Edwin Hoffman en Arjan Verdooren - Diversity competence

Diversity competence

as well as our own experiences from many years of intercultural training and consultancy. Many examples mentioned here come from our training sessions, workshops, lectures and consultancy projects. We can only hope that this book will contribute to the ongoing dialogue on intercultural communication as an academic and practical discipline. This book is structured in such a way that each chapter offers an increasing level of complexity and detail to our approach. We hope that each chapter will offer some satisfying thoughts and guidelines which are further enhanced and elab orated in subsequent chapters. Most chapters can also be read independently and more or less in random order, especially for those already familiar with the field of intercultural communication and competence. Every chapter, except for the last one, closes with two study assignments for further reflection. The last chapter is devoted to a case discussion based on the TOPOI model. Many more study assignments and case discussions can be found online at www.coutinho. nl/diversitycompetence. Finally, we should add that in writing this book we have not been completely objective – who or what truly is? – as we have been guided by the normative underpinnings of our own thinking and writing. In a time of distrust and hostil ity between people of different backgrounds, when fear of the other and fear of strangers is often encouraged and cultivated, and some once again look to walls between people as a solution to global and social challenges, we cannot help but believe that greater understanding and better communication between people of different national, ethnic or religious backgrounds could indeed contribute to the well-being of the world’s many different inhabitants. 3 For whom is this book intended? This book is intended for everyone who wants to learn more about the theo ry and practice of intercultural communication and competence. Firstly, it is aimed at students of universities and universities of applied sciences following programmes in the fields of business and management, project management, governance, organizational science, migration, human resources, media, com munication, journalism, international/global development, education, ped agogy, teaching and psychology. Secondly, the book is aimed at trainers and consultants in the field of (cultural) diversity, intercultural communication and competence, and international business and cooperation. Thirdly, we hope this book can be of interest to anyone working in an international or multicultural environment, be it in the corporate world, the public sector, at an NGO or as a volunteer. And last but not least, it is aimed at anyone interested in reading

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