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International Collaborations

Cultural PassagesFaculty Resources for Working in International Cultures

Language skills and cultural competence are crucial for establishing and maintaining successful international collaborations.  We define cultural competence as the skills, knowledge, and connections that enable faculty to actively engage in international academic environments and collaborations.  Faculty, both domestic and international, routinely note the importance of language and cultural knowledge when working abroad.

While there is little research on how a lack of cultural competence influences international academic research contexts, Northeastern faculty, domestic and international alike, report feeling anxious, nervous, and uneasy about international travel, along with engaging with colleagues from other cultures, both at Northeastern and abroad.  For women in particular, engaging in research overseas raises several concerns about how to handle traveling abroad in countries with cultures that have different and/or more traditional gendered norms and expectations
  (Zippel, Lubitow, Smykla, Chaudhry, & Uhly, 2010).

Cultural competence for both women and men is also crucial in ethnically and culturally diverse institutions, such as Northeastern, where many faculty come from international settings and have different cultural experiences or expectations in their professional environments.  These differences between faculty members might pose constraints on women by limiting their social networks and promoting harmful gender stereotypes
  (Caliguiri & Cascio, 1998).

Based on existing literature and the ADVANCE supported research project on international collaborations, this website hopes to address specific faculty needs when working internationally.