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Case studies
Case studies have been described by Yin (1994) as: ‘An empirical enquiry 
concerned with contemporary phenomena in a real- life context.’ Essentially, 
a case study involves the indepth study of one or more examples of a par-
ticular phenomenon, such as the management development strategy in a 
company or the training of entrants to the foreign service of a particular 
country.
Case studies tend to be appropriate for ‘how’ and ‘why’ types of questions, 
where the emphasis is on acquiring a fuller understanding of the nature of 
a relationship. They have the advantage of allowing events to be examined 
over time. Students are required to collect data from a number of sources in 
order to develop a more complete understanding of the sequence of events 
and their outcomes. They can use a variety of data collection methods, 
including questionnaires, interviews, observation and archival data. The 
use of such multiple sources of data should increase the validity of their 
findings.
Case studies may be current or retrospective. If the case is actually ‘in 
progress’, that is, ongoing, students may have little control over the time 
needed to conduct the study. If the study is retrospective, the recall memory 
of respondents may be inaccurate or incomplete, so unless considerable 
reliable archival data is readily available, it may be better to stick to ‘the 
recent past’.
An advantage of the case study as a teaching method is that generaliza-
tion from the specifics may be possible, although care must be taken to see 
that there are sufficient points of similarity to ensure an acceptable degree 
of validity. As with role playing, case studies are particularly useful in expe-
riential teaching. Teachers and trainers should operate mainly as facilitators 
and avoid too directional an approach.
Critical incident scenarios
Critical incident scenarios involve the description of typical cultural inci-
dents in which students are required to decide on the correct cultural 
behaviour response. They are relatively simple to design and do not require 
much time for students to consider. The incidents should be based on prac-
tical situations which the students are likely to encounter. Responses can 
be given individually or in group work and can either be oral or written. In 
some cases, students can be required to role play their proposed solutions 
which can be video recorded and discussed at a later stage. If possible, the 

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Teaching Cross- Cultural Communication 281
student answers should be compared with the solutions presented by native 
members of the target culture.
The following areas lend themselves to the development of scenarios 
which can be introduced into cultural training to involve students directly 
in the learning process. These could include:
on arrival: immigration, settling into accommodation, obtaining a driv-
ing licence, taking a taxi, going shopping, going to the bank, interview-
ing domestic servants;
socializing: invitations, greetings, going to a restaurant, hospitality 
etiquette, giving and receiving gifts, interaction with local people;
the workplace: attitude towards time, punctuality, status, seniority, work 
practices, decision making, ethical values, bureaucracy, networking and 
organizing meetings.
A variation is to use ‘mini dramas’, which can consist of three to five 
incidents of misunderstanding that can occur due to poor cultural com-
munication. This approach can be further developed whereby additional 
information is made available with each episode, but the precise fundamen-
tal cause of the misunderstanding does not become fully apparent until the 
last scene of an episode.
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