrounds as an opportunity rather than a challenge,” decreased from 6.5 to 6.4, possibly due to the building pressures on students in their teams as the project progressed. The most considerable difference between the two surveys could be seen in the items “I am willing to suspend my beliefs of my own culture in order to work effectively with people of different cultures,” which increased from 6.1 to 6.6 and “I am able to accept ambiguous situations and deal with them in a constructive way that appeals to everyone,” which increased from 6 to 6.5. 

We used students’ reflection papers and self-evaluation answers to gather qualitative feedback from them on the topic of their intercultural communication competence. From these instruments we found that, despite some language barriers and time zone obstacles, students considered that working in intercultural teams helped broaden their minds as to accepting different opinions. They found it valuable to be able to discuss a global issue with people from different parts of the world whose opinion may have been influenced by a person’s culture. Elsewhere, they became aware of the need for clear and concise communication in order to ensure everyone understood what they had to do. 

The average valuation for each item in the ICC survey can be found in Appendix E. 

2. Team dynamics

The teams students work in throughout the GIM are virtual teams, which is defined as an interdependent group working on a project across time and space relying on information and communication technologies (ICT) (Lin et al., 2008, p. 3). It was, therefore, considered appropriate that the dynamics within teams were measured. A 15-item survey was developed based on survey developed by Lin et al (2008) thus covering aspects such as relationship building, communication, coordination, performance, cohesion and satisfaction. This survey was distributed after each the submission of each of the group deliverables.

In general, the students who completed the team dynamics survey were content with this aspect of the course. The average grade across from each of the surveys across all items was 6. However, it must be noted that the valuation given to each item decreased between the first and second survey. Qualitative data from students’ reflection papers suggests that this is down to the fact that students were under more pressure towards the end of the course and perhaps were stricter when it came down to evaluating their teammates. 

The average valuation for each item in the team dynamics survey can be found in Appendix E.

3. Use of technology 

“Working in the global work context often means working in virtual multicultural teams consisting of members who are culturally diverse and geographically dispersed and who communicate with each other by way of electronic media” (Erez et al., 2013, p. 331). In order to gather information on the role that different technologies played in facilitating different aspects of team work as well as the effectiveness of our specially designed online learning environment, a 25-item questionnaire was made available online at the end of the module. The main findings are detailed below.