On March 28, 2021, MBA New Vision Lecture 61 “Cross-Cultural Competences for Global Business” was held in Room 107 of the MBA Center. Prof. SHEN Wei from Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, gave MBA students a wonderful lecture, a real feast of knowledge, which was presided by ZHAO Sisi, teacher of the School of Business and attended by XU Yiqing, associate dean of the same School.

ZHAO Sisi presided the lecture

Prof. SHEN is Associate Vice Chancellor of Deakin University. With many years of overseas study and working experience, he is full of insights into the importance of cross-cultural competences in international trade. Prof. SHEN began with a picture, observing the students’ understanding of foreign cultures, thus elaborating on the origin and essence of culture. After introducing his own experience of studying abroad, he pointed out that people would inevitably go through the culture shock during their first time in a foreign country, and how to adjust and adapt themselves to new environment is a very important competence.

Prof. SHEN Wei sharing his story

Next, Prof. SHEN took building an airplane as an example to illustrate vividly that while global competition brings advantages, challenges will also increase, including political, economic, legal and cultural problems. For better understanding of students over the problems brought by cultural differences in business, he took “Craig’s Dialogue” and HSBC’s localized advertisements to show the importance of understanding foreign cultures. During the Q&A session, Prof. SHEN demonstrated two advertisements for a men’s perfume produced in Europe and asked participants to discuss which one was for European customers and which one was for Saudi Arabia. Students expressed their opinions and held heated discussions so that they can better understand the application of cultural differences in business.

After that, Prof. SHEN talked about the multiple dimensions of culture, described vividly the core of culture with images of an onion, a cake, an iceberg and an island, and introduced Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions in detail.

Q&A Session

Finally, Prof. SHEN emphasized that culture is not right or wrong, but just a way of understanding the world. We should, therefore, try to improve our own cross-cultural competences in transnational business activities. How time flies! The two-hour lecture came to an end and both students and teachers expressed that they had learnt a lot and that they were eager for the next wonderful lecture.

Group photo