Abstract:

With the goal of improving students' intercultural competence, communication, collaboration, and teamwork skills, students from the Netherlands, Croatia, and the United States of America (USA) have been brought together in virtual teams over the past five academic years to complete various assignments as part of the graduate course "Negotiating in the International Environment." Virtual teams have become an important collaboration environment in higher education settings. In a successful virtual team landscape, students become effective communicators as participants, share knowledge, have mutual trust, and develop interpersonal skills in the virtual workspace, The objectives of this research are twofold. First, a content analysis of Croatian students' end-of-semester reflections from three years of study (total N=72) was conducted to examine their key international online skills. The categories of Kolm et al.'s (2022) International Online Collaboration Competencies (IOCCs) were used as the analytical framework: (1) Intercultural and Cultural Competencies; (2) Communication and Language Competencies; (3) ICT Competencies; (4) Organisational and Self-Management Competencies; (5) Collaboration Competencies; (6) Specific Subject Competencies. Second, the paper provides guidelines for university instructors who want to successfully implement some form of virtual collaboration in their courses. The best practises identified in the course are compared to the existing literature that addresses virtual international collaboration activities or projects among university students. At the end of the paper, the limitations of the research are identified, as well as directions for future implementations and research opportunities for international student virtual collaborations in business course activities.

Reference:
[1] Kolm, A., de Nooijer, J., Vanherle, K., Werkman, A., Wewerka-Kreimel, D., Rachman-Elbaum, S., & van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2022). International Online Collaboration Competencies in Higher Education Students: A Systematic Review. Journal of Studies in International Education, 26(2), 183–201. https://doi.org/10.1177/10283153211016272

Keywords:

Virtual collaboration, International Online Collaboration Competencies IOCCS, teamwork, virtual teams, international students, content analysis.