ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the development of students’ intercultural competence in an Austrian higher education institution Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) where internationalisation is anchored in its mission.
The institution pursues various internationalisation strategies, which gives room to intercultural dialogue. These strategies such as international curriculum, international lecturers, short and long mobility window, diverse staff and student population aim to enhance the intercultural skills of its students. The intercultural competence of students belonging to the study programme International Business and Management (IBM) had been measured with the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) assessment tool. Since the outcome of the IDI demonstrated that these students did not develop their intercultural competence in the anticipated manner, it was decided to investigate to what extent the intercultural dialogue approach embedded in the internationalisation strategies develops and contributes to the students’ intercultural competence.
This study draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with part-time students in view of MCI’s internationalisation strategies. A thematic analysis approach is used to evaluate the students’ contributions. Based on the Process Model of Intercultural Competence by Darla Deardorff, an assay attempt to understand the extent the intercultural dialogue has impacted students’ intercultural competence has been conducted.
It was found that intercultural dialogue influenced the individual level in particular and the interactional level remained unaffected to a large extent. A more conscious implementation of these internationalisation strategies would be proposed to further deepen the intercultural development of the students and to facilitate the internal shift from the individual level to the interactional level.
Keywords: intercultural competence, international curriculum, intercultural dialogue, international management
