"CULT OPEN" - DIVERSITY AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INTEGRATION OF IMMIGRANTS

So far, problems in dealing with people from other cultures were mentioned. But which characteristics and skills specifically help to deal with these challenges and create an improvement? Addressing these concrete characteristics and skills is another aim of the project (see Aims of the project: Work packages).

An important aspect is intercultural perception. Our perception of people is shaped in a culture-specific way, so that a culture-dependent image of people is developed. If the interaction partner belongs to a different culture, s/he deviates from the behaviour we are familiar with. When these deviating behavioural patterns are repeatedly followed by people of that different culture, one is dealing with culture-specific behavioural patterns. To notice this is a first step towards developing understanding. In order for cooperation to succeed, expectations of all interaction partners involved need to be adjusted by both sides (Thomas, 2014).

It is also important to have an accurate self-perception. This includes knowing my self-image: Which group do I belong to? What patterns of thought and action are normal for my group? Which expectations, wishes, values, and attitudes do I have? What goals are important to me, what are my motives for action? (Layes, 2013). Self-perception also includes knowing how my actions, gestures, facial expressions, and appearance appear to the outside world. In short: I know what impression I make.

In order to be able to judge the actions of my interaction partner correctly, intercultural knowledge is particularly important. After comparing the self-image with the image of the interaction partner, it is noticed: "We are different". In order to assess behaviour appropriately, it is important to know which behaviour patterns are 'normal' in the culture of my interaction partner (Thomas, 2014).

Empathy is a quality that is extremely important in this context (Bolten, 2001). Empathy helps to improve my self-perception and to develop the image I have of the interaction partner more accurately. Through empathy, it is possible to put oneself in the partner's place and to investigate the question "What are the motives and incentives of my partner for her/his behaviour?

Within the interaction with people, communication is one of the most important components. Precisely in communication – not least due to different languages – major problems often arise. The risk of misunderstanding is very high, especially when using idioms, sarcasm, or irony. The ability of appropriate and effective intercultural communication is therefore highly relevant. Mostly, one of the communication partners uses a language which is not her/his mother tongue. In addition, knowledge of language customs and symbolic actions as well as the gestures of the foreign culture is needed. The development of appropriate and effective intercultural communication requires, amongst various skills, an interest in other languages (Thomas, A., 2016).

All these characteristics and skills interact and help to develop intercultural competence. As already mentioned, intercultural competence is a complex construct. It includes various skills and characteristics. cannot be defined uniformly. Interculturally competent persons have the ability to recognise situations of cultural overlap and to understand the processes and the effects of their own and other “organisational” (cultural) systems in these situations (Thomas, 2016). Based on this understanding, action strategies can be derived that take into account the goals of all persons involved, so that the situation can be managed to all parties satisfaction, while the mutual understanding for the respective other’s culture is promoted. Amongst the conditions for developing intercultural competence is an interest in intercultural contact and the willingness to deal with foreign organisational (cultural) systems (Thomas, 2016).

Overall, the acquisition of intercultural action competence can be seen as a learning and development process. The acquisition of knowledge about foreign cultures should go hand in hand with personal contact and the critical examination of one's own culture (Thomas, 2016).

Culture is a central concept of this research project. But what is the meaning of this word? There is no standard definition for it. As a synthesis of various conceptions, culture can be regarded as being manifested in adaptive interactions, which denote language, concepts, symbols, religion, behavioural patterns and social patterns. An additional characteristic of culture is that shared cultural elements, such as language, time and place, are passed on over longer periods of time and across generations. Culture is not dependent on an individual person, but is only passed on through him or her (Kroeber & Kluckhohn (1990), cited in Genkova, P. 2012). People who belong to one culture are therefore similar. Thus, dealing with people of one's own culture is easy – the involved individuals are familiar with the culture. The similarity creates a certain kind of sympathy. In contrast, prejudices and stereotypes are often formed against people of other cultures; that is, there is an (unfounded) prejudice against another group of people whose culture is seen as foreign (Genkova, P. 2012).

When people from different cultures interact, misunderstandings and problems quickly arise. This can start with greetings: While people in one country greet each other with kisses on the cheek, people in the other country keep a much greater distance and, for example, greet each other with a bow. To prevent intercultural problems, it is important to acquire knowledge about the foreign culture and to develop an awareness for the impression of one's own behaviour on other people (Thomas, 2014). To deal productively with intercultural situations, so-called intercultural competence is needed. Intercultural competence is a very comprehensive construct that includes different skills. There is no standard definition for it. According to Thomas (2016), the term describes the ability to recognise cultural overlap situations and to understand the processes and the effects of one's own as and if the foreign cultural (“organisational”) systems. Based on this understanding, people in intercultural situations can derive strategies for action that take into account the goals of all persons involved. In this way, the intercultural situation can be managed to the satisfaction of all involved parties and the understanding for the other culture can be strengthened. A prerequisite for the development of intercultural competence is the willingness to deal with foreign “organisational” systems and the interest in intercultural contact (Thomas, 2016).

Overall, the acquisition of intercultural competence can be seen as a learning and development process. The acquisition of knowledge about foreign cultures should go hand in hand with personal contact and the critical review of one's own culture (Thomas, 2016). According to Van der Zee and Von Oudenhoven (2008), Cultural Empathy, Open-mindedness, Emotional Stability, Flexibility and Social Initiative are elements of intercultural effectiveness. See Competences for a compilation of various research findings.

In short, intercultural competence is the ability to interact confidently with people from other cultures, to assess their behaviour correctly and to adapt one's own behaviour to avoid misunderstandings.

Research indicated that dealing with people from other cultures can be trained by the Critical Incident Method and the Cultural Assimilator.

These training methods were developed to arrive at more effective communication in heterogeneous cultural groups (Kosowoski, 2010). They are based on the rationale that intercultural misunderstandings are based on culture-specific interpretation patterns due to which the behaviour of the counterpart is either irritating or misinterpreted (Kumbruck & Derboven, 2016). For this reason, a better understanding of the other culture should be achieved by training with illustrative situations close to real-life, so that the learnt content can be easily transferred to practice (e.g., to everyday working life).

Following the critical incident method, a possible step for developing solutions to challenging intercultural situations, the situations is analysed in focus groups, guided by questions such as: What happened? Due to which aspects might the problem and misunderstandings have arisen? This is followed by a discussion of various alternative courses of action. The goal is to find viable courses of actions for similar situations.

The Cultural Assimilator is often based on the Critical Incident Method. A Cultural Assimilator typically presents the test person with a intercultural contact situations and with different possible behavioural reactions. One of the possible reactions is supposed to represent the best behavioural option.

A special advantage of the critical incident method and the cultural assimilator is the flexible application. Depending on the context and target group, the dimensions of interest and situations can be adapted accordingly and used in a variety of ways for people who communicate in an intercultural context. Thus, these methods help to train the interaction with people of other cultures and to understand these cultures (Kosowoski, 2010).

As described in the first section, migration is a highly topical subject that needs to be taken into account in the economy as well as in politics and society. One focus of the project is Work Package 1, which aims to jointly prepare an application for the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme 2018-2020, in order to secure funding for the project. Horizon 2020 is a programme of the European Union for the promotion of research and innovation.

In December 2017, there was a first workshop in Osnabrueck (Germany), the partners generated a pool of ideas and subsequently developed concrete plans to address two “Calls” of the Horizon 2020 programme. These calls, which are in the area of "Migration, Europe in a changing world - Inclusive innovative and reflective societies", are:

• Understanding migration mobility patterns: elaborating mid and long-term migration scenarios
• Social and economic effects of migration in Europe and integration policies (RIA)

The first call covers social and economic effects of migration and the second call focuses on the elaboration of mid and long-term migration scenarios. Further education programmes for teachers, parents and immigrant children will be developed in order to ensure a better understanding and an acceptance of multicultural societies.

The partners of the project informed each other via Skype and Dropbox to keep themselves up-to-date regarding the application for Horizon 2020. An important part of the workshop was also to generate a timeline and to determine the responsibilities for the individual steps.

Another meeting was held in March of 2018 in Brno (The Czech Republic), to exchange information about progress and to plan the next steps. Additionally, the participants presented further projects and research from their respective countries that deal with topics related to the goals of the research project. You can find a conclusion of these reports and more information about the meetings in the description of the workshops.

All partners had contacted the National Contact Point (NCP) to obtain relevant information for the application. This included, for example, country-specific information and statistics on migration and networks that could be supportive for the project. In this way, stakeholders (contributors) could be won for the project who can complement research knowledge and bring in further perspectives.

In addition to the first work package, which is the main focus of the project, there are five other work packages. The second work package deals with the identification of a framework model for the development of global and intercultural competence. As explained above, this competence is extremely important for promoting cultural understanding and for the integration of migrants into everyday life. Part of the work package is to develop and conduct a study for the surveying university students and the broader population. Recommendations for action and measures are to be derived from this, which will then also be incorporated into the Horizon 2020 project.

The focus of the third work package is the development of a structural model of global competence. The aim is to filter out which skills are needed to interact with people from foreign cultures, so that these skills can be promoted in people who work in a relevant field. Another part of the work package is to develop critical incidents. A critical incident includes an example situation with various proposed solutions to deal with the situation, one of which represents the "best way of practice". In this way, it is possible to learn what behaviour should be shown in particularly difficult situations. The method is very practice-oriented and therefore achieves very good transfer results.

In the framework of the fourth work package, the competence model is further elaborated and measurement scales for the different skills are defined. Questions to be answered are: How can it be determined whether a person has learned the relevant skills? Which of the skills need to be specifically promoted by which methods? To answer these questions in an intersubjective way, it is important to develop fixed assessment schemes.

The fifth work package aims at the complete and correct documentation of progress and results. This documentation should ensure that all partners and multipliers involved are up to date with the project and have the relevant information at their disposal. A continuous exchange of information is therefore essential.

The sixth work package is about ensuring quality and promoting transfer. The results of the project should also be useful in the long term and will therefore be published on various databases.

At the end of the project, the findings and results from the database of the project can be used by policy makers and organisations (both business organisations and non-profit organisations). The results of the project may support the integration of refugees and immigrants into the European labour market. Since it was decided to address two Calls – covering economic aspects and social aspect of migration – organisations, municipalities as well as the business community can benefit even more from the results of the project.

The exchange with multipliers and networks, which is being conducted by the partners during the project, supports the consideration of specifics of Eastern European cultures regarding labour market integration and international economic collaborations. Concrete recommendations for action will be derived that focus on the diagnosis of vocational qualifications. These recommendations will be passed on to interested parties through counselling and exchange. The promotion of diversity measures through advisory activities of the project partners will lead to the implementation of the findings and results in organisations. Joint concepts will be developed which will also be shared with small and medium-sized enterprises and consultancies.

The project helps to promote cooperation and exchange between the different sectors and thus to improve the European integration of migrants. For Germany in particular, this means that discrimination and negative attitudes towards refugees can be reduced and the access of immigrants to the labour market can be improved. Furthermore, the project should help to raise interest for diversity, intercultural competence, and integration at the European level.

In summary, it is important to strengthen the cooperation in the economic sector and to support the exchange between the different sectors. This will promote inclusive growth and new employment opportunities, especially for Germany. By increasing interest in the aforementioned topics and participation in further projects at the European level, the reduction of discrimination and negative attitudes towards refugees should be achieved. In the long term, the team seeks to promote an innovation union, to strengthen networks, and to develop new business models and knowledge exchange. By incorporating specific cultural influences of Eastern Europe, the project aims to increase the likelihood of success in economic activities (e.g., mergers and acquisitions) related to this area.

The project team pursues comparative cultural and intercultural studies for the cultural areas of Central and Eastern Europe, with a mix of methods and the linking of basic and applied research. To this end, surveys are conducted in the participating countries. These will provide an overview of people's attitudes towards immigrants and refugees. On that basis, scientific and practice-relevant implications for research and business can be derived.

A special focus of the project is placed on Eastern Europe. The attitudes of people towards immigrants from Eastern Europe are examined more closely. In this context, both cross-cultural results and results specific for Eastern Europe will be considered. Eastern European cultural influences will be examined and recorded in more detail.

The project team develops two applications addressing two calls for Horizon 2020, which deal with the thematic complex "Europe in a Changing World". Both social and economic aspects of migration in the individual countries will be considered. These findings are important for the economy as well as for research. From these results, future research projects can be derived, which deal with the details of the insights gained from this project.

The results of the surveys conducted during the project are presented and disseminated to the public at congresses, meetings, and conferences (like, for example, the Enterprise and Competitive Environment Conference in Brno in March 2018), and are also spread into the general public. During the project, bilateral research relations are built and integrated into a functioning research network. The network is expected to continue after the end of the project.

The research network does not only serve research, but also consolidates the cooperation with the business community, especially with regional small and medium-sized enterprises. It can also contribute to the active cooperation of all partner institutions beyond the end of the project.

The research network enables to strengthen a positive diversity culture across Europe. In addition, the members of the network can share their experiences and problems. Through multipliers within the network, the transfer of scientific findings into practice can be facilitated and the measures can be implemented in associated organisations.

A significant interest of the scientific community in the project results can be expected, because of the increased international activities of organisations that are mainly based in the western cultural areas. The topics of intercultural competence and intercultural communication in particular have not been part of mainstream research for a long time and were niche topics.

The first well-founded findings in the area of the integration of immigrants and the reduction of discrimination are expected from the project, so that further research can build on them. The promotion of young researchers in the field of academic qualifications might help to promote this progress. Through the project, a sound scientific basis can be created for comparing findings on the reduction of discrimination and the promotion of integration across contexts. This assists internationalisation and knowledge transfer.

In terms of research activities, the topics of diversity and intercultural competence are to be further researched as key qualifications. The results should contribute to integration, and to the reduction of discrimination and negative attitudes towards refugees. In addition, the specifics of Eastern European countries and culture are measured. In the long term, the internationalisation and European orientation of research will be strengthened. Knowledge transfer of scientific findings into practice will be pursued. A knowledge transfer platform is being developed for this purpose.