Mai Nguyen

Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences/Centre for Applied Research on Education · International Business Studies

Under pressure of the continuing need to modernize, Vietnam is rapidly reforming its education system. Cooperative Learning (CL) with a Western-based model is being enthusiastically applied. This paper suggests that an authentic form of CL has long existed in the foundations of Vietnamese education. The reasons why Western-based CL is encouraged ca...

This article is concerned with the influence of western educational approaches in non‐western countries and societies. This influence is frequently referred to as educational neocolonialism in the sense that western paradigms tend to shape and influence educational systems and thinking elsewhere through the process of globalisation. Given the perce...

Many recent intercultural studies have shown that people cooperate with each other differently across cultures. We argue that cooperative learning (CL), an educational method originating in the USA and with fundamental psychological assumptions based on Western values, should be adjusted to be culturally appropriate for any non-Western cultures in...

Cultural heritage preservation has become a much-debated topic in recent decades. This paper contributes to the call for educational approaches that take a society’s cultural diversity into account. It also attempts to draw attention to non-Western societies, where educational theories and practices from elsewhere (the West) have been imported and...

Asian countries with Confucian heritage culture (CHC) such as China, Vietnam, Singapore, Korea and Japan have been proven to share characteristics of a collectivist society. Researchers agree that this collectivist mentality strongly supports cooperation that CHC's learners/ workers best perform in groups. However, little is known about the other s...

This paper conducted a preliminary study of reviewing and exploring bias strategies using a framework of a different discipline: change management. The hypothesis here is: If the major problem of implicit bias strategies is that they do not translate into actual changes in behaviors, then it could be helpful to learn from studies that have contribu...

This paper reviews and discusses the neuroscience of a dynamic, contextual and polycultural self. Advances in neuroscience suggests that: (1) the brain can acquire contradictory cultural systems at the same time; (2) all three groups of bi/multi/ and mono-cultural individuals can activate corresponding cultural patterns of the self, based on the cu...

In cross-cultural communication and adjunct disciplines such as cross-cultural management and international business, there is a negativity bias of seeing cultural differences as a source of potential issues. The emergence of Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) questions this problem-focused approach. This paper contributes to the ongoing dis...

Cross-Cultural Management: With Insights from Brain Science explores a broad range of topics on the impact of culture in international business and vice versa, and the impact of businesses and individuals in shaping a culture. It provides critical and in-depth information on globalization, global/glocal leadership, cross-cultural marketing, and cro...

Face, understood as public image, exerts critical influence on interpersonal communication. Incorporating insight from cultural neuroscience, a number of potential mismatches with regard to facework are revealed when methodologies originated from the West are applied in a different context. This paper examines culturally appropriate face strategies...

The sample chapters explains the nature of culture and its roles in the evolution of human species, discusses the dynamic interaction between culture and other factors: environment, genes, brain, and behaviors.

Incorporating insight from neuroscience, we are challenged to reconsider several assumptions in the field. The take-away are: - Similarity as starting point : Focus on how to identify similarities, how to establish mutual interest. This is a more sustainable approach than using fear as a motivation of learn about cultural diversity. - Values and...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct a critical analysis to address cultural metaphors – a much overlooked aspect of cross-cultural studies. Mainstream cultural metaphors (e.g. the iceberg, the software of the mind, the onion, and the distance) are not only limited in number, but are also overwhelmingly based on the static paradigm – as...

The keynote incorporate insight from neuroscience and evolutionary biology to construct the Diagram of Diversity Pathways. It demonstrates 5 factors that underline the immense diversity we see in culture-related development of the human species, down to the level of gene and neuron.

This paper introduces the Analysis Framework of Face Interaction (AFFI) which is developed based on a new face dimension termed Face Confirmation − Face Confrontation at two levels: Individual level within the group and Collective level between groups. This proposed framework of face analysis reveals a dearth of research on face confrontation as es...

Social sciences possess a plethora of studies about cooperative learning. However, most of these researches have been conducted mainly by and on Westerners with fundamental assumptions based on Western values. Many recent intercultural studies proved that people cooperate with each other differently across cultures. This suggests a need of differen...

The study is concerned with the influence of western educational approaches upon non-western societies and cultural groups. In applying western educational approaches, often a detailed consideration of its consequences to the culture and heritage of a non-western civilization is neglected. This is both the case of a multicultural classroom where st...