International symposium "multiculturality"

From July 21 to 23, 2025, Professor Christoph Barmeyer and Elisabeth Huber, together with Professor Luciara Nardon and Sasha Valgardsson from Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, organized an extraordinary symposium at the University of Passau. The conference, titled “Opportunities and challenges of multiculturalism at the individual level. Implications for future research, education, and practice” focused on the topic of multicultural individuals. The event brought together leading researchers, doctoral candidates, and master’s students with backgrounds in over 10 countries to examine, discuss, and further develop this highly topical issue.

Across cultural boundaries, the opportunities and challenges that multicultural individuals bring with them were examined together in a lively interdisciplinary exchange and from different perspectives. Contributions addressed topics such as polyculturalism, cultural identity formation, multilingualism, global migration, and the role of multicultural individuals as bridge builders and drivers of innovation in an increasingly interconnected world. The diverse program ranged from exciting short lectures and interactive working groups to informal encounters at the “Intercultural Café,” walks, and joint dinners in a historic setting—Passau provided the ideal setting for this.

A retrospective video of the event is available.

Many thanks to all participants for their inspiring contributions, intensive discussions, and newly established connections. The discussions and ideas will have an impact far beyond this symposium!

We would also like to thank the Passau International Centre for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (PICAIS), the Neuburger Gesprächskreis, and the International Centre for Economics and Business Studies (ICEBS) at the University of Passau for their generous financial support of the event.

With increasing global mobility and migration, the influence of culture on individuals is becoming more diverse and some individuals become multicultural due to accumulated intercultural experiences. Multiculturalism at the individual level is therefore defined as “the extent to which someone has knowledge of, identification with and internalization of more than one societal culture” (Vora et al. 2019, p. 506). Both enculturation and acculturation processes can play an important role here. Answering questions about the identity of these multicultural people and the diverse experiences of multiculturalism requires different ways of thinking about culture, intercultural research and education. Only recently has research begun to examine the constructive aspects of multiculturalism and to identify potentials and resources.

The symposium therefore aims to shed light on the challenges, but even more so - in line with constructive interculturality, which sees cultural differences as an enrichment - on the opportunities of this topic and to show new paths for various academic disciplines as well as for practice. The varied and interactive scientific program offers the opportunity for scientists from different (professional) backgrounds to contribute their expertise and become part of a network.

• Bringing together researchers from different disciplines, countries and career stages in an interdisciplinary and intercultural dialog,
• presenting and reflecting on current research projects, results and personal experiences related to individual multiculturalism,
• working out new paths for research and practice and establishing them as a research agenda with concrete projects.

Mary Yoko Brannen
Professor Emerita from San José State University, California

July 24, 2025, 9:00 - 13:00, ITZ 017

A deep understanding of how culture influences organizational phenomena is of great relevance for science and practice today. However, the limitations and superficiality of existing measures of national cultural differences do not do justice to the complexity of culture with all its interacting spheres. Traditional positivist approaches to understanding culture are therefore not sufficient in order to adequately capture the complexity of cultural phenomena in international organizations.

Ethnography, on the other hand, with its two essential elements - fieldwork, including its central methodological building block of participant observation, and its focus on culture - seems to be a more effective approach to gaining insights into such cultural phenomena embedded at the micro level.

In this workshop, Professor Brannen will draw on her newly published book “Ethnography in International Business: Learning from the Field” (Cambridge University Press, 2025) to guide participants from the initial steps of matching research questions with an appropriate ethnographic research design through to theory development and provide guidance for writing up.