Exploring The Importance Of Intercultural Sensitivity For Higher Education Students Specializing In Business And Management Studies

Abstract

Business crosses national borders in today’s globalized world. Consequently, business encounters nowadays take place among representatives of diverse cultures. It makes it a must to have some background knowledge about the culture one is dealing with, which also supposes a certain level of intercultural sensitivity. Therefore, the present paper explores and investigates the importance of intercultural sensitivity among those higher education students who are specialized in business and management studies, as they are going to be the businesspeople of the future. The research to be presented in this paper is based on a quantitative analysis by means of a questionnaire survey focusing on the contribution of the multicultural higher education environment to the level of the respondents’ intercultural sensitivity as well as the importance of intercultural sensitivity from the viewpoint of their future business career. The respondents were both Hungarian and international students whose major is business and management studies at Széchenyi István University in Hungary. The paper concludes that the multicultural environment has contributed to the enhancement of the intercultural sensitivity of the respondents – even if it was above average before their higher education studies –, which is of importance considering their future employment in business, and more specifically in international business fields. Namely, the higher their intercultural sensitivity is, the more probable they will have successful and smooth intercultural encounters in the future.