Innovation across cultural borders
The European Commission, DG XIII, has published an integrated help tool entitled "Innovation across cultural borders", to improve communication in transnational projects, particularly those run under the Community's INNOVATION programme. The tool, comprising a book and diskette, was produced upon discovery that some of the problems which occur in large-scale multi-partner transnational projects are not technical problems but problems related to cultural differences within the partnerships. The book presents six cases with critical "intercultural" events, where communication in a transnational project has broken down in some way. For each case the book offers a set of possible explanations. The diskette provides detailed information and explanations for each case, as well as a questionnaire to test usual and ideal work environments and management styles.