The Potential of Critical Incidents: A Cross-Cultural Comparison

This cross-border contribution seeks to shed light on potential answers and solutions for selected critical incidents (CI) happening to tertiary students during social encounters in various settings. For these purpos-es, two well-defined CIs were chosen that allow for a wide range of possible interpretations. Against the background of the international Erasmus+ project entitled ‘Critical Incidents in Intercultural Communication and Promoting Diversity’ five project partner countries, namely Czechia, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Austria have participated in this exploratory study to identify how the respective societal sample may inter-pret the critical incidents at hand and how they affect their personal and professional growth. At each part-ner institution, a purposive sample consisting of 33 student participants was asked to elaborate on the CIs and provide possible answers and further introspection of their train of thought. In a second step, a themat-ic analysis was conducted to allow for the extraction of subthemes and the creation of a thematic map. The findings were then sketched in line with specific cultural theories to verify if prevalent and hard-wired assumptions are still valid at a generation of young born into a globally interconnected world. This is all the more relevant in view of the dynamic VUCA world where volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous situations dominate our digitalized and globalized knowledge society. To account for these complexities, it was sought to not only look at societal cultures as a source of possible interpretations. In addition, it was attempted to also take account of demographic, cognitive, disciplinary, and functional diversity. As such, it was possible to obtain a profound and differentiated picture of potential societal answers that incorporate a broad potpourri of possible explanations of how to approach specific CIs, including their use for didactical purposes.