Spending time abroad – Does it make us interculturally competent?

A key goal of study abroad programs is to enable students to develop their intercultural competences. Global organizations likewise assume that international experience predicts intercultural effectiveness and expatriate success – which is why they are so keenly interested in hiring graduates who studied abroad. But how much does Time Spent Abroad actually contribute to intercultural competence development? Our data show that its importance is overstated and its effects still ill understood.

Our research draws on data from 40,000 respondents who completed the Intercultural Readiness Check (www.interculturalreadiness.com ©Intercultural Business Improvement BV), a valid and reliable questionnaire assessing four intercultural competences. Respondents come from 180 countries, all major industries and professions; they differ in seniority, management level, and international experience. From the start of using the Intercultural Readiness Check some 15 years ago, we’ve always asked respondents to also tell us how many friends from other cultures they had. By now, our database is probably the largest source of information on intercultural friendship – a topic of growing interest to research on intercultural development.

So what matters most – Spending time abroad or Having friends from other cultures? The answer is clear and simple: Intercultural friendship is far more important to intercultural competence development than Experience of living and working abroad. People with many friends from other cultures have vastly better scores on Intercultural Readiness than those with few friends from other cultures. Importantly, if people stay abroad for more than one year and still have not found a way of making friends across cultures, their competences shrink back to the level at which they started before they went abroad (Brinkmann & van Weerdenburg, 2014 Intercultural Readiness).

We cannot, then, simply assume that students return home from their study abroad as interculturally competent citizens of the world. Nor can companies assume that expatriates who have worked abroad before will do a better job than those who have not. What organizations can do, however, is assess intercultural readiness before the move, coupled with level-specific coaching and guidance before, during and after the move. For more information on how we support universities and companies, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at info@ibinet.nl.

Why invest into the Intercultural Readiness Check?

• Do you work across cultural and national boundaries? With the IRC, you can assess and develop your intercultural skill set, and get ready for your tough and challenging global work/life.
• Do you work as an intercultural practitioner? With the IRC, you can support your clients to become more effective across cultures by assessing and developing their intercultural competencies.

Delighted to see the IRC rated as best in class right from the start (Wiersinga, ITIM, 2001), we never stopped improving it.

We’ve called in the help of tough statistical wizards to analyze the IRC database and monitor the quality that we promise our clients. The IRC of today is based on a massive analysis of data from 13,000 respondents, with sophisticated checks and double checks.

We’ve contacted cool designers who gave the IRC that special look and feel that makes learning fun, and who make all our learning materials rival the good looks of the IRC profiles.

We’ve invested into an online dashboard that makes it easy for you to access the tool, generate feedback and monitor your client groups. Your data is in good hands: Contact us for our data protection measures in line with Germany’s requirements for Technical and Operational Measures (TOMs).

We’ve brought together teams of trained translators, native speakers and intercultural and HR professionals for high quality translations into eight languages: English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, and Japanese.

As a result, more than 50,000 respondents from all over the world have used the IRC to discover their intercultural competencies and develop them to be more effective in their jobs. Their answers make the IRC database one of the richest sources of information on intercultural competences world-wide.

In 2014, we published our insights, ideas, and concepts in Intercultural Readiness: Four competences for working across cultures (London: Palgrave Macmillan). If you are still in doubt, buy the book and get hooked.

To serve a global client base, we need a global network. In recognition of her contributions to the field and the global network of intercultural professionals Dr. Ursula Brinkmann was awarded the Margaret D Pusch Founder Award by SIETAR USA in 2016.

From Sydney to Singapore, from Portland to Perth, from Tokyo to Tilburg, more than 500 IRC certified professionals use the IRC to support their clients. We encourage them to network, cooperate and form mixed teams that can serve a global client base.

Just like you, we can only stay happy if we stay curious. We continue to dig deeper, to support research with the IRC database, and to learn from the conversations we have with our clients and colleagues.

Join us in our learning endeavor.

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