Learning Histories as a Narrative Approach in Mindful InterculturalCommunication Research

Thomas KurzSalzburg University of Applied Sciences

Urstein Sud 1, A-5412 Puch - Salzburg, Austriathomas.kurz@fh-salzburg.ac.at

Abstract

There was never a time when people could travel, moveor do business across the whole world as easily as today. Weoften seem to know about national mindsets on a general,cognitive level, but not on an emotional or empathetic level.The transition of cognitive learnings to everyday life there-fore can be difficult. This paper utilises storytelling for in-tercultural learning, through modifying the so called learn-ing histories approach, developed at the Massachusetts In-stitute of Technology (MIT). It shows that the latest findingsfrom interpersonal neurobiology support the usefulness ofstorytelling for intercultural learning. The first applicationof the so called intercultural learning histories is presented.It deals with the interpersonal communication between Aus-trian and Chinese stakeholders in business contexts. Firstresults from the narrative interviews were analysed and al-ternative application areas are suggested. In order to sup-port emotional learning this paper is illustrated with comicsrather than process diagrams.

1. Introduction

Empirical studies and consequent analysis by Hofstede,Trompenaars or the Globe Study provided us a valuable lan-guage to describe cultural differences and commonalitiesacross cultures. Nevertheless, these results often meet ourlearning abilities only on a cognitive and not on an emo-tional or empathic level.

The paper at hand presents a special narrative approach,developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologies,named learning histories (Kleiner & Roth, 1996; Reason &Bradbury-Huan, 2007) and suggests its application for in-tercultural learning and development within and outside oforganisations. The argumentation is based on latest insightsin interpersonal neurobiology (Siegel, 2012a), but also psy-chology (Bruner, 2006) and storytelling (Gertsen & Sø der-

berg, 2011). It follows the suggestion of more original re-search and creative thinking in intercultural communication(Yu, 2010). The suggested use of stories in action researchsupports social emotional learning, enhances mindful, in-tercultural learning in a business context and suggests moreempirical data.

This paper represents the first step in a larger researchattempt. Overall goal is to find new ways to facilitate in-tercultural competences by more awareness of the ’self’,awareness of the ’other’ and the ability to build bridges be-tween the two. The attempts focus, but are not limited to, in-terpersonal communication between stakeholders from twodifferent cultures and corporate development. The paperat hand presents the first step in the research and arguesi) why learning histories are a suitable approach for rais-ing awareness and consequently trigger collaborative inter-cultural learning and presents ii) how the original learninghistories approach could be adapted to meet more genericneeds.

Although, the paper will argue that learning historiesseem to be a suitable approach in mindful intercultural com-munication research in general, first empirical data is col-lected specifically for two cultures. As an arena for col-laborative intercultural learning, interpersonal communica-tion within collaborations between Austria and China werechosen. Consequently, the first empirical data will analyseinterpersonal interaction between Austrian and Chinese in-dividuals.

Following the intention to support social emotionallearning, examples and citations from the interviews as wellas metaphors will be used throughout the paper to illustratethe key ideas. Additionally, comics instead of diagramswere chosen to illustrate the basic concepts.

Section 2 presents the basics of the learning histories ap-proach. The chapter already puts the process in an intercul-tural context, so that the following chapters can refer to thespecial context. Section 3 elaborates on the foundations ofstorytelling in psychology and interpersonal neurobiologyas well as the specifics of intercultural storytelling. As a

consequence, Section 4 continues in setting the context ofintercultural learning. Section 5 presents the adapted ap-proaches of learning histories for intercultural corporate de-velopment, argues why it is promising and gives first insightin the on-going empirical work. The paper ends with con-clusions and a short outlook for different application fields.

2 Learning Histories

The empirical part of the research at hand includes qual-itative interviews. At the beginning of the interviews, thebasic concept of intercultural learning histories is describedto the interviewees. One of the Chinese interviewees sum-marized after this introduction intercultural learning histo-ries as opening a window to the other culture in order to seedeeper inside the people’s minds and hearts. This deeperunderstanding is exactly what the ideas presented in this pa-per are heading for.

Learning histories represent an action research approach,developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology(MIT) end of the 20th century (Kleiner & Roth, 1996).One of their main goals was to learn from experience inorganisations. Learning histories are based on LearningTheories (Argyris & Schon, 1996; Freire, 1992; Kolb,1983; Senge, 1994) and the process design relies on the hy-pothesis that conversations and dialog enable a better, col-laborative thinking (Bohm & Nichol, 2003; Isaacs, 2008;Baker, Jensen, & Kolb, 1998; Ohio & Ford, 1999; Roth,2000; Nielsen, 1996; Schein, 1987; Carlile, 2002; Non-aka & Takeuchi, 1995). In 2007, learning histories wereadded to the Sage Handbook of Action Research (Reason &Bradbury-Huan, 2007). The approach is based on narrativeinterviews and stories, respectively experiences of people.Both, the storytelling and the learning from those storiesare part of the research design.

2.1 Corporate Development and ActionResearch

This section introduces the connection between narra-tives and corporate development and questions the selectedresearch paradigm.

One of the most cited authors with more than 120 journalarticles, seventeen books and numerous conference contri-butions in the area of narrative methods, organisation andcommunication research is David Boje. He invented theterm antenarrative, which is ”defined as a bet on the futurepattern, in (more or less) authentic scenario of event-space”(Boje, 2011, p.1). For job interviews, Green (2007) sug-gests to concentrate on concrete experience from the pastin order to predict the future performance. Similarily, Bojesuggests to use experience and stories on events in the past

in order to learn, analyse and develop the organisation ofthe future (Boje, 2008, 2011).

Going along with the original action research idea by(Lewin, Lippitt, & White, 1939) to do research in the fieldrather than in the laboratory, (Kleiner & Roth, 1996) de-veloped a research approach for corporate learning and de-velopment, that rests upon the various perspectives of thepeople in the past in order to improve the future:

To really make sense of a learning effort, peo-ple throughout the organization need to see itthrough the various perspectives of people whohave been involved with it firsthand so that theycan come to terms with it based on actual data(not just on the gossip that reaches them), andmake sense of it in a way that is credible to them.(Kleiner & Roth, 1996, p.1-2)

Even one century after the introduction of action re-search, it is criticised in various disciplines for, e.g. beingnot generalizable (Koshy, Koshy, & Waterman, 2010), diffi-cult to measure or develops poor theory (Parkin, 2009). Thecritique helps in understanding what action research can doand what it can’t. Bruner (2006) differentiates between twomodes of cognitive functioning that are both needed to or-der experience and structure reality and are irreducible toone another: The paradigmatic mode that leads to good the-ory, tight analysis, logical proof, and empirical discoveryand the the narrative mode, leading to good stories, grippingdrama and believable historical accounts (Bruner, 2006).

The idea of using intercultural learning histories as anapproach in mindful intercultural communication researchcan be categorised as action research approach that takesadvantage of the narrative mode of cognitive functioning tosupport intercultural development.

2.2 The Learning Histories Process

Learning histories are an approach to facilitate learningfrom projects, support change processes or investigate cor-porate culture (Kleiner & Roth, 1996). The process wasnot specifically designed to support intercultural learning,but does not exclude an intercultural focus, neither. Theprocess description in Figure 1 shows a simplified applica-tion of the original learning histories approach by Kleiner& Roth in an intercultural context: (1) company’s stories:narrative interviews with stakeholders inside the company,e.g. project members, team leaders, workers, ... , (2) sup-plier’s stories: narrative interviews with suppliers, e.g. didthe suppliers recognise changes caused by the project, (3)customer’s stories: narrative interviews with customers, e.g.did the customers recognise changes caused by the project,(4) analysis: analysis of the interviews, writing the learninghistory document and check with the interviewees for the

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inclusion of quotations, (5) workshops: discussion of thedifferent viewpoints after everyone read the learning his-tory and reflection of lessons learned, (6) lessons learned:application of the lessons learned, e.g. for new projects.

Here a short example to make the idea tangible (see Fig-ure 1 as reference): Company AUToCHN started a newproject to enter the Chinese market. They already workedone year and the first products are already sold in China.They are hiring a team of learning historians to assess theproject so far and learn from the experience. A learning his-torian, together with some key employees from AUToCHNbuild the core learning history team and define the goals ofthe assessment. Then they start with narrative interviews ofthe management, the workers at the company, the suppli-ers as well as first customers (1-3). The diverse experiencesof the stakeholders are collected, clustered and the learninghistory document is produced including quotations from theinterviews (4). The quotations are first cross-checked withthe interviewees before they are included in the document.This learning history document is the basis for workshopswith the interviewees (5), where they reflect the results anddevelop lessons learned. Those lessons learned, act as a ba-sis for corporate development and the following projects.

The two column format of the learning history documentseparates a collection of ’experiential’ quotations of the in-terviewees on the right column from relatively ’objective’by the core learning history team on the left. Consequently,the reader can see exactly how the stakeholders experiencedissues in the project from the various viewpoints (right col-umn) and the learning history team can raise reflective ques-tions and add context information (left column) (examplesof a learning history document can be found at (Kleiner &Roth, 1996)).

More recent research frames the application of similarapproaches in other contexts (Poulton, 2005). Learning his-tories were recognised, supported and applied over the yearsby various experts (Schindler & Eppler, 2003; Serrat, 2009,2011) and represent a central action research approachfor organisational learning and development (Reason &Bradbury-Huan, 2007). Although, learning histories havebeen applied in diverse cultural settings, the question is, ifit is an appropriate methodology for intercultural learning.

3 Storytelling and Mankind

Is storytelling an universal way to learn? Stories seem tobe as old as mankind. Nevertheless, an increasing interestfor their influence to individuals could be recognized sincethe 1960s (Hazel, 2008). As shown by Hazel, cross-culturalstudies, e.g. by Levi-Strauss (1963), showed that storiesand narratives represent basic forms of expression. Barthes(1975) emphasises in his structural analysis the infinity ofnarratives: ”[...] it begins with the very history of mankind

and there nowhere is nor has been a people without narra-tive” (p.79). Despite the seemingly universal appearance ofstories, or even caused by this universal appearance, the ex-act definition of ’story’ is difficult. For the paper at hand theterm ’story’ is defined as:

[...] an oral or written performance involv-ing two or more people interpreting past or antic-ipated experience (Boje, 1991, p.111)

Although story and narrative have slightly differentmeanings, they are used interchangeable in the following.Boje concentrates on the interaction between human actors.Whether the interaction between two or more people ex-cludes the inner dialog with the self, or not, should be takenaside for the moment. Further, Bojes ’sense-making’ seemsa suitable approach for the following elaboration on storiesand their influence on the awareness of the ’self’ and the’other’ within an intercultural organisation. Hazel (2008)goes one step further and concludes stories to be at the heartof the learning process itself.

The following theoretical foundations demonstrate ba-sics of intercultural storytelling, psychological foundationsand findings on the influence of narratives in the new inter-disciplinary field of interpersonal neurobiology.

3.1 Background

Starting again with mankind, Gansel and Vanderbeke(2012) show the importance of stories from an evolutionarypoint of view. They collected articles on the evolution ofthe cognitive, neurones, language and adaptation. Narrativeapproaches became more and more important at the end oflast century (Howard, 1991) and made their way from liter-ature to other disciplines like anthropology, psychology andsociology (Davis, 2002). Recently they were recognisedalso in international business research (Gertsen & Sø der-berg, 2011). The latest forms incorporate new media likein digital storytelling (Yuksel, Robin, & McNeil, n.d.). Oneexample is ethnographic research among African-Americanfamilies who have children with serious illnesses or disabil-ities by Mattingly and Garro (2000). Although the researchfindings are not concerned with business, their contributionwas intended to act as a conceptual paper that addresses nar-rative as a research method. Although coming from socialwork environments, Saleebey (1994) shows a way how totransfer theory into practice by using narratives. He ex-plains, that ”practice is an intersection, where the meaningsof the worker (theories), the client (stories and narratives),and the culture (myths, rituals, and themes) meet” (p. 40).

A quick look at the history of storytelling researchshould show how this work fits in. Already in 1981, story-telling was recognised as a research methodology for inter-cultural understanding. Scollon and Scollon (1981) showed

the difficulties in intercultural understanding, even when thetwo cultures speak the same language. Later, Rosen (1999)discussed the power of narrative in intercultural educationand stated, that we underestimate the power of stories inlearning and teaching. Trahar (2009) recently publishedfield reports on auto ethnography in intercultural researchin higher education and Gertsen and Sø derberg (2011)showed how narrative methods provide useful tools for in-ternational business research.

Taking the example of China again, there has beenat least some work on stories as well. He (2002) usedstories in Chinese contexts for cross-cultural learning.Zhu, McKenna, and Sun (2007) mentioned that very lit-tle has been done about how business executives establish’guanxi’1 by the use of storytelling. Nevertheless, YunxiaZhu and Zhang (2007) think that ”stories are important ve-hicles in communication to indicate how people constructreality, and they can also illustrate concepts with specificscenarios” (p.385).

3.2 Interpersonal Neurobiology

Behaviourism and psychology banned for a long while,both, mind and purpose from their armamentarium of ex-planatory concepts (Bruner, 2006). Whereas psychologywas concerned with experience and behaviour, newer in-sights in neurobiology research brain systems, synapses andmolecules, as the building blocks of our brains. The appar-ent possibility of measuring what is going on in the brainneeds to be watched under a critical scientific lens. Thecomplexity of the human brain and its connection with thebody, the interaction with the social environment and otherinfluencing factors make it impossible to draw final con-clusions from brain scans only. Neurobiology helps us toadd another view on the construction of reality, but it wouldbe disproportionate to analyse mankind based on a coupleof brain scans. Consequently, overly euphoric as well ascondemnatory publications on neurobiology (e.g. Hasler(2012)) should be seen critical and noncommittal.

In the last years, a new discipline emerged, named inter-personal neurobiology (Siegel, 2012a). It started with theattempt to find an interdisciplinary definition of the mindand in consequence researches what is a healthy mind. Thevery interdisciplinary group of researchers agreed, that a”core aspect of the mind is defined as an embodied and re-lational process that regulates the flow of energy and infor-mation” (Siegel, 2012a, p.2). This definition stresses both,the importance of the embodied part, e.g. the brain, but alsoour relational processes in interacting with each other.

1Guanxi is a Chinese term for ones personal network connection. It isconsidered as one of the most important issues for successful business inChina.

The linkage of differentiated elements, named integra-tion seems to be a ”fundamental aspect of interpersonal ex-perience, health, and the developing mind” (Siegel, 2012a,p.336). Siegel describes narrative integration as one wayto make sense of our lives. His interpersonal neurobiologyview of stories stresses, e.g. linguistic translations and in-terpretations of the left hemisphere or autonoetic conscious-ness giving the possibility to perform ’mental time travel’.Stories seem to help to connect the left and right hemisphereof our brains. Although many issues are still under inves-tigation, integrating minds and the interpersonal processesin, e.g. telling autobiographic narratives could help to re-veal integration or incoherence.

In Section 3, the term ’story’ was defined in a rathergeneral sense. In business and marketing, the emotionalpart of storytelling is utilised and added to the performance,mainly to make the message stick in ones mind. For exam-ple, Maxwell and Dickman (2007) define a story as ”a fact,wrapped in an emotion that compels us to take an action”(p.5). If we consider the stories or experiences of learninghistories, we find all three key elements there as well. Thestories base on a real interaction or experience from real life– at least in a subjective, individual consciousness, the inter-viewees are asked for their feelings in a particular situationand the learning history document is used to compel actionand find lessons learned in the subsequent workshops.

Emotions seem to have a big impact on learning as well.From an interpersonal neurobiology point of view, it can beseen as ”a shift that enhances integration” (Siegel, 2012b,p.4-3) and consequently helps in developing our mind. Notall emotions support that development, but all of them havean impact on our cortical processes by combining inputfrom the body with signals from the brainstem and the lim-bic area. In brief: emotions are a non rational, but impor-tant way of knowing (Siegel, 2012a). If we go back to therelation between stories and emotion, stories open a win-dow - again - but this time to the emotional themes of ourimplicit memory; for us as storyteller and for those wholisten. Garland, Gaylord, and Fredrickson (2011) empha-sise especially the power of positive emotions for achievingpsychological growth and to achieve improved well-beingover time. Let us pave the way to the section on intercul-tural learning and sum up the importance of emotion andsocial relationships for communication with the words ofSroufe (1997): ”shared emotion is the fabric of social rela-tionships’. It provides the rhythm or punctuation in humaninteraction and communication” (p.17).

4 Intercultural Learning

Similar to the term ’story’, the term ’culture’ is am-biguously used within and between languages. It occupiedphilosophers and thinkers, e.g. Leibnitz, Voltaire, Herder,

Wilhelm von Humboldt, Kant, Freud, Jung, Adorno, Mar-cuse and Luhmann (Maletzke, 1996). Heringer (2004) high-lights the concept of ’culture’ as a dynamic process. Fuchsdefines culture as a ’metaphor for difference’ (p.158). Aspresented so far, there seem to be - at least some - com-monalities of mankind. For the paper at hand, culture istherefore defined as a metaphor for commonalities and dif-ferences.

Intercultural research and empirical work by Hofstedeor the Globe Study have shown in which way commonali-ties and differences have been found between and across na-tional or ethical boarders. They gave us a language to betterdescribe in which ways we can be similar or different. Foryears, Gudykunst and Kim (2003) is concerned with col-lecting theories in the area of interpersonal communicationin cross-cultural and intercultural environments and there-fore serve as a good starting point for understanding theory.Underpinned by empirical studies, e.g. by House, Hanges,Javidan, Dorfman, and Gupta (2004) and Chhokar, Brod-beck, and House (2007), theories on intercultural communi-cation are constantly discussed (Oetzel, 2005). Monaghan,Goodman, and Robinson (2012) points out, that interper-sonal communication practices are culturally variable andthere is no ’right’ way to communicate. In turn it will bedifficult to extract guidelines for a context dependent andvery broad field like interpersonal, intercultural communi-cation.

Others, like Milton J. Bennett elaborated on how ourintercultural development could be understood as a stepby step process over time. His Developmental Model ofIntercultural Sensitivity (DMIS), describes, that intercul-tural sensitivity or competence is not some innate charac-teristic, but a learned ability (Bennett, 2004). It bases onthe assumption, that people gain experience from intercul-tural situations, but need to reflect those in order to gain amore complex understanding of culture. Mitchell R. Ham-mer provided with the Intercultural Development Inventory(IDI) even a tool to measure and supervise the developmentof intercultural sensitivity over time (Hammer, 2009, 2011).In the latest versions of the IDI, exercises are suggested inthe assessment, that are explained by the certified adminis-trators in order to develop an awareness of the self, the otherand to learn to bridge cultural differences.

What can be concluded so far? There is a language to ex-press intercultural commonalities and differences, we havemodels to describe the intercultural development, modelsand theories to describe national tendencies, we have toolsto measure our intercultural sensitivity and although, thereis plenty of space for original research and empirical proof,there is already more written on ’culture’ as one can read ina lifetime. So, what is the need to add one more approach tointercultural learning? Because the world is diverse, learn-ing styles are diverse and so is our population. There is

another reason, summarised in the first rule of all learning:”The learner learns what the learner wants to learn”(Kim &Senge, 1994, p. 277).

Here a true story from the ’birthday’ of the idea on in-tercultural learning histories: Last year, after working tenyears in international research, I was teaching the first timea course named ’Intercultural Communication’ at the Uni-versity of Applied Sciences in Salzburg, Austria. I used avariety of teaching methods to make the subject attractiveand to serve different learning styles. I have to admit, thatnon-technical subjects were not their favourite topic at all.At the end of the semester I asked for feedback from the stu-dents in a very open and collaborative setting. The answerto the question, what seemed most valuable for them andmade them think, puzzled me. I put a lot of effort into thepreparation and teaching, but it was not what they had thefeeling, they have taken the most out of it. The parts thatcatched their attention and from what they tried to makesense for their intercultural interactions were the stories Itold them. Sometimes, between the exercises, I was tellingthem experiences from the projects I was coordinating andfrom the issues in those settings. We reflected them brieflyand went on with the ’main’ topics. That was the startingpoint for me to take a closer look at storytelling and inter-cultural learning and the birthday of the idea, presented inthe paper at hand.

There are four basic ways how our neuronal networkchanges over time: synaptogenesis, myelinogenesis, neuro-genesis, epigenesis (Siegel, 2012b, p.8-4ff). Some of themare changing us faster than others, but if we believe whatinterpersonal neurobiology tells us, attention is the drivingforce for change and growth (Siegel, 2012b) and it seemsthat stories are one way to catch this attention.

5 Intercultural Learning Histories

The following section argues, how and why learning his-tories seem to be a suitable approach for enhancing mind-ful intercultural communication research and how they canhelp in learning more about the ’self’, the ’other’ as well ashow to bridge the diverse sides of cultural understanding.The argumentation is supported mainly by findings fromstorytelling and interpersonal neurobiology. The originalargumentation by Kleiner and Roth (1996) for learning his-tories as a suitable approach for the learning organisation isnot repeated here, but underpinned by more recent findings.As mentioned in the introduction, the first application areaof this work is the interpersonal communication in collab-orations between Austria and China in a business contextand therefore the examples in this section are taken fromthis first case.

Figure 2. Intercultural learning history on the example of Austria-China: (1) companies’ stories,(2) interfacing stories, (3) consultant’s stories, (4) literature, (5) analysis, (6) workshop, (7) lessonslearned.

5.1 Extending the Approach

Section 2.2 already presented the application of learninghistories in an intercultural corporate setting. Besides somepublications on learning histories in internationaly actingcompanies (Roth, 2000; Kleiner & Roth, 2000), the learn-ing history approach was adapted and applied in the Ger-man speaking area by Narrata2, namely by Karin Thier andChristine Erlach. Again, publications showed the adapta-tion of learning histories (Thier, 2010) and the applicationin international companies (Erlach & Thier, 2012), but theemphasis was, e.g. on the application of learning historiesfor small and medium sized companies and the capturing,editing and distribution of implicit knowledge within com-panies and not on intercultural learning. Though, other au-thors suggest to use storytelling for intercultural learning.Gertsen and Sø derberg (2011) presented a study of storiesin the collaboration of Danish expatriate managers and Chi-nese CEOs in Shanghai. Similar to learning histories, narra-tive interviews were used to extract the different viewpointson a chain of events.

The paper at hand does not only argue to add the tradi-tional learning histories approach to the toolchain for inter-cultural learning and development. It suggests to learn fromstories across companies or groups of people for a better in-tercultural understanding. Figure 2 shows the first steps ofsuch an intercultural learning history on the example of anAustrian-Chinese learning history. Goal is to learn moreabout the interpersonal interaction between Austrian andChinese stakeholders in a business context. For that case,the following process is suggested:

1. Companies’ stories: narrative interviews with stake-holders from different companies in Austria, e.g.CEOs, sales manager, marketing manager, but alsoemployees from lower hierarchical levels

2. Interfacing stories: narrative interviews with peoplefrom local trade offices and diplomats

3. Consultants stories: narrative interviews with consul-tants and intercultural trainers

4. Literature: analysis of literature on the cultures at hand

5. Analysis: analysis of the interviews, writing the learn-ing history document and check with the intervieweesfor the inclusion of quotations

6. Workshop: discussion of the different viewpoints col-lected in Austria and reflection of the results with ex-perts on Chinese culture and stakeholders from Chi-nese companies

2http://narrata.de

7. Lessons learned: extension of the Austrian-Chineselearning history with the outcomes of the workshop re-flection

First, the main stakeholders for the intercultural learninghistories need to be identified. In this case, the classificationof narrative interview partners (Figure 2 (1-3)) was chosenspecifically for this context and needs to be modified forother contexts. Additionally, it is suggested to consult lit-erature on the cultural specifics (Figure 2 (4)). The goalfor this specific example is to write a learning history fromthe Austrian viewpoint (Figure 2 (5)) and reflect it fromthe Chinese perspective (Figure 2 (6)). Though, an addi-tional learning history from the Chinese viewpoint - com-bined with the Austrian or separately - would be interestingbut for the example case at hand it is currently out of scope.Main outcome from this process is a reflected, interculturallearning history document. Additionally, it is suggested toillustrate the main lessons learned in the form of visuals orcomics in order to make it more accessible and sticky to themind (Figure 2 (7)). After the learning history document isproduced, it is recommended to do an reflection workshopwith the interviewees to present the results and facilitate afurther learning process for the interviewees.

Where can the outcomes of these intercultural learninghistories be used? On one hand side, they can be utilised inintercultural trainings, e.g. for new staff members in orderto learn about communication and interaction between Aus-trian and Chinese stakeholders in a business context. On theother hand side, these intercultural learning histories acrosscompanies, could be fed in company specific workshops(see Figure 1, (5)), in order to see not only what happened ina project within the company, but also see how others dealtwith similar issues.

5.2 Why it Makes Sense to Make Sense

”Narrative integration is about making sense of our lives,and the research is clear that it makes sense to make sense”Siegel (2012a, p.383). In learning histories and in inter-cultural learning histories, there are three key parts, wherestories play a major role: in the narrative interviews, thelearning history document itself and in the workshops. Inthe following, research is presented, that supports the usageof stories in each of those steps.

First, the narrative interviews (Figure 1 (1-3) and Fig-ure 2 (1-3)) are a central point for i) information retrieval,but also ii) self reflection and learning. Siegel (2012a) em-phasises the importance of the communication of stories forthe sense making and for communicating implicit knowl-edge. The linguistic transfer of knowledge in form of astory helps to understand not only the facts, but providesa deeper insight in motivations and emotions. ”Autobio-graphical narratives can reveal integration or incoherence”

(Siegel, 2012a, p.377). The one-to-one setting in the inter-view situation makes it easier for the learning historian toconcentrate on one person and he or she can help to sup-port integration and guide the narrative reflection process.If the learning historian achieves to build trust, the privacyof the interview situation and the anonymisation of the sto-ries, give the interviewee the freedom to speak openly aboutfacts, emotions and actions. Open questions send the inter-viewees on a travel back in time, the interviewees are notonly revealing explicit and implicit knowledge, but the re-flection on the self and the other and consequently an in-tercultural development starts already in the interview situ-ation.

The second key is the story itself (Figure 1 (4) and Figure2 (7)). As presented in Section 4, attention is a driving forcefor change. In physics the resonance frequency of an ob-ject allows large amplitude by small periodic driving forces,e.g. oscillations of a bridge, when people march in lock-stepover the bridge in its resonance frequency. This frequencyis different for each object and so is the reaction of peo-ple to different stories. The variety of stories collected ina learning history allows a wider range of resonance by itsreaders. Once a certain story attracts the mind, the atten-tion for the other viewpoints might rise as well. Accordingto Bruner (1957), a lack of perceptional readiness can be areason for not being able to process knowledge. If we lackcategories for new knowledge we cannot process it prop-erly. The variety of stories in the right column of a learninghistory document and the additional remarks and questionsin the left column, help to create new categories, see differ-ent viewpoints and pave the way for change. The suggestedcomics and key lessons learned help as anchor points for re-membering the stories: a picture leads to a story, that leadsfurther to a lesson learned and that leads to alternative ac-tions in the next, similar situation. That is also similar tohow our brain works and indexes knowledge. According tothe indexing theory (Rudy, 2008), a subset of a particularinput pattern can activate the full memory of a situation orexperience.

Third, the workshops offer the opportunity to discuss thelearning history and take action (Figure 1 (5)). The facili-tation of intercultural groups adds, beside interpersonal andintergroup communication a third, intercultural dimensionto the system (Baldwin & Hecht, 2009). Oetzel (1995)introduced the so-called ’effective intercultural workshopcommunication theory’, Zubizarreta (2006) presented the’practical dialogue’ as a collection of open-ended, nonlin-ear, non directive methods and Kurz (2012) combined twomethodologies, namely the Reteaming and Team CentredInteraction to a set of flexible facilitation steps and appliedit successfully to a variety of intercultural settings. Whichfacilitation methodology is chosen, depends on the contextand goal of the workshop. Nevertheless, the centrepiece of

the learning history workshops is the joint reflection of thelearning history, the identification of core issues and the de-velopment of lessons learned and action plans for organisa-tional development. The anonymity of the individual storiesin the learning history holds several advantages:

• Issues are identified before the workshop and the facil-itators can prepare

• The group consists of different stakeholder-groupswho contributed actively in the interviews and there-fore have an increased attention

• Anonymous quotations from the learning history helpto discuss issues openly without the need to criticisepersonally

• Intercultural learning histories across companies helpto identify alternative solutions, include lessonslearned from other companies and avoid short sighteddecisions

As mentioned above, the diversity of stories in the learn-ing history is intended to start a chain reaction, if the res-onance frequency of individuals is met by at least one ofthe stories. Resonance and active participation in the inter-views should lead to higher attention, which leads to facili-tated discussion and change. Especially for the workshopsit is suggested to be aware of the seven supporting factorsfor neuroplasticity by Siegel (2012b). Beside basic factorslike i) aerobic exercise, ii) good sleep and iii) nutrition, heemphasises the importance of iv) relationships, v) noveltyof, e.g. information, vi) the close paying attention and vii)time-in, which is time for self-reflection. Additionally, hementions the importance of humour and laughing.

5.3 First Results

In the introduction, the paper at hand was mentioned asone of the first steps in the research attempt for interculturallearning histories. A pretest with 12 narrative interviewswas already carried out. Focus was to test the presented con-cept of intercultural learning histories for Austrian-Chinesecollaborations in a business context. According to the pro-cess depicted in Figure 2 (1-4), first interviews were carriedout with stakeholders from companies, interfacing officesand consultants as well as literature analysis. The intervie-wees were chosen randomly from a collected list of con-tacts in Austria and China of about 100 stakeholders, beinginvolved in Austrian-Chinese collaborations. According tothe Austrian chamber of commerce3, the total number ofcompanies in Austria, with business interest in China rangescurrently around 500. A qualitative, open ended interview

3http://www.advantageaustria.org

guideline was developed to ask for experiences of the Aus-trian interviewees with Chinese stakeholders and vice versa.The intention was to validate the interview guideline andfind out, if the concept works as intended. In the followingsome first insights in the interviewing process are presented.

The interviews started with questions on the motivationand history of the Austrian-Chinese experiences. Only fewinterviewees seemed to be motivated by interest in the otherculture, but rather by the need of the company. Interestingwas, that no participant visited special intercultural train-ings or preparation seminars before the first contact. Fewhad some general intercultural trainings at university, but nospecial preparation for China or Austria. It is also importantto state, that all participants emphasised the positive aspectsof the collaborations although they admitted that they facedchallenging situations.

In terms of the interview guideline, some anecdotes andexperiences popped up already at the beginning, withoutasking explicitly for them, but it was difficult for the in-terviewees to recall details of certain events. Especiallyexperiences, which happened a long time ago, seemed tobe summarised in memory and conclusions were drawnwithout being able to recall the exact circumstances. Toa large extend the individual stories were generalised andanonymised, when interviewees told them.

Although the focus of the questions was on business sto-ries, most of the stories were private anecdotes on strange,humorous or surprising events. People recalled exact de-tails on emotional experiences, which in turn supports thehypothesis on the importance of emotion for memory. Es-pecially difficult was the extraction of critical or negativememories, connected to intercultural misunderstandings.Whether the interviewees stressed again the overall posi-tive side of the collaboration, or they mentioned that criticalsituations were not related to intercultural, but overall uni-versal issues.

For the further empirical study, the following learningscould have been identified: A preparation of the interviewscould help in giving the interviewees the chance to pre-pare and think longer about their experiences. The draw-back of a preparation could be the loss of spontaneous an-swers, implicit memories and a rather cognitive process-ing of the answers as well as social desirability. Questionsfor stories during the last interaction could be added to getmore details. Further, the questioning should ask deeperon sequences of events, facts and the associated emotions.Asking for concrete examples could help to avoid accumu-lated and generalised answers and could help the intervie-wees to reflect more on mental patterns. This could enhancethe learning and reflection effect in the interview situation.According to the empirical work with the previously men-tioned intercultural development inventory (IDI), the major-ity of people could be classified in the ’minimisation’ stage

of Bennetts development model (Bennett, 2004). That typi-cally results in a ’we are all the same’ attitude. For a betterevaluation of the interview answers, an additional question-ing of interviewees with the IDI would be helpful.

Summarising the first results of the empirical study, theinterviews gave deep insight in the motivations, emotionsand actions of people working in Austrian-Chinese collabo-rations. It seems harder to extract concrete experiences andincidents for intercultural communication in an intercul-tural context as it seems in a project based or company fo-cuses context. Nevertheless, concrete examples and lessonslearned could have been extracted already in this pretest,which will be useful for the further research.

6. Conclusion

Doumont (2009) stresses the inaccessibility of research.The paper at hand combined anecdotes, examples andcomics with a wide range of highly scientific research anddrew conclusions for further action research in interculturalcommunication. It suggested to use learning histories for in-tercultural development in companies and suggested an in-tercultural learning histories approach. As an example case,the communication between Austrian and Chinese stake-holders in a business context was chosen. Although this isonly a first small attempt in the utilisation of storytelling forintercultural learning and development, it was shown thatrecent research in interpersonal neurobiology supports theresearch at hand in many ways.

Three key parts of learning histories were identified andit was shown how recent research supports the argumenta-tion for their importance for intercultural learning. First,the interviewing process as a trigger for individual reflec-tion. Second, the two column story, presenting diverseviewpoints and facilitates an anonymous discussion. Third,the workshop, supported by professional facilitators, whohelp to integrate the findings, draw conclusions and defineactions for learning.

The combination of storytelling and intercultural learn-ing seems promising and the application field is broad. Be-sides the application for project assessments, organisationaldevelopment and interpersonal communication, the com-bination could also be utilised for the ongoing discussionon migration and integration of foreigners in the society.The debate on the motivation of non European citizens, e.g.from Africa or from countries with civil wars could bene-fit from more insight in the motivation of both, the incom-ing and the regional citizens. Storytelling could enforce abetter understanding of each other on an non-violent, butemotional basis - but that is another story.

It is far too early to draw final conclusions from the work,presented in this paper. It was intended to sketch the ideaand suggest a process for further research and empirical

work. From the theoretical conclusions, it makes sense toutilise storytelling for intercultural learning and there are al-ready examples for the success in this field. One may ques-tion the value of action research and the scientific nature ofcomics, but it is believed that this novelty helps in remem-bering the facts, stories and actions and acts as one moreanchor for intercultural learning.

Action researchers constantly stand on theedge. The next moment is unknown. They com-mit to the risk of creating a new future. This is adifferent mental set from traditional assumptionsthat knowledge is given. (McNiff & Whitehead,2011, p.36)

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