We congratulate the IÉSEG School of Management for obtaining a well-deserved Trophy for Pedagogical Innovation (awarded by the French magazine l’Étudiant) for its project “From international to intercultural: promoting cultural intelligence throughout IÉSEG”. 

Faculty member Grant Douglas, who is COF certified, declares:
IESEG uses different tools in the pursuit of its objectives and one of the principal tools is the Cultural Orientations Framework (COF) developed by Philippe Rosinski. This tool has been incorporated into different study programmes and personal development programmes and is proving to be very popular and successful.

We thank Grant Douglas and his colleagues Ingrid Richard and Etienne Grimonprez for their trust and pioneering work!

Grant Douglas explains:

IESEG School of Management, with campuses in Lille and Paris, France has become an increasingly multicultural place over recent years.

With 5,500 students, including 2,400 international students from over 100 countries, EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA accreditation, more than 700 professors, with 137 full-time (82% of who are non-French from 44 different countries), IESEG can legitimately claim to be an international school. At any one time, 1,200 of its students are participating on study abroad with its 285 partner universities in 69 countries and almost the same number of students are doing internships abroad.

However, IESEG is conscious of the fact that attracting a highly diverse population is not a guarantee of success in itself. It has therefore decided to go beyond being international and try to become a truly intercultural school.

Following a deep vision process, IESEG now proudly states its vision to be:

In 2025, IÉSEG will be a unique international hub empowering change-makers for a better society”.

Aligned with this vision, IESEG has a mission:

• To educate managers to be inspiring, intercultural and ethical pioneers of change
• To create knowledge that nurtures innovative leaders
• To promote creative solutions for and with responsible organizations

A cross-disciplinary pole of “People and Intercultural Competences” has been created that feeds into every academic department. The objective is to develop “cultural intelligence” (CQ) throughout the school in order to foster the culturally intelligent behavior that will allow it to become a truly intercultural school where everyone, students and staff, can thrive and develop: a school where CQ is part of the DNA of the whole organization at every level.

IESEG uses different tools in the pursuit of its objectives and one of the principal tools is the Cultural Orientations Framework (COF) developed by Philippe Rosinski. This tool has been incorporated into different study programmes and personal development programmes and is proving to be very popular and successful.