What is Variation Theory

In many business schools, the cross-culture management course has become a central response to the increasingly globalized and internationalized world in which graduates will work. The core content, pedagogic assumptions, and anticipated learner outcomes of this course have changed over the last two decades, moving from the passive transmission of national culture knowledge to more active and responsive knowledge-creation that might better serve students in approaching cross-culture management challenges. In restructuring his cross-culture management course, the present author reflected on these shifts and on the national culture richness of the envisaged students. This chapter explores ways of utilizing the informal cultural learning and tacit national culture knowledge of course participants to create a learning experience that might be more useful for students who will engage in the international organizational and corporate world of the twenty-first century.