Nathalie (Dutch, PhD Cross Cultural Psychology in the UK) sends an email to Ronald (German, PhD Cross Cultural Psychology in New Zealand) and Charles (Lebanese, PhD Cross Cultural Psychology in Beirut) about a cross cultural issue. All three are academics at local universities. Nathalie, London 09/10/2010 A cross cultural...

Tolerance is a much used, socially desirable value across the Western world. It sounds attractive because it reflects values such as the ability to live side-by-side those who are different and to restrain oneself. Yet, tolerance as a value can be interpreted in different ways, and possibly therefore it...

With Stephan, colleague and friend from Middlesex University, I had a conversation about blogs – how to advertise them (via Twitter, apparently) and how to manage them. I sometimes wonder if I am writing to a non-existent audience in an ocean of fellow bloggers but no readers. Stephan’s blog...

It’s the World Cup final and I am very excited because Holland (or Netherlands as they’re now referred to in this tournament) are playing! From my living room in London, I followed all the games and when they won from Brazil the buzz really started. I wasn’t the only...

The results are out – the Dutch elections took place last week and the VVD (right wing, liberal) won by a small margin. Second is PvdA (socialists), third… PVV (nationalistic, anti Islam). I voted none of the above and am now wondering how the parties are going to put...

The title of this blog isn’t even a metaphor. For a consultancy project I travelled to Tallinn in Estonia, where we boarded a bus to travel a further 4 hours to an island off the coast called Saaremaa. The 2-day session of the Virtex project (http://www.aeht.eu/en/european-projects/virtex) brought together educators...

I met Kerstin, consultant for GPiPartner (www.gpipartner.com) at South Kensington station and we walked to the V&A museum to have lunch in the beautiful piazza and talk about cultural differences, identity and globalisation. It is always good to talk to someone who shares the same interests. Time flies, your...

Managers are usually well educated (university of life included). For this reason, they have strong ideas about what works and how they should manage effectively. What often clouds our judgement is having the time and space. Despite our years of experience, we sometimes have the inability to take a...

Saying sorry is closely related to identity (image) management. It also so happens to have been a theme in my personal and working life this week, hence the blog entry. In the course of my work related to cross-cultural differences and conflict management, I’ve been particularly interested in perception....

I just had a chat with a Dutch teacher to discuss the materials that I will present to a team of European teachers at a workshop for the Virtex4all project in Estonia in June 2010. The aim is to give them some ideas that they can pass on to...