the cultural navigator: a powerful ... - berlitz singapore · the cultural navigator a powerful...

Case study

The cultural navigator: A powerful tool for undergraduate and graduate students

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Berlitz offers an innovative platform and cultural assessment tools that are adaptable across a wide range of courses to help students advance their understanding of cultural competence and be better prepared to contribute to global businesses upon graduation.

Today’s businesses are more globally focused than ever. As they expand across the world, form international partnerships and hire local talent, organizations face cultural hurdles that can limit success. To overcome these barriers, business leaders must understand the important role culture plays in work-related interactions, partnerships and strategies, and instill a sense of cultural competence in their employees.

Meanwhile, students at the undergraduate or graduate level who are preparing to enter the global workforce are often not exposed to different cultures and, consequently, lack the abilities to communicate effectively with people from different backgrounds. Students can get a head start on increasing their intercultural awareness and give themselves an advantage in the hiring process by improving their cultural competence while in college.

As companies increase their presence overseas, there’s a growing need for business leaders and college graduates to:

• Understand how to communicate and collaborate across borders.

• Avoid cultural misunderstanding that impede business dealings.

• Identify differences in cultural norms. • Be better prepared for intercultural interactions.

By improving their cultural proficiencies, college graduates entering the workforce can help improve their company’s profits, revenue and market share. The problem is that many companies and colleges don’t have a process in place to help with cultural preparedness.


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This is where the Berlitz Cultural Navigator® and its constituent assessment Cultural Orientations Indicator® (COI®) can help.

Boosting cultural understanding and awarenessCultural assessment tools present excellent learning opportunities for students at any level. For example, the Cultural Navigator is a web-based learning platform for building and maintaining cultural competences. It provides timely information and insights on a wide range of global business and cultural topics that help users collaborate across geographical and cultural borders. The platform is designed to provide a robust and unique learning experience for business people and students.

Within the Cultural Navigator, business information is organized by topic to increase users’ confidence when working with people from different backgrounds and working across borders. It includes country guides that deliver a wealth of information on cultural norms and management practices in more than 100 countries. The platform is designed to meet the needs of various learning styles and provide collaboration and networking opportunities to promote peer-based learning.

The Cultural Navigator is adaptable across a wide range of courses and levels of experiences. The cornerstone of the platform is the COI. An online self-assessment solution, it gauges users’ work-style preferences across three dimensions:

• Interaction Style - Communication and engagement with others in work situations.

• Thinking Style - Conceptualization and how users process information in work situations.

• Sense of Self - How users view themselves and are motivated in the workplace.

Once the psychometrically validated assessment is complete, users receive a personal report that analyzes their preferences and offers suggestions for overcoming any cultural gaps between them and others. Users can compare their personal preferences to the cultural norms in the country where they plan to study, work, or travel.

Four ways to harness the power of the cultural navigatorThere are many ways to develop a curriculum for effective intercultural learning based on the specific needs of an organization as well as its programs, audience and budget.

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For example, Notre Dame University’s Mendoza College of Business takes an innovative approach to teaching intercultural management by using the Cultural Navigator. Students have four options for participation:

1. Online course The Advanced Intercultural Management (AIM) course can be added to some Notre Dame certificate programs. The Cultural Navigator provides the basis for this eight-week online executive course that’s available globally. It’s applicable to any industry and any level of expertise. The course focuses on enabling professionals to deal more effectively with cultural differences at home and abroad and highlights the challenges stemming from differing values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviors that people face every day in a diverse workplace.

The curriculum uses case studies, short videos and real-world examples. Participants can interact with each other through email, online postings and six live chats. Students earn a Certificate of Achievement from the University of Notre Dame upon completion.

2. Course for Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) Intercultural Communication for Business is a seven-week course that focuses on the interpersonal aspects of global business. It develops students’ cultural competence through case studies, researching global business issues and writing. Topics include cultural identity, cultural dimensions, context and communication, worldview, cognition and global leadership.

The Cultural Navigator is used in conjunction with other learning materials. Students use it to analyze the country profiles of the national cases discussed in class and research and write a white paper for the “Critical Incident” final assignment. The paper provides a concise report on an intercultural issue and includes the student’s perspective on how to understand the issue and solve it. The COI is used throughout the course and is the basis for class activities and assignments. Students also use another cultural assessment tool, the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI), to determine their level of development for dealing with cultural differences, while the text Intercultural Communication for Business supplements the learning.

3. Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) courseAn EMBA is for adult business students with at least 15 years of experience who hold management positions and want to transition into leadership. The Intercultural Management course allows them to learn their individual preferences and compare them to others in conjunction with country-specific learning.

Consulting projects span Argentina, Brazil, China, Singapore, and more.

In the spring term, students take their COI and IDI before starting the 10-hour course and ahead of their mid-summer international consulting project. Students use the Cultural Navigator to create team aggregate reports to review any gaps in their cultural preferences that can hinder teamwork. They also review the profile for their target country within the Cultural Navigator. Each team selects a company and specific project and provides expert consulting during a one-week, in-country immersion experience.

4. Student abroad Notre Dame BBA students have the opportunity to participate in a six-week immersion course in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China. A group of about 25 students participate in three or four sessions using the COI and IDI to learn about cultural dimensions and leadership before traveling to Asia.

This course focuses on the foundational aspects of understanding culture with an emphasis on Chinese culture. Throughout the immersion experience, students attend lectures on culture, history and society from faculty in the morning, then participate in company visits in the afternoon. They also engage in readings, have discussions with faculty, complete daily journals and complete an intercultural development plan.


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Build cultural competence in collegeColleges and universities need to do a better job of helping students understand their individual cultural identities and communication preferences, and learn how to bridge cultural gaps across different backgrounds to create synergies and collaborate effectively. Educators teaching students who are about to enter the diverse and globalized business world have an imperative to help the world’s current and future leaders develop cultural competence.

Granted, this is no easy task, but excellent resources are available to meet the challenge. Learning platforms such as the Cultural Navigator and the COI offer learning opportunities for students. The Cultural Navigator can be tailored to meet the needs of classes and individual students. In addition, the COA is one of the most powerful and unique ways to incorporate cultural competence into current courses and demonstrate student outcomes at any level of education.

About BerlitzWe are one of the world’s leading cultural consulting and learning solutions companies. Our Cultural Orientation Approach helps managers and employees develop skills to work and lead in a global business environment. Our Cultural Navigator offers an online learning platform that enables users to learn about cultural preferences and effectively communicate with people from different backgrounds. Our Cultural Orientations Indictor (COI), a web-based self-reporting tool, accesses an individual’s cultural preferences to help bridge cultural gaps. Our CIO Aggregate Report includes interactive features to apply insights to a person’s work situations.

We enable customers to achieve their goals in a global environment by understanding their individual needs and providing the most effective solutions in language, communication, and culture competence anywhere in the world.

Explore individuallyFaculty, deans, administrators, students, and others can explore the power of the Cultural Navigator® on their own without any obligation by visiting the Cultural Navigator Explore site (http://explore.culturalnavigator.com/features/). The site includes short videos that show useful functions of the Cultural Navigator, including:

• The Cultural Orientations Indicator® (COI®)

• Multi-step Learning Paths

• Country Guides

• Networks Feature


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Berlitz is the fastest and most effective way to learn a new language, providing flexible programs that give you practical skills in communication that can help you succeed anywhere in the world. As a pioneer in language and intercultural communication for over 140 years, Berlitz uses innovative techniques to help you learn through flexible programs taught in-person and online where you’ll cultivate life-changing skills that can lead to enriching global travel, increased career opportunities and greater confidence. Berlitz courses give individuals, families and business leaders the skills and cultural awareness to engage confidently with people around the world. To learn more about our programs, visit Berlitz.com.

© 2019 All Rights Reserved by Berlitz Languages, Inc., 7 Roszel Road, Princeton, NJ USA 08540. The Berlitz name and logotype are registered trademarks of and are used under license from Berlitz Investment Corporation.

Six lessons learned to help with new curriculum Organizations often encounter unique challenges when implementing new curriculum. Here’s how to overcome them:

1. Start small Budgets are tight, causing administrators to challenge investments in intercultural learning tools like the Cultural Navigator®. Helping administration see the need takes time. Rather than developing a new course, consider incorporating the Cultural Navigator into an existing one.

2. Find funding Alumni, deans, and local businesspeople often have a firsthand understanding of the importance of cultural competence in business. When approaching them for funding, instructors should demonstrate the program’s methods, outcomes, and cost, and how learning is measured.

3. Be patient University administrators understand the crucial need to internationalize curriculum. Too often, faculty suggest quick fixes such as adding an international case to a course. This misses the point. Instead, online resources such as the Cultural Navigator can add robust learning by allowing students to identify their own cultural preferences, then learn others’ preferences.

4. Measure results Administrators want results. One way to show them is use a class’s team gap report generated by the Cultural Navigator to demonstrate that students used their COIs to create a visual layout of their cultural preferences.

5. Learn from others Instructors may want to talk to faculty at other colleges and universities who have successfully deployed the Cultural Navigator. They can share how they built a case to invest in this powerful tool. Berlitz also offers live, virtual demonstrations of the Cultural Navigator for key decision makers.

6. Consider COA certification The Cultural Orientations Approach (COA) encompasses the principles, concepts, and learning tools on which the COI and the Cultural Navigator are based. The COA certification process blends multiple learning methods to gain cultural awareness.

the cultural navigator: a powerful ... - berlitz singapore · the cultural navigator a powerful...

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