…is considered the key qualification of the 21st century. In the age of globalization and internationalization, intercultural competence is an important prerequisite for successful appearance and cooperation in cross-cultural business transactions at home and abroad. Intercultural competence has become increasingly important in recent decades.
Working in international economic contexts has become a matter of course. Internationally active companies have a high demand for employees, negotiating partners, managers and project managers who can be deployed across borders, to name just a few. And they work better at home and abroad if they have a high level of intercultural competence.
Internationally active companies name intercultural competence as a central key qualification in almost all requirement profiles in their internal and external job advertisements.
Culture is the orientation system for a society, organizations and groups. It is formed, among other things, by customs, traditions and symbols. Through socialization, society conveys the orientation towards values, norms, what is permitted and what is undesirable. This is how our cultural identity is created. Our culture influences perception, thinking, emotions, values and actions. We share this orientation system, which is progressive, as a matter of course and natural with all members of our cultural area. When meeting people from other cultures, everyone acts in the belief that their own orientation system is self-evident and just as correct for everyone involved as it is for themselves. However, we can only interact adequately in such situations with intercultural competence.
Ways of thinking and behaving, communication styles and working methods are different in every cultural area. Misunderstandings and stress arise – combined with a loss of effectiveness and efficiency. So it makes sense to continue your education and develop intercultural skills.
Interculturally successful action
…is a mixture of technical and social skills. These include, for example, communica-tion and teamwork skills, tolerance, problem-solving skills and empathy.
Self-competences include self-reflection, self-confidence and self-regulation, toler-ance of frustration and ambiguity and the ability to adopt the perspective of others.
The term “intercultural competence” contains two aspects:
“Competence” means being competent for something in the sense of an existing or to be acquired ability to perform a task or activity at a quality level appropriate to the task.
“Intercultural” means encounters and understanding between people who belong to different cultures
