Alexander Thomas, development of Intercultural Competence- Contributions of Psychology (1996)
'Intercultural Competence is the necessary precondition for an adequate, successful, and mutually satisfactory communication, encounter, and co-operation between people from different cultures.'
Wiseman (2003)
'Intercultural Competence involves the knowledge, motivation, and skills to interact effectively and appropriately with members of different cultures.'
Penn State
'Intercultural Competence means that a student understands a variety of significant cultural experiences and/or achievements of individuals who are identified by ethnicity, race, religion, gender, physical/mental disability, or sexual orientation; the cultural history of various social groups within a society; the interrelations between dominant and non-dominant cultures, either in the United States or elsewhere, and the dynamics of difference.'
Guo-Ming and William J. Starosta (1996)
'Intercultural Competence is the ability to negotiate cultural meanings and to execute appropriately effective communication behaviours that recognise the interactants' multiple identities in a specific environment. There are three perspectives:
- Affective or Intercultural sensitivity - to acknowledge and respect cultural differences
- Cognitive or intercultural awareness - self-awareness of one's own personal cultural identity and understanding how cultures vary
- Behavioural or intercultural adroitness - message skills, knowledge of appropriate self-disclosure, behavioural flexibility, interaction management, and social skills'
Anna Schmid, UBS AG, Financial Services Group, Zürich
'Intercultural Competence is the fundamental acceptance of people who are different to oneself outside one's own culture/the ability to interact with them in a genuinely constructive manner which is free of negative attitude (e.g. prejudice, defensiveness, apathy, aggression, etc.)/the ability to create a synthesis, something which is neither 'mine' nor 'yours', but which is genuinely new and would not have been possible had we not combined our different backgrounds and approaches.'
Earley (2006)
'Intercultural Competence is the abandonment of the values-based typology of culture. Cultural differences though is a construct called 'cultural intelligence' which 'focuses on understanding an individual's capacity to adapt to varying cultural settings based on facets of cognitive and meta-cognitive processing, motivational mechanisms, and behavioural adaptation'.'
