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An intercultural teambuilding training program designed for a corporate multicultural team in the U.S. and Germany

Author

Ursula D. Leitzmann, University of the Pacific

Date of Award

2004

Document Type

Thesis - Pacific Access Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Department

Intercultural Relations

First Advisor

Milton J. Bennett

First Committee Member

Sandy Fowler

Second Committee Member

Kent Warren

Abstract

This thesis project described the development, design, delivery, evaluation, and discussion of a series of four intercultural team building pilot workshops appropriate for multicultural teams in the context of international corporations. The target audience of the workshops was an Information Technology (IT) team of a Fortune 500 company in the United States. The team consisted for the most part of U.S. Americans and Germans based in either Boston, MA, or Frankfurt, Germany. The overall objective of the workshops was to help raise awareness and gain understanding about cultural variables that affect the performance of a multicultural team. The desired outcome of the training program was to help participants gain transcultural competence. This was to be achieved by providing them with a set of tools that would help them to communicate and interact more effectively, and as a result, more successfully, with their team colleagues across cultural borders. Due to the composition of the team, I placed particular emphasis on the communication and interaction patterns of the U.S. American and German cultures.

The first two pilot workshops were delivered in Boston and the target audience was the Boston-based part of the team. Thus, the workshop was delivered in the English language. The third and the fourth workshop were delivered in Frankfurt, Germany and the target audience was the Frankfurt-based part of the team. Thus, the workshop was delivered in the German language. Given these circumstances, I not only translated the workshop contents into the German language but also made culture-appropriate adaptations to the German context.

The results of the evaluations showed that the workshops were well received and fulfilled the need of the team for intercultural training. Thus, the overall objective of the workshop, to help team members understand cultural variables that influence their performance as an intercultural team, was successfully met. However, in order to utilize and enhance these newly learned skills that comprise transcultural competence, additional training is required in which a common culture strategy and a plan to integrate the different processes and structures would be developed.

Pages

152

Recommended Citation

Leitzmann, Ursula D.. (2004). An intercultural teambuilding training program designed for a corporate multicultural team in the U.S. and Germany. University of the Pacific, Thesis - Pacific Access Restricted. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/uop_etds/589