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Intercultural Training 491

23. Intercultural Training 1

Martina Rost-Roth

Intercultural training is of increasing importance and has already tradition. The
Handbook of Intercultural Communication, edited by Asante, Newmark and
Blake, was published in 1979 and contains many useful contributions on train-
ing methods. A few years later, Landis and Brislin’s (1983) Handbook of Inter-
cultural Training was published, and the papers and overviews in this three-vol-
ume work show how extensive and versatile the training programs on offer at
this point were.
Another sign of the increasing importance of the training area is the setting
up of professional organizations. SIETAR, the ‘Society for Intercultural Edu-
cation, Training and Research’, was founded in the USA in 1974, and unites
the activities of those working in the area of training. ‘SIETAR Europa’ was
founded in 1991 and ‘SIETAR Deutschland’ in 1994. The SIETAR homepages
offer various services, providing information on the organization, journals and
other publications, and training programs on offer. 2

1. Need for training

The literature on internationalization in the business world frequently refers to
the necessity of preparing employees for intercultural contact (Scherm 1995:
249–250), yet companies have long been aware that many expatriate assign-
ments are unsuccessful. Vance and Ensher (2002: 447) point out that 16 to 40%
of managers posted abroad return home prematurely, either because their per-
formance is inadequate, or because they or their families have problems adjust-
3
ing to the new culture. Additionally, intercultural training is becoming more im-
portant not only with regard to postings abroad, but also for business travellers
and multicultural teams. The costs of insufficient preparation can have a negative
effect not only in the case of premature returners, but also in the form of poor ne-
gotiation outcomes. For example, Lanier (1979: 178) makes the point that an es-
timated 50% of employees sent abroad do not work efficiently, due to inadequate
cultural adjustment. Trimpop and Meynhardt make an even stronger claim:
The companies assess the success of their foreign postings at less than 30%. That
means they admit that over 70% of all postings abroad are failures! The number of
assignments which thus worked well or very well is likely to be around the 10%
mark. (Trimpop and Meynhardt 2003: 188, translation by the author)