Intercultural engineering beyond stereotypes Integrating diversity competencies into engineering education

Purpose - This article aims to suggest implementing an integrated approach - named intercultural engineering - at university level. Engineering today often takes place across cultures, locations and organizations. As a result, many companies have included cross-cultural training activities into their internal human resource development program. However, current practice neglects the engineering context and might enable sophisticated stereotyping. Design/methodology/approach - This article presents the case of a German bachelor study program in International Industrial Engineering and the theoretical foundations of its design. Findings - Engineering education needs to move beyond simplistic comparative cross-cultural management theory. It needs to acknowledge cultural complexity in engineering through an integrated development of competencies for utilizing the benefits of cultural diversity. Originality/value - The contribution of this article lies in providing a practical example of how to develop integrated competencies for cultural diversity in engineering, as based on latest theory.