Virtual Teams as part of

Internationalization of Higher Education

Tarja Chydenius & Tanja Jadin

Laurea UAS

FHOÖ UAS

1

Background

Objective for most Universities of Applied

Sciences: Internationalization of education

Opportunity for internationalization-at-

home

Offering knowledge base for intercultural

virtual teams

2

Theoretical framework

Internationalization of

education

Virtual teams

Intercultural teams

3

Adapted from Lauridsen & Cozart, 2015

4Dimension

(actor)

Focus on

activity

(process)

Quality principles

(conditions)

INSTITUTION Educationalcontext and institutionalenviroment

- Providing inclusive learning space- Support for learning-conductive environment- Integrating students and staff

TEACHER Educationalprocessess

- Awarness of teaching & learning processes- Negotiating learning processes- Managing & leveraging diversity

STUDENT Educationaloutcomes

- Extending knowledge base, building one’s owncultural identity

- Cultural awareness, ability to work withlinguistic diversity

- Applying contextual and interculturalknowledge

Principles for quality teaching and learning in multicultural

learning space

Virtual teams

A life-cycle

model for

virtual teams

(Hertel, Geister

& Konradt 2005)

Preparations

Launch

Performancemanagement

Teamdevelopment

Disbanding

5

Virtual team Competencies

Performance

Professional

expertise

Cognitive

abilities

Taskwork-

related

competencies

Team work-

related

competencies

Telecooperation-

related skills

communication cooperativeness

Persistence

Intercultural skills

Interpersonal

trust…

Leading and

deciding

Analyzing and

interpreting

Hertel, Konradt & Voss (2006),

Krumm et al. (2016)

Lin, Standing & Liu, (2008)

6

Intercultural teams

Team work requiring innovativeness(E.g. Adler & Gunderson 2008)

7

Competences needed for intercultural

effectiveness

1)Analytic competence

2)Emotional competence

3)Creative competence

4)Behavioral competence

- Communication

- Functional adroitness

Koehn & Rosenau 2010

8

Students

Joint online course for Master students at

- Laurea UAS, Finland: 9 students

- FHOÖ UAS, Austria: 17 students

June 2016

One independent assignment including

Connecting & teaming

Submitting plan

Working online: cross-cultural models

Presenting outcome

Summarizing & evaluating

9

Research design

Qualitative questionnaire

Objective to understand the meanings students

ascribe to their experiences

Questions about:

Successes and challenges of the team work

Main learnings of the IC virtual team work

Experienced differences vs. their usual (virtual) team

work

10

Findings Team formation

Austrians more active

Working process

Surprised about how easy it was to co-operate with total

strangers

Technical platforms

Channels chosen by students

Communication

Lacking non-verbal comms posed come challenges

Satisfaction

Overall very good

Perceived challenges

Slightly different tasks / guidance

Time pressure

Intercultural experiences

No major cultural differences

11

Discussion

Is virtual approach alleviating cultural differences or just

making students non-perceptive of them?

Findings only indicative

- all female groups

- groups different, Finns working full-time

Teacher cooperation crucial for similar student

guidance

Students state: Practice is necessary to understand the

challenges in virtual intercultural communication

UAS partnerships pivotal for enabling systematic

development of online internationalization

12

Adapted from Lauridsen & Cozart, 2015

13

Dimension

(actor)

Focus on

activity

(process)

Quality principles

(conditions)+ Online Internationalization-

at-home

INSTITUTION Educationalcontext and institutionalenviroment

- Providing inclusive learning space- Support for learning-conductive

environment- Integrating students and staff

• E-learning policy• Partnerships: long-term

relationships• Resources: time, technology, IC

awareness training

TEACHER Educationalprocessess

- Awarness of teaching & learningprocesses

- Negotiating learning processes- Managing & leveraging diversity

• Intercultural & cross-culturalknowledge / competence

• Relationship orientation• Flexibility in time and with

technology• Assignment alignment, clear

communcation

STUDENT Educationaloutcomes

- Extending knowledge base, building one’s own culturalidentity

- Cultural awareness, ability to work with linguistic diversity

- Applying contextual and intercultural knowledge

• Recognizing value of ”soft skills”• Willingness to learn, tolerance for

ambiguity + technologicalchallenges

• Opportunity for repeatedexperiences