The Business of Teaching and Learning through Multicultural Teams

Abstract

Team working is a key skill students need in this era of global complexity. Here we combine research with practice to develop a model for working in multicultural teams which can be used in International Business curricula. We formulate the 4 Cs model focusing on two areas: composition and communication. These two Cs have been chosen because they are active research areas and because they are the areas that have presented our own student groups with the biggest challenges. Getting these wrong can lead to the third C: conflict. Getting these right can lead to that illusive fourth C: creativity. We then illustrate how using multicultural teams in international business courses can facilitate the development of inter‐ and intrapersonal capabilities through conceptual, experiential, experimental, and reflective student learning.

We would like to express our appreciation to two anonymous reviewers and to the Guest Editors for invaluable help in developing this article.

Keywords:

• Multicultural teams
• group faultlines
• Kolb's learning cycle
• composition
• communication
• conflict
• creativity

Notes

We would like to express our appreciation to two anonymous reviewers and to the Guest Editors for invaluable help in developing this article.