International Travel Experience to Help Improve Global Effectiveness
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Businesses and educators can make employees and students more globally effective by providing international travel experience before they start preparation or initiation of overseas work, study or management.
More than ever organizations, whether business, government or education, are facing challenges and opportunities brought by global realities and the mixing of cultures. Providing employees and students with international travel experience is a specific way to help facilitate the building of related global skills explains Dr. Brent MacNab, with the University of Sydney International Business program.
“Cultural intelligence generally refers to an individual’s ability to effectively engage in multi-cultural settings and operate well internationally and with a range of cultural groups and people,” explains Dr. MacNab, who has developed a highly effective, experiential approach to training people to develop their cultural intelligence.
The training is a multi-week process including introduction to key concepts of cultural intelligence and a specific, carefully structured contact experience with a culture group that is new to trainees.
One critical discovery is that, “individuals who have international travel experience can more readily internalize the intended benefits of the cultural intelligence experiential training approach. The implications to business and education are significant,” explains Dr. MacNab.
The research findings support educational programs that provide international student exchanges. Additionally, business organizations attempting to develop key, international managers and leaders should seriously consider overseas travel experience as an important and early aspect of personnel development. Finally, international travel experience is useful as selection criteria for identifying international management candidates.
“Organizations seeking people best prepared for global management training should take into account a candidate’s level of travel experience,” concludes Dr. MacNab. “These people will often internalize global management training more effectively.”
Source: Dr. Brent MacNab