The Importance of Intercultural Competence in Higher Education and its Impact on Professional Life

Master's Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - Business Management, Corporate Governance, grade: 1,7, Cologne Business School Köln, language: English, abstract: On the basis of a growing international interconnection that has led to an increasing number of culturally diverse teams, study and working environments, as well as significant changes in the intercultural orientation aimed at adapting to the realities of a multicultural society, the object of this thesis is to expound the significance of intercultural competence in the field of higher education, to illustrate challenges stemming from an intercultural cooperation and to cover feasible improvement opportunities of dealing with them. In order to be interculturally competent, certain character traits emerge as very important. Also certain soft skills, especially the ones related to the social competence were identified as crucial. Learning those is, as a matter of course, a lifelong process, however influenced by individual experiences and the external environment. Higher Education Institution belong to the external environment that plays a significant role in developing, or, at least promoting ways for intercultural competence. Recently, the role of higher education in this context has been explored in great detail. Based upon a solid theoretical literature review and an empirical research in form of a case study, the research concluded that IC promoted at HEI has only a theoretical and initial impact on professional life. To paraphrase it differently, HEI has the function to lay the fundamental ground in learning to become intercultural competent and to develop this competence further onto a professional level. However, being intercultural competent means continuous learning, as each and every intercultural situation differs from another. Nevertheless, there are certain instruments that facilitate the development of intercultural competence. What does are and how one can make use of them is one of the topics dealt with in the present thesis.