Cross-Cultural Management Summit Highlights Key Issues, Including Global Leadership, Cultural Conflict

MELBOURNE, FLA. — The first Cross-Cultural Management Summit hosted by Florida Institute of Technology’s Institute for Cross-Cultural Management left attendees enlightened, inspired and eager for their next gathering.

Held March 6-8 at the Crowne Plaza Oceanfront Hotel in Melbourne, the event drew global professionals, military representatives and top scholars who presented real-world management problems and thorough, data-driven scientific solutions.

The keynote speaker, Eduardo Salas, focused on how to translate science to practice to allow data-driven solutions to be implemented effectively. The rest of the conference focused on related areas, such as defining and developing cross-cultural competence, identifying and developing global leaders, and navigating cross-cultural conflict.

For many attendees, the Summit was a day and a half of energizing collaboration and communication with globally-focused individuals across sectors. Speaker Richard Roberts, managing principle scientist at Educational Testing Services, said the summit resulted in a renewed appreciation for the “complexities of this domain.”

The Summit’s closing speaker, Nancy Coldham, Founding Partner of the CG Group, addressed the “…lack of cross-cultural competency in ensuring meaningful strategic engagement” and shared her experiences training Rwandan women in entrepreneurship.

Both Roberts and Summit Chairwoman Jessica Wildman, an assistant professor of industrial organizational psychology in Florida Tech’s School of Psychology, said the Summit inspired them.

“The presentations and discussions that occurred around cross-cultural competence, global leadership, and cultural conflict cut across so many perspectives and approaches that my head was spinning with new and exciting ideas,” Wildman said.

The next Cross-Cultural Management Summit is scheduled for February 2016. Find more information about the Summit and Florida Tech’s Institute for Cross-Cultural Management at www.iccmglobal.com.

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