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Simulation & Gaming:
An Interdisciplinary Journal

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Cross-cultural / intercultural communication / management

Instructions for doing end-of-course portfolios

Do your portfolio by yourself, individually.  If you worked in groups at certain times for certain activities, then you should mention the other people working with you and state that it was a group effort.

If you were absent for a session, then you need to mark "absent" for the session(s) in which you were absent.   Include medical certificates, job interview invitation lettres or other official justification for the absence.  Indicate this on the table below.

You must prepare a document (portfolio) as indicated below.  It may be in English or in French or a mixture of both languages.  If you worked in a group of some activities, and if you wish to say the same thing as your cealgues for some of the things, then you may do that, but make sure that it is clear that the text is a common effort, or indicate the main author(s) of the text.

If some instructions below are not possible to follow, then make a responsible decision to do it differently (and explain why very briefly if necessary).

For your report you will need to relate your class work to the various intercultural concepts that have been developed by research and scholarship.  In other words, your accounts of classwork (including personal experience inside and outside class) need to be set in the context of the various concepts developed in intercultural studies.

To know about some of those concepts, consult various documents about intercultural management and communication.  The best one has a filename like "International Management Chapter04 408020".

If you wish to find others on the web, use the search term "intercultural management" or "intercultural communication" or "cross-cultural management" or "cross-cultural communication", and add other terms for your specific topic, such as "teamwork", "development", "adaptation", "styles".  For your report, indicate the titles and URLs of all documents that you use, and attach the documents in an appendix to your report.

However, do not copy web pages without citing your source, and marking the quotes appropriately.  Plagiarism makes you look silly.  Be smart and cite your sources.  Inserting relevant quotes is also smart - and in the scientific spirit.  All quotes from web-based documents must be referenced, using the URL.

Keep the length of your document to a minimum (do not write a book!), but make sure that it contains all the items in sufficient, but only necessary, detail.  Say the least possible.  Quality is more important than quantity.  If you have photos and diagrams, you should include them too.  Below are examples taken from activities that you may or may not have done in class.  Some information can be obtained from the various forms that you filled out during the activity or the debriefing (in class or after).

Organise your report in 5 sections as indicated below:

1. Basic data
2. Accounts
3. Concepts
4. Learning
5. Feedback

Start each section on a new page.  If your report is not done exactly as indicated, or if it is late, it will be disqualified, with no grade given.

1. Basic data

A.  Cover sheet:

• Place of study (IUP Management).  Year of study.
• Report title.
• Date of report.
• Passport photos, student IDs and email addresses.

B.  Plan of report.

Start this on a new page.  Use page numbers (and refer to them inside the report, e.g., "see page 5").  Place the page number in the document header.

For the whole course (i.e., all your meetings/activities), include tables, as follows.  If a table is missing, your report will not be valid.  If there is not time for you to revise the report, then your report will be ignored.

C.  Summary of attendance & contribution.

Absence / presence in class.  Indicate the number of sessions present in class, and indicate the total of sessions at which you were present.  Do one table for each person.

Person 1

*Homework is any work that you did alone or with colleagues as a follow-up to the activities in class.  These will usually have been debriefings, readings, discussions, etc.  If you produced anything as a reults of the homework, such as a set of powerpoint slides, indicate in above table and include the slides in miniature in an appendix.

Total sessions present = 3 / 5.
Reasons for absence on 15 Noc, 2002:   Give reason.  If reason is justified, attach letter or certificate in appendix.
Reason for absence on 22 Nov, 2002:   Etc

Total session with arrival on time (no more than 5m late)) = 4 / 6
Reason for being late on 23 Aug, 2001:  Give reason.  If reason is justified, attach letter or certificate in appendix.

Person 2

See above under Person 1.

D.  Summary of meetings/activities.

For each activity include a name, indicate date and time of the activities, with names of others in your group, and other relevant information (such as that indicated in the example below). 

For example:

Activity 1 - MIZZA

Class: 20 Jan 2006, 14-16 hrs.
Out-of-class meetings:  2 Feb 06, 30mins;   3 Feb 06, 20mins.

Present: Joe Bloggs, John Smith.
Absent: John Brown.

Topics: Finish debriefing. Prepare ppt

Spirit of meeting: Efficient, but with some tensions.

Activity 2 - Cultural Detective

Etc.

Do as many summaries as you did activities/meetings.  Indicate who was present and who absent in each summary.

Indicate individual participation in the class activities and debriefings / discussions in class and after (concentration, maturity, behaviour, attitude, etc).  Remember that if you did not participate in an activity, your participation in debriefings and discussions will be relatively low and will need to be fully justified briefly in your account, below).

E.  Relative contribution to writing the report

Indicate members in your group (alpha order), with the contribution for each member.  This is your relative contribution to writing the report (not to class activities).  Names of each member of the group (alpha order), with the contribution for each member.  The score represents the relative contribution made by each member of the group to the writing of the final portfolio.

Italics below are examples; replace with your own content.

Columns

• B:  The various tasks done in order to write the report.
• C:  Amount of work accomplished in doing the group activities in the course and/or writing this report
  You must have at least five %age points difference between all group members.
  All whole numbers (no halves).
  The spread of points must reflect the real difference in your work on the report.  The smallest difference between each person is 5.  If one person did all the work, and the other did no work, then the %ages will be 1OO% and 0%.

2. Accounts

This section contains short accounts of your activities.  If it was a group activity, indicate the people present.

• Specific contents depend on the actual activity.  Examples are provide below.
• Keep this section as short as possible.
• Do not give lengthy descriptions of an activity; just a couple of lines, enough to identify the activity.
• Include URLs of all web material used, especially web sites (just the web site) and the video films.
• IOf you took photos of your participation you may include these.

Example for presentations

• Notes for the group:  Summarize the notes that the group made for your presentation.  For example:
  • Group members participating.
  • Sources of material.
  • Notes on relevant aspects of the work.
  • Put your ppt slides and any handouts that you prepared in an appendix to your report.  Use miniatures only - 6 or 9 slides per page.

Example for COWANBUNGA, MIZAR, or other business negotiation simulation, etc

• Notes for the group:  Summarize the notes that the group made for discussion and/or presentation.  For example:
  • Group members participating in the exercise.  Indicate roles.
  • Notes on interesting aspects of the activity.
  • Results of debriefing (summary et points forts of your discussions after the activity, including after the class).

Example for Cultural Detective, or other activities by Dr George Simons

• Summarize the notes that you and/or your group made during the session.  For example:
  • Group members participating in the exercise.  Indicate roles.
  • Notes on interesting aspects of the activity.

Example for a film that you showed.

• Notes for your group or for people individually.  For example:
  • Title and clickable URL of the film.
  • Slides you use for introducing and/or concluding the film.

Other activities

• List minor activities that you did, such as:
  • Different behaviour party
  • Case studies
  • Listening, mirroring
  • Sharing backgrounds
  • Etc

3. Concepts

For the activities as a whole, summarize your thoughts and actions, your intentions, concepts, documents consulted, ideas for the future, etc. about intercultural communication and management.  You will get the contents here from:

1. Your own personal, intercultural experience.

2. The forms and notes that you used or made during the debriefing sessions and the follow-up activities (done inside or outside class).

3. Your notes made during your discussions and debriefing.

4. Intercultural documents (such as those to be found here).

5. Your presentations and/or films (even those that you prepared, but did not give).

6. Etc.

Focus on a well-defined aspects of a small number of related topics.  You may, of course, discuss them in a small group, in which case, indicate the people in your discussion group(s).  Write notes to summarize your thinking about aspects and actions related to intercultural communication and management.  Here you need to focus on things beneath the water line of the cultural iceberg.

Illustrate your points with concrete examples drawn from the class activities (be specific about which ones) and from your your own personal experience and professional work.  Relate your discussion to basic concept, as found in the class intercultural documents, especially "International Management Chapter04 408020".  This is important.  Make sure that you reference your quotes (even if they are short sentences or even names of concepts).  Remember to write short notes, with bullets; do not write a long essay.

Here are a few ideas for topics:

• Causes of negative and positive attitudes and behaviours.  How to change?
• Culture as an iceberg.
• Dimensions of culture (such as Hall, Hofstede, Trompenaars, et al.).
• Intercultural communication as concrete behaviour (rather than concepts).
• Communicating across cultures; bridging the gap.
• Communication patterns.
• Interpretation of behaviour and context.
• Advantages and drawbacks of stereotyping.
• Values, behaviours.
• Intercultural negotiation, management, business transactions, etc.
• Importance of training.
• Learning to be a more culturally competent person.
• Etc.

This is your chance to show how much you learnt, especially how much and what work you did to relate the class activities to the main concepts and the various theories in cross-cultural communication and management.

4. Learning & commitment

Indicate and discuss the following three things:

1. Summary of what you learned (3 to 5 main concepts & ideas about intercultural competence).  Indicate in which class you encountered them.  How do they relate to your previous intercultural experience?  What light do they shed on your previous intercultural experience?
    
2. Read the short article here:  http://www.adn.com/article/20150317/melting-traditions-climate-change-also-means-culture-change.  Indicate the following:

   • How can this situation be conceptualized (or rather, how would you conceptualize it) in the context of intercultural ideas and practice (business and/or everyday life)?  Refer to: (a) what you did in your class activities, (b) the work of scholars like Trompenaars, Hall, Simons, Hofstede et al, and (c) other documents on the web (there are several thousand);
      
   • How do you think that this can be transposed to (a) your own cultural and (b) cross--cultural management in the future?  In other words, how do you think climate change will imact on your and your children's culture?
      

3. Summary of 3 to 5 things that you will make sure to do when you start work in real intercultural settings (in professional work later).  What commitments are you personally willing to make for your next intercultural business or management encounter?  Indicate the source of the things, such as your work in class or documents (such as the one mentioned above).
    

Remember that there are no 'right answers'.

5. Course feedback

At the end of the report, discuss the activities, using the questionnaire below as a guide.  Here each person must write their own personal account.  Indicate who using the full name as a subheading.
 

a.  Quels étaient les 2 meilleurs aspects de l'atelier (cours) et pourquoi ?

            Aspect 1. __

                    Pourquoi ? __

            Aspect 2. __

                    Pourquoi ? __

b.  Quels étaient les 2 plus grands problèmes et que suggérez-vous comme solutions ?

            Problème 1 __

                    Pourquoi ? __

                         Solution __

            Problème 2 __

                    Pourquoi ? __

                         Solution __

 c.  Que ferriez-vous, vous-même, de différent si vous aviez à refaire cette atelier?

            Chose différente 1. __

            Chose différente 2. __

d.  En plus des commentaires ci-dessus, quelles suggestions faites-vous pour que, une prochaine fois, l'atelier soit plus efficace/instructif ?

            Suggestion 1. __

            Suggestion 2. __

e.  Etant donné que la substance du cours et la méthode de formation demandent, chez les apprenants, une grande maturité dans leurs attitudes et comportements, écrire quelques lignes sur:

            Votre propre attitude et comportement ds le cours ___

            L'attitude et le comportement des autres ds le cours ___

            L'action à faire concernant des attitudes et comportements immatures ___

f. D’autres commentaires ou suggestions ?

            1. __

            2. __

Media

Presentation

• Make sure that your report is clearly presented.
  • For example, use plenty of short headings, use small characters and indenting for personal examples, use tables and graphics.  Use simple language.
• Make sure that you provide complete references for all citations, including quotes from web sites.
• Make sure that you include active links to films (such as on YouTube) and other online documents.
• As a general rule: 12pt, Ariel for headings; Times for text; 1.3 line spacing; 2cm margins.
• Do not use caps; all lower case (except, of course, for the usual things that require caps).

You must prepare an electronic version - according to the following instructions:

• One electronic copy, in pdf format - one single file for the whole document, including cover sheet, appendix.  No other format is acceptable.
• The filename must of the following format:
  • xcult_iup-XY_NN-NN_name-name-name.pdf
  • Where:
    • XY is the number of your level, such as L3 or M1,
    • NN-NN is the year (e.g., 04-05 = 2004-2005),
    • name is the family name of each person doing the report.
  • Example:  xcult_iup-M2_04-05_smith-dupont-jones.pdf
  • Make sure that you distinguish between hyphen - and underscore _.
• The subject line of the email must be the same as the filename.
• If the filename or subject line is incorrect, your file will get lost.
• If your file arrives late, it will be ignored.

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