Coming soon to App Store – The effective Institute of Intercultural Competence app

effective are to launch a brand new “intercultural iPhone App“, a unique game whereby players can test themselves on the characteristics of different cultures.

The idea for this new app was born from the work of director Mr. Klaus Kunz and his assistant Ms. Valentina Lamera  at the Institute for Intercultural Competence and developed in conjunction with Prof. Dr. Eckart Koch and students at the University of Applied Science, Munich.

Team working on the effective iPhone App

(from l to r: Petya Mitova, Peter Vogel, Klaus Kunz/effective, Maria Schweiger/effective, Marina Duarte, Jill Ray)

A partnership was initially formed to exchange information and produce a student assignment project. From this alliance, the concept of an iPhone App emerged: a game to give travellers, business people and other interested parties the chance to test their knowledge on the cultural features of different societies. The German, the Turkish and the Chinese cultural areas were deliberately chosen as reference countries as they differ enormously from one another.

For each country referenced, players will be asked several questions, the answers to which are based on the well-known Robert J. House´s GLOBE study [1]. Players will earn points for each correct answer and will be rewarded accordingly at the end of the game.  

Users will be able to constantly change the field of interest and the App will be enhanced with useful information on different cultural measurements. It will also have integral “Add-Ons“, which are license exempt Apps that can be selected for any situation including cards, dictionaries, a WorldFactbook (country database) and CultureActive (a Richard Lewis´ cultural profiling tool.)

The project was approved on February 4 2012 in Munich and the next step is the implementation of the App, which will be carried out by effective. Completion and distribution in the App store will take place in the third quarter of 2012.   

The completed work and the partnership were both positively noted and we hope to work with Prof. Dr. Eckart Koch and the University on future projects.

Presentation of the App on the 4th February 2012

(from l to r: Petya Mitova, Jill Ray, Klaus Kunz/effective, Peter Vogel, Prof. Dr. Eckart Koch)

[1] Culture, leadership, and organizations: the GLOBE study of 62 societies, Robert J. House et al., Sage (2004)