Intercultural competence: a very brief introduction

Developing intercultural competence is the primary aim of Virtual Exchange, but what is it?

lntercultural competence is defined as:

“The ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes.”

Deardofff, 2006

Engaging in a Virtual Exchange enables participants to develop these attitudes, skills and knowledge through immersion in a multicultural environment. Participants find themselves in a situation whereby they need to work collaboratively with people who may have quite a different worldview to their own, who perhaps communicate and approach tasks differently to themselves. This is not always easy as unspoken differences between participants can lead to miscommunication or sometimes even offence. However, these tricky situations and how to navigate them are a big part of the learning in Virtual Exchange – this is where participants develop the skills, attitudes and knowledge that make up intercultural competence.

As facilitator, your role is to support them through this process, helping them to identify cultural differences and solve problems as they arise. It is also critically important to support participants to reflect on their experience and articulate what they have learned. To do this, it can really help to have a bit of understanding of what culture is and how it impacts us so that you and your participants can be prepared for intercultural communication. 

Theories of culture

Our culture influences our ideas, customs, and social behaviours. As explained in the video, there are aspects of culture that we can easily see such as fashion, food and the festivals we celebrate – but these are just the tip of the iceberg. Hidden beneath the surface are the aspects of deep culture, made up of beliefs and values that are deeply set but also much more intangible and difficult to explain to an ‘outsider’. This includes things like our concepts of time, self and societal roles; attitudes towards others; approaches to religion and family; notions of friendship; and communication styles and rules. All of these unwritten rules influence not only how we behave but also how we expect others to behave. Therefore, if we enter into multicultural environments without an understanding of our own cultural influences and those of others whom we are communicating with, there is a high potential for misunderstanding.

National culture: a way to make sense of things

There are many theories that have attempted to describe and categorise the elements of culture to help us make sense of what is influencing the way people act. There is a list of some of the more popular ones at the end of this page so you can investigate and find one that works for you.

Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

One of the more well known theories of culture is Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions. In creating his theory, Hofstede completed a study of more than 117,000 managers, employees and supervisors at IBM in 53 nations. Initially, he identified four dimensions that could be used to describe cultures and distinguish them from one another. Later, he worked with others to identify a further two dimensions and expanded the study to include more countries/regions.

The six dimensions are:

By rating each country on a scale of 1-100 for each of these dimensions, a unique country profile is created, describing the culture of that nation.

We can use the Country Comparison Tool to compare two or more countries (for example, your home country and the one you are planning to partner with), and see the similarities and differences between their respective national cultures. This helps us to consider:

• The factors that influence how you interact with others
• The likely differences between how you will approach a task compared to someone from your partner country
• The likely differences in communication style between you and someone from your partner country
• What potential misunderstandings or mismatch of approach could arise
• Strategies for working together effectively

Critiques of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

The advantage of Hofstede’s model is that as his research included only one organisation his findings are unlikely to be affected by differences in company culture. However, the flipside of this is that his findings may also be unduly influenced by the organisational culture of IBM in the 1970s, when the original research took place.

It is also important to remember when using any model that describes national culture that not everyone from a given society has the same values or thinks, feels and behaves in the same way. Any theory of national culture is based on finding similarities in big groups of people. Therefore models like Hofstede’s dimensions don’t describe exactly how your partners from a specific country will be, but they provide a useful indicator as to how they are likely to be in comparison to you.

Other theories and models

Deardorff, D. K. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of studies in international education, 10(3), 241-266.