Staff Exchange with Penn State University

Dr Tom Kuypers, lecturer and senior researcher at our research centre Global Minds @ Work visited Penn State University in the US. The Pennsylvania State University is a multi-campus, public research institution that educates students from around the world and supports individuals and communities through integrated programs of teaching, research, and service. The Hotel School has been collaborating with PSU in both research and education. Our research center, Global Minds @ Work, has collaborated on research on Global Competences and Cultural Intelligence, as well as organizing a COIL project with students from Maastricht and Penn State. As part of this collaboration, there have already been several staff exchanges, and now Tom had the opportunity to visit PSU.

Understanding culture in business

My visit was organized by Prof. Dr. Bert Van Hoof of the Hospitality Management department at PSU. He also visited our Hotel Management School last year and will be visiting again at the end of May with his summer course class. During the visit, I had the opportunity to act as a guest lecturer for two courses in the Hospitality Management programme. The course "Culture in Global Business," hosted by Dr. Phil Jolly, resonated closely with me. With the students, I discussed the importance of understanding culture in business, and we explored each other’s knowledge of US and Dutch cultural differences and similarities.

European Culture: The Eurovison Song Contest

In addition to discussing more traditional cultural theories (e.g., Hofstede, Meyer), we also delved into practical cultural aspects. Particularly, I introduced them to a unique European cultural phenomenon: the Eurovision Song Contest. While some students were familiar with it from the 2020 movie "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga," starring Will Ferrel and Rachel McAdams, for most, it was still unknown. However, they did recognize the song "Arcade" by our 2019 winner Duncan Laurence, which has also been featured in TV series. US students also resonated well with our 2014 runner-up, "Calm After the Storm" by the Common Linnets. As we learned from Beyoncé recently with her new album, country music is universal. Needless to say, this year's contestant, Joost Klein, raised some eyebrows when I played "Europapa." However, students did note that it sounded more European than the other two songs, referring to 90s Eurodance as their mental model of European music.

“In addition to discussing more traditional cultural theories, we also delved into practical cultural aspects. Particularly, I introduced them to a unique European cultural phenomenon: the Eurovision Song Contest.”

Fun in the workplace

The other course I joined as a guest lecturer, "Human Resource Management," hosted by Dr. Michael Tews (also a previous visitor to HMSM, together with Sydney Pons), provided me with a new experience as well. Dr. Tews organized his course based on the principles he himself researched, which focus on creating fun in the workplace. In practice, this means incorporating music in the classroom during small group assignments, engaging in role-plays with hand puppets, and fostering a lot of interaction with students. And as a student, you better have your go-to karaoke song ready because being late to this class means you have to sing a few bars. Even though it was all fun and games, the discussions and interactions with the students were very insightful. Who said school cannot be fun?

Future research and networking

In addition to guest lecturing these two courses, I had the opportunity to discuss future research projects with several colleagues at PSU. Topics ranged from fostering sustainable careers to Global Citizenship, as well as continuing research on Cultural Intelligence. This allowed me to expand my network at PSU, adding Dr. Anni Ding, Dr. Chandler Yu, and Yoko Negoro (PhD student) as research partners. So, expect more to come in the future!

Lastly, a big thank you goes out to Dr. Van Hoof for hosting me and being incredibly hospitable during my time at PSU. Another big thank you goes to our lector, Ankie Hoefnagels, for making this happen. The week flew by, with more ideas and projects than there is time.