On November 24, 2023, the first defence of a Master's thesis took place at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico, with Dr Martina Maletzky de García as reviewer and supervisor. In cooperation with the Bavarian Red Cross, Amir Estrada had previously dealt with the topic of "Immigration of Mexican nursing staff into the German healthcare sector" and successfully defended his thesis in front of the Mexican examination board. The Chair congratulates him on passing his exam!

Justice is propagated as a guiding theme in many areas of today's society. But is it really that easy to achieve it? The question of what justice means (in multicultural settings) and what conditions must be met in order to achieve it was the subject of a cooperation between the Hans Lindner Foundation and the Chair of Intercultural Communication at the University of Passau (Dr Martina Maletzky de García) on October 30, 2023. As part of a seminar on diversity management, Christian Schläger, Head of Youth Development at the Hans Lindner Foundation and trainer for philosophical dialogue, used the method of philosophical dialogue to encourage students to think about what justice means and implies. The philosophical dialogue showed that defining and implementing justice is more difficult than initially assumed. Accordingly, constant scrutiny of diversity management measures in companies is essential if the promises of the concept are to be realised.

The Hans Lindner Foundation has set itself the goal of establishing the appreciative dialogue form of philosophising with children, adolescents and young adults in Eastern Bavaria. Philosophising is a contribution to Education for Sustainable Development (BNE), which should enable people to think and act in a sustainable way.
"Passauer Neue Presse", November 09, 2023

Upon the invitation of Professor Luciara Nardon, Professor Christoph Barmeyer and Dr. Sina Grosskopf gave two lectures at Carleton University in Ottawa on September 25, 2023. The first lecture, entitled "Creativity of immigrant entrepreneurs - cases of multicultural individuals", addressed a broader audience of graduate students, PhD students and professors in a hybrid event, focused on the current research project on immigrant entrepreneurs in Québec and German. As multicultural individuals, they are carriers of cultural diversity, which is characterized by a particular cognitive complexity. The cultural repertoire that emerges, such as multilingualism, diversity of perspective, creativity, problem-solving ability, enables them to develop special ideas and to incorporate them as innovations in their entrepreneurial activities. Migrant entrepreneurs are thus able to develop a special sort of intercultural creativity.

A second presentation was held at Professor Luciara Nardon's doctoral colloquium entitled "Multi-paradigmatic sensitivity in management research." This presentation pleads for multi-paradigm studies in research in order to reach a more multifaceted representation of cultural phenomena. The argument corresponds to the ambition of cross-cultural management to respect and adopt multiple (cultural) perspectives and, analogously, to achieve a ‘paradigmatic ethnorelativism’. The presentation fostered an understanding of intercultural research through openness to different paradigms.

Both presentations, based on the approach of constructive interculturality practiced by the Chair of Intercultural Communication, contributed to stimulating discussions.

The Virtual University of Bavaria (VHB) offers a diverse range of online self-study courses available in various flexible formats, allowing students to tailor their learning experience according to their preferred time and location. As part of the SMART-vhb project titled "Maître chez nous - Development of Society and Politics in Québec since the Révolution Tranquille" a team comprising Prof. Dr. Christoph Barmeyer, Tuzienka Chenet Ugarte, and Felina Sieland diligently crafted five comprehensive learning modules. These modules delve into political, social, demographic, (inter)cultural, and entrepreneurial aspects of the Québec region. The development work spanned from October 2021 to October 2022.

These modules cover a wide array of topics, including language policy, Québec's distinctive cultural position within Canada, and the role of interculturality as a catalyst for creativity, among others. Furthermore, the project features insightful expert interviews conducted with Prof. Dr. Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, Prof. Dr. Kerstin Kuyken (Université du Québec à Montréal), Prof. Dr. Victor Armony (Université du Québec à Montréal), and the accomplished translator, Louis Bouchard. These teaching units are accessible to both educators and students across Bavarian universities and universities of applied sciences who seek to deepen their understanding of Québec.

For easy access, you can find these online teaching units on the VHB-Smart repository at the following link: https://smart.vhb.org

Professor Christoph Barmeyer stayed at IAE Bordeaux from July 2 to July 6, 2023 as part of an Erasmus teaching stay in the Master International Management and also participated in the international ATLAS/AFMI conference "Décarboner le management international". Together with Birgit Gabriel, he presented a research paper on "Comment construire une culture hybride et synergétique dans une organisation binationale ? Le cas d'ARTE", in which Professor Eric Davoine (University of Fribourg) is also involved. A case study of the European television broadcaster was used to illustrate how employees find synergistic solutions to Franco-German challenges in mutual intercultural negotiation processes. The research also shows which factors favor the development of synergistic practices: parity of organizational structures, intercultural and linguistic competence profiles of actors, learning processes, and interpersonal relationships. Fortunately, the article was awarded the prize for the best paper. As always, the international congress contributed to many content-related and methodological suggestions and enabled the exchange with interesting colleagues.

On June 7, 2023, Sina Großkopf successfully defended her dissertation entitled "Unfolding potential and shaping organisational routines - migrants as multicultural individuals and intercultural negotiation in different organisational contexts".

The disputation took place at the University of Passau: The evaluation committee consisted of the first evaluator Professor Christoph Barmeyer ("Universität Passau"), the second evaluator Professor Sonja Sackmann ("Universität der Bundeswehr München") and the chairperson of the committee Professor Ursula Reutner ("Universität Passau"). Based on four qualitative case studies of aerospace and management consulting in Germany, Sina Großkopf shows in her dissertation how migrants as multicultural individuals break organisational routines and creatively bring about change and innovation for the organisation in intercultural negotiation with their team colleagues. The organisational context plays a major role in the multicultural individuals' scope and function for change. Thus, a theoretical contribution is made to the potentials and competencies of multicultural individuals, as well as a practical contribution through implications for human resource and organisational development in relation to cultural diversity in specific organisational contexts.

In May 2023, Rosanna Schropp, a PhD student at the École des Sciences de la Gestion (ESG) of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), spent a one-month research visit at the Chair of Intercultural Communication. Rosanna Schropp is supervised by Kerstin Kuyken, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at ESG UQAM as well as cooperation partner of Professor Christoph Barmeyer.

During her stay, Rosanna Schropp gave a lecture entitled "A critical look at national culture: What can we learn from regions? A comparison Bavaria - Québec" in the course "Constructive Intercultural Management". At the Québec Day at the University of Passau on May 26, she gave a presentation on the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Québec together with her Québec colleague and PhD student Tobi Rodrigue. During the Québec week, she also accompanied the group of students from UQAM and the University of Passau in the course "Intercultural Entrepreneurship" in numerous activities and events in Passau and Munich. Due to her life experiences in both cultures, she was able to act as an important bridge builder between the Bavarian and Québec students.

In addition, she had the opportunity to present her doctoral thesis on "Intergenerational knowledge transfer in journalism in Bavaria and Québec" at the chair's doctoral colloquium, as well as to establish important contacts with researchers, entrepreneurs, and actors from public institutions in the Bavaria-Québec partnership for future projects throughout her stay.

The research stay was financially supported by the Québec Ministry of International Relations and Francophonie (Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie).

On May 08, 2023, Herbert Altmann, regional manager of the Deggendorf district, presented the activities and challenges of recruiting and integrating skilled workers from Bulgaria. The practical insights into everyday work and the anecdotes about intercultural misunderstandings were a welcome change from the theory and basics of intercultural communication that are normally the subject of the lecture.

Professor Jaime Bonache from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid stayed at the University of Passau from January 23 to February 03, 2023 with the Visiting Scholars Program at the  Chair of Intercultural Communication.  Professor Christoph Barmeyer and research assistant Sina Großkopf used the days for intensive collaboration and inspired discussions on the research project on scientific paradigms. This included working meetings on a jointly edited call for papers "Paradigms, discourses and counter-narratives in CCM as an opportunity for broadening horizons: A call for multifaceted insights" in the International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, as well as contributing to paradigmatic perspective diversity in the internal PhD colloquium and discussing an article publication with prior conference submission for 2024. Ideas were captured in a video for students and researchers. Professor Bonache also delivered a session as part of the undergraduate lecture  Introduction to Intercultural Communication and Management with the topic "Compensating Global Mobility and Culture." We thank Professor Bonache for the fruitful teamwork and look forward to the ongoing project!

On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Élysée Treaty, Professor Christoph Barmeyer, together with Professor Daniel Göler and Veronique Coiffet, participated in a panel discussion organized and moderated by Professor Marina Hertrampf on January 23, 2023. The Élysée Treaty, the "Treaty of the Federal Republic of Germany and the French Republic on Franco-German Cooperation," signed by President Charles de Gaulle and Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1962 and entered into force in 1963, was a milestone in international understanding after centuries of Franco-German wars. It established numerous consultations in foreign, security, youth and cultural policy and led to many important achievements that furthered European integration, such as student exchanges, town twinning, the Franco-German Youth Office, the Franco-German Institute in Ludwigsburg and also later the Franco-German Brigade with the Eurocorps or the Franco-German University. In the well-attended panel discussion, which took place in the evening in the library lounge of the University of Passau, it also became clear that the German-French relations need new impulses and projects not only on the political side, but also on the civil society and economic side, in order to continue the German-French and European success story.