Elizabeth Tuleja
Associate Teaching Professor of Management
Mendoza College of Business
Kellogg Institute Faculty Fellow
University of Notre Dame
“Cultural Intelligence and the Globally Mindful MBA Student”
Thursday, November 29, 2012
4:00 pm - Hesburgh Center Room C103
Abstract
Global leadership matters not only for people currently working in the business or professional world but also for those studying in business schools today. While there are many definitions of global leadership, most theorists would agree that it involves a certain level of cross-cultural competence, otherwise known as CQ, or Cultural Intelligence. Exactly how does one impart and then evaluate the global competence of its employees or students? One concept that provides a holistic conceptualization of intercultural communication competence is mindfulness (Langer, 1989; Ting-Toomey, 1999). A useful model explicated by Thomas (2006) provides a critical examination of the interrelation of knowledge, mindfulness, and behavior—and that it is specifically mindfulness that links knowledge with behavior. In order to determine the learning outcomes of a group of MBA students studying global leadership during a cross-cultural immersion experience in China, we applied this model to their pre/post reflective writing assignments. Implications of these research findings can be applied across academic disciplines to help educators enhance student learning about how to interact successfully with people from other cultures.
Bio
Elizabeth (Liddy) Tuleja (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is associate teaching professor of management at the Fanning Center for Business Communication in the Mendoza College of Business. Prior to coming to Notre Dame in 2009, Tuleja taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and at the Wharton School.
Tuleja’s research interests focus on issues of intercultural and managerial communication. A current research project looks at how MBA students develop intercultural competence in the context of a Notre Dame cultural immersion experience in China. A great deal has been written about undergraduate immersion experiences but very little about graduate level programs, she notes.
“In business schools, international immersion most often focuses on key business practices such as understanding international mergers or international finance and accounting practices while the crucial aspect of understanding society and culture is often overlooked,” she says.
In other work, Tuleja is collaborating with Mendoza’s MBA Program and Executive MBA Program to develop courses in intercultural communication as well as other cross-cultural immersion experiences.
Tuleja has published in leading business communication journals, such as Business Communication Quarterly and Journal of Business and Technical Communication. Her most recent article is “Designing and Developing Questionnaires for Translation across Cultures,” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 54, 4 (2011, coauthored).
She is currently completing the 3rd edition of her textbook, Intercultural Communication for Business (Cengage, forthcoming), and has just developed an online certificate course in advanced intercultural management for the Executive Education program in conjunction with University Alliance.
