Developing Cross-Cultural Management Skills: Experiential Learning in an International MBA Programme

It is rapidly becoming a truism in academic writing on International Management that personnel intending to work on international assignments will benefit from predeparture training, for example in cross-cultural interaction. Debate continues about whether such training should be culture-general or culture-specific and whether it should be based on the transmission of information or the development of skills through experiential learning. Finding an integrated programme of study that endeavours to enhance and develop values and behaviour that seem `appropriate' to the practice of international business is, however, unusual. This collective anticipatory socialization into values and behaviour linked to innovation and change at home, and to effective communication and negotiation across cultures, is found in the Northern Territory University's International MBA Programme. The aims of this article are to describe and analyse this process and to review the literature on the effectiveness of cross-cultural training, particularly that which examines the nature of the skills necessary for cross-cultural interaction and the effects produced by certain kinds of training design. This provides support for the particular methods of cross-cultural education and training which are found in the MBA programme.