Teaching and learning about interculturality in communication and management

Overview & Synopsis

This chapter is based on the author's experience of designing, setting up and running a 2-year English-taught MA programme in intercultural management for international students at the University of Burgundy, France. The programme seeks to train the next generation of intercultural specialists, with a critical, interpretivist and non-essentialising view of the way that individuals use cultures and identities to communicate in organisational settings. Going beyond traditional national-level or competence-based approaches to intercultural management, it promotes theoretical and practice-based understanding of the communication processes at work within organisations, joint ventures or international project teams, rooted in power relations, identity and group dynamics, and sensemaking. The chapter outlines three key phases in learning about interculturality, which the author considers necessary to foster a complex, multi-perspective understanding of the phenomenon. It describes how these three phases and the associated paradigms of interculturality shape the design of the MA programme in intercultural management, in terms of teaching contents and methods. Biodata Dr Alex Frame is associate professor in Communication Science at the Languages and Communication Faculty of the University of Burgundy (Dijon, France), where he runs the MA course in Intercultural Management. He is a member of the TIL research group (EA 4182), specialising in intercultural, interpersonal, organisational and digital communication.