Recent mention of a book called Intercultural Services in the HR Briefing newswire prompted a few e-mails asking what Intercultural Services are.
The author of the book, Gary Wederspahn, has been kind enough to explain, at HR Zone’s request, in a brief synopsis given below.
Whilst HR Zone and TrainingZONE reviews are normally conducted by independent reviewers, the independence of this review is clearly not claimed.
Title: Intercultural Services: A worldwide buyers guide and sourcebook
Author: Gary Wederspahn
Publisher: Butterworth Heinemann
ISBN: 0877193444
Price: £26.99
Buy this book
from the HRZone – Blackwells book shop.
Intercultural Services
In today’s global business environment, many employees must make business trips to foreign countries, take expatriate assignments with their families, and participate in multinational teamwork and cross-border joint ventures. Even those who remain at home must often host visitors from other countries and establish and maintain good relations over long distance with foreign clients and suppliers. Furthermore, domestic employees increasingly confront significant cultural differences in the ethnically diverse workplace.
All of these people face cross-cultural challenges for which they need to be prepared and trained. Providing them with the awareness, knowledge, positive attitudes and skills they require is an important responsibility of HR managers. That means doing the right thing for the people involved and doing the smart thing for the success of their organisations and companies. Frequently that requires them to locate, select, and oversee intercultural services and products for their employees.
The range of options available today is a diverse, and often bewildering, array of face-to-face and online training programs, workbooks, videos, CDs, audio tapes, assessment tools, and counseling services delivered in many different modes and formats. There are hundreds of providers of varied quality and competence eager to sell them.
Intercultural Services: A Worldwide Buyer’s Guide and Sourcebook, by Gary M. Wederspahn, is an introductory guide and reference for purchasers and users of intercultural services and products. It explains the concepts underlying the designs of the various alternatives and includes hundreds of references to books and articles to enable the reader to explore virtually every aspect of the intercultural field in depth. It contains comprehensive lists and ordering information for country briefing books, videos, CDs, audio tapes, assessment questionnaires, and learning games. It also provides contact information for over 300 intercultural and diversity service providers on four continents. And, it offers clear guidelines for locating, selecting, managing, and evaluating them.
This book will equip HR managers to deal more knowledgeably and confidently with potential and current providers. As well-informed consumers, they will be able to get the most from their training budgets and make more valuable contributions to the cross-competence of their organisation’s and company’s employees.
Buy this book
from the HRZone – Blackwells book shop.
