Intercultural competence as part of professional qualifications : a training experiment with bachelor of engineering students

2002

The globalization of working life sets new kinds of requirements on various organizations, in which intercultural competence should be understood as part of knowledge management and tacit knowledge and as a source of competitive advantage and added value. Its development should be started as early as possible. Here proactive Finnish polytechnics have a market niche. They can provide intercultural training as part of professionally-integrated foreign language education, for example. The present study was a training experiment in intercultural communication to Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) students (n = 117) at Kajaani Polytechnic, Finland. Työpaikkailmoitusten sisällön perusteella teollisuu…