Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006

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Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Impact Factor Intercultural Competences - A
Multidisciplinary Profile Budapest Tech, 17th -
18th November 2006
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
As the complexity of a system increases, our
ability to make precise and significant
statements about its behavior diminishes .... A
corollary principle may be stated succinctly as,
"The closer one looks at a real-world problem,
the fuzzier becomes its solution". Lotfi Zadeh
1987 (Founder of Fuzzy Sets and Fuzzy Logic)
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Intercultural Competences Methodological
Approach
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Why "intercultural"?
Why "competence"?
Competence as a capability - "Having ability,
power, authority, skill, knowledge to do what
is needed"
not "multicultural" - Refers to the internal
constitution of one single society - Political
and sociological concept, in Western Europe
also ideological - Focuses on egalitarian
structures, denies existing hierarchies in
business and product data management
Competence as a result - Paradigm shift in
Higher Education - Less teaching, more
instruction - Less exam feedback, more market
feedback - Less theory, more practice - Less
books, more projects - Less explicit knowledge,
more implicit knowledge
not "cross-cultural" - Often applied to US and
UK context - Connotations, therefor less neutral
as a technical term
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Excursion "Competence" in Neural Sciences
1. Transferring information from short- to
long-term memory
2. Eric R. Kandel (Nobel Prize for Medicine)
We learn what the world is about
acquiring knowledge of people,
places and things that are available to
consciousness using a form of
memory that is usually called explicit. Or we
learn how to do things acquiring
motor or perceptual skills that are unavailable
to consciousness using implicit
memory.
Dendrite
Cell body
Nucleus
3. Explicit memory - encodes information -
recalled deliberately - result of creative,
synthesizing, reconstructive process
Axon
Synapse
4. Implicit memory - automatic, reflexive
quality - subconscious, independent of
awareness - accumulates slowly through
repetition, frequent trials - results in
improved performance
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Intercultural Competences Scientific Approach
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
A multidisciplinary approach for engineers
(General Clash of Cultures, Identity,
Compassion, Soft Skills, Troubleshooting,
Communication, Culture as Business, etc.)
Positivism vs. Radical Constructivism
(Logic vs. Biology of
Reality) Analytic West vs. Holistic East
(A or Not-A vs. A
and Not-A) Individual vs. Organisation

(Skill vs. Structure) Hierarchy vs. Equality

(Leadership vs. Teambuilding) Binary Logic vs.
Multivalence
(Simulation vs. Reality) Truth vs.
Perception (Borderlines vs.
Tolerance) Norms, Standards, Sets of Values vs.
Permissiveness (Rules vs. Creativity)
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Application Intercultural fuzziness vs.
technical exactness
1. Radical Constructivism (Biology of
Reality) One view of the development of
intercultural consciousness holds that we start
by thinking our world view is reality, move on to
awareness that there are many perceived realities
and further still to the notion that we are at
all times mutually constructing whatever reality
we are operating in. ? Tendency to look for
analytic, black-white truth in engineering 2.
Hierarchical structures (Leadership) Executive
Coaching, Global Diversity, Global Leadership and
Virtual Teambuilding ? Western strategies of
teambuilding, awareness of In-Out or Mine-Other
relations significantly differ from those
in the Far East
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
A commitment to multidisciplinarity I
Neural facts demand a paradigm shift, students
and other gifted Human/Talent Resource Capital
must be therefor trained and educated in close
co-operation with industry and market, so that
their explicit learning can in time be
cognitively processed into an on
demand-repertoire of skills implicit knowledge
Efficiency through Diversity - Broad-ranging
expertise in diverse sectors - Ethnic and
cultural diversity as a source of inspiration -
Patchwork instead of centralized, linear
one-way-up systems - Accepting all, selecting the
best, tolerating the rest - Openness goes ahead
with a selfcritical attitude towards the own
world view
Dual education - Bsc- and Msc-studies with
integrated aeronautic, space and defence
modules - General knowledge readapted to
corporate demands
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
A commitment to multidisciplinarity II
Key competences - Strategies of tolerance -
Teamwork, teambuildung, troubleshooting etc. -
Soft skills sell - Support in personnel
development
Synergy effects - Higher education and companies
develop a common stratgy for social
responsability - Identifying and exploiting
sysergy effects between higher education and
internal corporate education
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Intercultural Competences A Educational/Scienti
fic Profile
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
A commitment to elitism
High-impact learning - Derek F. Abell (President
European School of Management and Technology,
Berlin) Our work is a clear
commitment to impact impact on the personality,
on the company and on society in
general. This high-impact learning defines well
our idea of up-to- date-management
education.
Selection - Tution fees (refund or financing
programmes) - Entrance exams - Admittence by a
board of representatives of both the
participating companies and the
scientists/education team
No compromises on quality - Campaign of
excellence - Annual review of education tasks -
Flexible, highly adaptive frameworks and networks
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
A commitment to elitism II
Paradigm shift - The teacher turns into a
personal assistant, trainer, tutor, consultant -
Student becomes a personal investment - Student
as a corporate investment - Education staff
responsible for the companys potential HR capital
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Educational concept

• Factor Human Resource Capital
• - Cognitive Sciences and Neurosciences
• - Personnel Development Strategies
• - Native Language/Foreign Language
• - Logic

Factor Society and Policies - Cross-cultural
sociology - Cross-cultural philosophy - European
Studies - Globalization
Factor Corporate Identity - Companys history,
profile, perspectives, etc - Global competitors
and challengers - Corporate Language/Communication

• Factor Technical Knowledge

Impact Factor Intercultural Competences
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006
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Intercultural Competences in High Tech Industries
- Aeronautics, Space and Defence
Educational form
Further Education Program Bsc/Msc Major or Minor
Aspects to be considered - Tution fees -
Entrance exams - Admittence by a board of
representatives of both the participating
companies and the scientists/education team -
Limited admittance - Undergraduate or
postgraduate - Accreditation
Dr. Ulrich H. Langanke, 2006