Exploring and Assessing Intercultural Competence

The Federation of The Experiment in International Living (FEIL) has now completed its first international research effort – a one and a half year project designed to explore and assess the impact of intercultural experiences provided through service projects conducted as part of the Federation’s Volunteers in International Partnerships program. This research project, titled Exploring and Assessing Intercultural Competence, involved two sending and one receiving Member Organizations: Great Britain, Switzerland, and Ecuador. The project was made possible through a funding grant obtained from the Center for Social Development of the Global Service Institute at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri

Leadership for Social Justice: Capacity-Building Resource Manual

This manual supports the development of new leaders committed to social justice. As a resource for facilitators of workshops and other education and training events, it shares session designs, exercises, handouts, short readings, and other materials that were developed through our work on Leadership for Social Justice Institutes organized at the request of the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program

Transforming Society, Transforming Leadership

For several years, SIT Graduate Institute worked with the Ford International Fellows Program (IFP) to provide IFP fellows worldwide with training and reflection on their engagement as leaders for social justice. Out of this effort grew a conceptual framework on “leadership for social justice” and a capacity-building resource manual derived from the Leadership for Social Justice (LSJ) Institutes we carried out. Since that time, a few members of the LSJ project team have been undertaking further research on social justice leadership from varied perspectives. In addition, SIT Study Abroad Academic Director Azim Khan is an IFP and LSJ Institute alumnus, served as an alumni facilitator for the final LSJ Institute in Washington, DC, and is enacting leadership for social justice in his work in India. We would like to present case studies from our research and our experiences with leadership with social justice, along with the LSJ conceptual framework, at the SIT Symposium. The case studies narrate the stories of diverse initiatives focusing on social justice work in Mali, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia and several parts of India. Brief introductions to the case studies are included below. The case studies and experiences provide rich understandings of the strategies and challenges of making transformational social change in varied contexts, and of the nature of leadership for this purpose. The emerging learning from these experiences will provide a critical examination of the relevance and usefulness of the LSJ conceptual framework. In particular, this work will highlight the role of context, gender, education, and advocacy in relation to development and practice of social justice leadership. Social justice leaders are reimagining the meaning of leadership and reinventing it in practice on a daily basis. Lessons from their experiences go to the heart of our pedagogical purposes at SIT. We are also very interested in utilizing this opportunity to find colleagues in other parts of SIT and World Learning working on related topics, in either their research or their practice. We welcome them to suggest ideas for enhancing the session to include their thinking, research, or experiences

Effective multicultural teams : theory and practice

Multicultural and multinational teams have become an important strategic and structural element of organizational work in our globalized world today. These teams are demonstrating their importance from the factory floors to the boardrooms of contemporary organizations. The emergence of multicultural teams is evident across a variety of organizations in the private, public, and civil society sectors. These developments have led to an increasing interest in the theory and practice of multicultural teams. Management educational and training programs are giving increasing attention to these developments. At the same time, there is emerging interest in research about and study of multicultural teams. This book emerged from our teaching, research, and consulting with multicultural and diverse teams in multiple sectors over the last several years. In particular, we have developed and refined our ideas about the concepts in this book from teaching an advanced course called Effective Multicultural Teams in the Graduate Program at the School for International Training (SIT) in Vermont. We have learned from the rich background of students who are from, and have worked in, six continents, and who are, or plan to be, working in the public, educational, not-for-profit, and for-profit sectors. Additionally, we have engaged with a variety of teams through our consulting and training, providing consultation to teams in a variety of sectors and continents as they struggled to become more effective.https://aura.antioch.edu/facbooks/1067/thumbnail.jp

Leading and managing in the social sector : strategies for advancing human dignity and social justice

This book explores leadership and management in social sector organizations, which include, NGOs, non-profits, social enterprises, social businesses, and cross-sector collaborations focusing on advancing human dignity and social justice. It provides social sector leaders with an overview of current trends, issues, and challenges in the field as well as best practices to foster effective programs, sustain organizations and meet the growing demands of the sector. The enclosed chapters cover topics such as cross-sector organizational design, innovation for client services, gender management dynamics, policy advocacy, and the growing social entrepreneurship movement. The social sector is currently in a vibrant, dynamic, and exciting stage. The sector\u27s role and relevance to advancing human dignity and social justice is greater than ever. The number and types of social sector organizations have increased exponentially around the world and are offering extraordinary and much needed contributions toward an array of social issues. The traditional NGOs and non-profit organizations continue to be an integral part of the global civil society. At the same time, the emerging organizational forms under the social entrepreneurship umbrella are providing new momentum and excitement within and outside of the social sector. The interest in social entrepreneurship is encouraging existing social sector entities to actively embrace and encourage innovation. This interest is also inspiring a new breed of professionals and organizations to contribute to the social sector. This trend falls under the larger social sector dynamic promoting the creation of hybrid and emergent organizational forms, which cross and combine the traditional non-profit and for-profit domains. Despite the increased interest, the social sector still faces challenges around the world. CIVICUS - an international group promoting civil society organizations and groups-- recently reported a rise in the restrictions on civil society activities in a number of countries through worsening policy and legal environments. Funding challenges for the social sector are thus becoming more significant. At the same time, the calls for social sector accountability and emphasis on results and impact are growing. This book aims to offer approaches and tools which allow for the bridging of demands between creativity and accountability, between inspiration and results, and between gaining individual commitment and shared ownership of agendas and achievements, all of which are needed to effectively operate in the changing social sector.https://aura.antioch.edu/facbooks/1059/thumbnail.jp

An Integrative Framework for Responsible Leadership Practice

Responsible leadership theory is a relatively newer addition to the field of leadership studies. It promises to strengthen the knowledge and practice of leadership by bringing more integration to the existing leadership conceptions and to enhance leadership’s accountability toward stakeholders and outcomes. The existing work around responsible leadership is contested and emergent in nature. Specifically, a few different conceptions of responsible leadership have been offered and most are grounded in the for-profit, private sector context. These existing approaches to responsible leadership do not fully attend to the values and ethics considerations relevant across multiple sectors. In this chapter, I outline and discuss a framework of responsible leadership, with an integral values-driven focus. The framework, unlike its predecessors, is intended to be applicable to multiple sectors and contexts.https://aura.antioch.edu/facchapters/1012/thumbnail.jp

The 6-L framework: a model for leadership research and development

Leadership research and practice has received new attention in recent years following unprecedented transformation experienced by organizations towards the end of the last millennium. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and test a model of leadership known as the 6-L framework. The dimensions of this model include: lends a vision, leads and encourages change, leverages learning and development, looks out for others, lauds achievement, and lives by example. According to the results of the study, the 6-L framework serves as a useful model for leadership research and development