Working Across Cultures

Book excerpt: You can help students and trainees gain a better understanding of the complexity of culture! The 71 exercises in this book can help you provide students and trainees with the practical experience and knowledge needed to succeed in real-world situations. Drawing from over 15 years of cross-cultural training experience, the author has assembled a diverse number of engaging exercises that can be quickly implemented with minimal effort. Self-administered questionnaires, case studies, culture-focused interviews, and pro and con debates are just a few of the wide range of activities you can use to enrich the classroom. Applications and exercises focus on key issues: Cross-cultural differences Cross-cultural dimensions such as individualism and collectivism, time and space, and power distance Emotional expressiveness Interaction of language and society Cross-cultural negotiating All exercises have been extensively class-tested in the United States and in non-American universities in Europe and Asia.