Exploring the Effectiveness of a Cross-Cultural Virtual Teams Exercise with Croatia- and U.S.-based Undergraduate Students

Keywords: Cross-cultural teams; virtual teams; experiential education; international management education

Abstract: The authors conducted a cross-cultural virtual team experiential exercise with 322 undergraduate students on 93 teams at three university campuses-two in the USA and one in Croatia. The purpose was to facilitate learning and skills enhancement for both cross-cultural collaboration and virtual collaboration as part of Organizational Behavior classes at the respective universities. Pre- and post-tests of cross-cultural efficacy and virtual team efficacy over the 6-week project demonstrated a significant increase in virtual team efficacy for traditional on-campus students, but no significant increase in cross-cultural efficacy. We provide a description of the exercise, lessons learned, and suggestions for future use.