Abstract:

Cross Border Project is a triadic network of students, teachers and companies from three different countries in diverse teams (i.e.each team consist of members from each country) to work on real life problems and authentic situations supported by online coaching and working.

Driven by economic rationale, diversity/heterogeneity has become a major asset for multinational corporations. The Japanese ideal of the advantages of homogenous societies and teams lost its attractiveness especially because of its apparent flaws in generating creative and flexible solutions. In addition, the so-called “Diversity Charter” was introduced in several European countries as a voluntary initiative starting some years ago. According to this initiative, public and private organizations committed themselves to promoting diversity, to assert and facilitate the incorporation of a diversity policy into the organization’s general strategy thereby creating equal opportunities for employees. However, generating the benefits from heterogeneity is no automatism if not well designed heterogeneity might even end up in misunderstandings, conflicts, and disharmony and might cause major inefficiencies. Cross border projects are an ideal platform for getting familiar with these challenges.

Some challenges and opportunities are:
- The heterogeneous setting (major subject, age, nationality, former studies, personalities, working experience, gender, etc…) enables real life learning, creativity and unexpected results.
- Finding the way to balance the trade-off between structure/lead/rules and fostering creativity and flexibility.
- Formal structure vs. fuzziness – a well-structured framework which still allows and supports creativity and unexpected results – because of the heterogeneity of organizational cultures, national cultures and different personalities , also the learning outcomes are different, which is highly valued and consciously natured.
- Intensive and cost efficient way to internationalize: 8 week period, e-platforms (Ilyas and Leap), social media (FB, Drop Box, Skype) ed for planning, working and evaluating, working methods are combination of face-to-face and virtual meetings, minimal lecturing, teachers coach students to find solutions, online coaching by expert lecturers.
- Helping corporate partners to get sensitive for the opportunities resulting from diversity/heterogeneity.
- Internationalization not as an individual experience, but as a team experience and team project. In the triad students create a new corporate identity, one in which they can all foster their talents. This way of experiencing internationalisation, intensifies the experience and learning outcomes. Students learn to manoeuvre and operate on different levels of cultural awareness and intercultural communication.
Complex tasks and environment: the experience with the Cross Border project offers insight into questions like:
- What basic elements of organisation should be solved beforehand?
- What tools are needed to foster creativity in the group process?
- How to limit the risks of failure due to heterogeneity?
- What are the benefits? What needs improvement? What are the unexpected results?