Date of Submission

8-22-2024

Document Type

DiP

Degree

Doctor of Education

Department

Education

Keywords

cultural intelligence, cultural dissonance, cultural onboarding, culturally responsive leadership, expat, monocultural setting

Abstract

For expat teachers embarking on an overseas sojourn, language and cultural differences can be a navigational hazard, resulting in hardships, broken contracts, and distrust. Within the monocultural setting of Vietnam, expats experience a dichotomy of their own cultures, and strong Confucian and communist underpinnings of Vietnamese society. With 35 years of experience in Asia, the author engages as change initiator and change agent, in a non-western model of leadership, culturally responsive leadership, addressing the lack of clarity about cultural nuances, and a lack of information/strategies to nurture cultural intelligence, leading to cultural dissonance between expats and Vietnamese faculty. The resulting low retention of expat teachers and leaders, the existence of cultural biases, the need for global competencies, and the necessity for establishing common cultural expectations define the current situation. To address the problem of practice, an integrated model of change using Deszca, Ingols and Cawsey’s change path model and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges cycle of quality is employed to raise awareness of the problem and ensure ongoing, cyclical revision. The political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal (PESTEL) factors raise awareness of culture embedded in Vietnamese organizations, and solutions are proposed through head, heart, and hands application of cultural intelligence in new expat teachers. Cultural nuances, as depicted by Schein and Schein and Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions, underscore the need for explicit hiring practices to ensure the best fit, and cultural onboarding to enhance teacher alignment to the organization, collegiality and collaboration, and retention at New Thought Education (a pseudonym). Implementation, monitoring, and evaluation are completed with the support of creative groups of vested partners.

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