Abstract:

International cooperation competence today is one of the most important preconditions of employees to successfully cooperate among different cultures and thus ensure successful achievement of goals of the particular employer companies that are working on an international level. There are different kinds of professionals that have graduated in Latvia and are working in the mentioned field: external relations specialists are among them.
It has previously been found out, by the author, that the external relations specialists working in Latvia possess theoretical knowledge in coping with different intercultural communication challenges, but they often lack practical experience to solve all of the communication and cooperation problems successfully.
To improve the practical application of the theoretical knowledge in cooperating internationally, a scheme for elaborating solutions to cope with the fearful and confusing situations has been developed by the author, indicating to the areas that need to be practiced most by means of simulating intercultural environments within the curriculum. The particular scheme needs to be integrated into the curriculum of the prospective external relations specialists in order to ensure that after graduation the external relations specialists are able to practically cooperate internationally without fear and confusion.
As the mentioned scheme only provides for the main areas to be concentrated on, the current research aims at stating certain tasks and activities that have to be performed within the curriculum, thus providing for the content of the practical simulation activities to boost the international cooperation competence of external relations specialists.

Keywords:

Intercultural environment, simulation, cooperation competence.