The International Office of the College of Management successfully held the “Virtual Teams in an Intercultural Context” seminar with Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University （DHBW） in Germany on 11st March 2021. In this cultural exchange seminar, a total of 15 students from the two universities participated and the content of the seminar was formulated by the German organizer. The students were given some tasks in advance to let them have a little understanding of each other’s cultural background, which will help the event to run smoothly.
On the day of the seminar, the students met virtually and were equally divided into four groups: red, yellow, blue, and green. Students from the two universities need to cooperate and share opinions in order to complete the tasks successfully. The first task was to suggest a product or service which is not popular in other side’s country and try to import it to that country and promote with marketing strategies. The students can quickly get into the situation and consolidate their opinions very seriously. Every group have designed beautiful and concise powerpoint to present their ideas within short period of time. The second task was relatively difficult. Students need to jointly investigate a case online, provide their teammates with clues that they have and use team spirit to solve the case with patience. Even in the real world, it is not easy to solve the clues through discussion, so we can know that it is even more tough to do it virtually. It can be seen that the students of the two countries have try their best to cooperate in the virtual world, so that they can overcome some of the trials together.
After two main tasks, the virtual meeting has come to the final round, which is the reflection session. Every student has shared the gains that they owned in the seminar, how do they overcome the cultural barriers, in what way do they widen their horizons and etc. Every student expressed their satisfaction to the event and offered feedback positively.
Although many international cultural exchange activities were canceled or negatively affected by the pandemic, through this seminar, we can understand that using alternative method can be another way to recognize the other side of the sky from a different perspective.
