ISTUD offers various opportunities for supporting company development and the use of intercultural resources. Rather than separate ‘courses’ we propose a process of management of the intercultural resources, which in turn foresees various possible projects comprising different activities: consultation of resources on the Intranet, training and mentoring. The projects available make it possible to capitalise as far as possible ‘in house’ the knowledge and experiences already acquired and still to be accomplished.

The key concepts that introduce and characterise the projects are:

• Culture: in the widest sense as an element permeating every aspect of corporate life. The work on the concept of culture can be utilised in various aspects of the corporate setting, apart from the ‘geographical’ aspects, for example in facilitating communication and cooperation between the various corporate functions.
• Awareness: linked to sensitisation, to the transit from not being aware of the cultural impact of our behaviour to learning to see and recognise it, as a first essential basis for multicultural competence.
• Explicitation: as the key to sharing knowledge and the diffusion of a culture that recognises, legitimates and values difference. The passage from the implicit to the explicit must be based on the acquisition of concepts, interpretations and common terminology.
• Process: the ability to command both levels of organisational action, the content and the process: this is applicable not only to the intercultural dynamics but to every aspect of corporate functions.
• Normality: apart from the educational aspects, intercultural awareness can be introduced as a pervasive viewpoint, linking it to the daily life of a company; normal events such as meetings and missions abroad can be consciously used as opportunities for exploring the topic and for personal growth in a multicultural setting.
• Ownership: intercultural sensitivity can be considered an important complementary competence for line managers, mainly focussed on the development of the business, but also as a key competence for certain corporate figures, such as the HR function, whose role demands support in organisational integration and awareness of the specific knowledge and tools for the purpose.

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