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X-Culture Project Instructions
2015-2
What is X-Culture?
X-Culture started as an experiential learning project for business students. Its main purpose is to provide
trainees with an opportunity to experience first-hand challenges and learn the best practices of international
collaboration. Working in cross-cultural teams for several weeks, trainees have to deal with cultural and time-zone
differences, rely on online communication, and learn how to coordinate their efforts and successful complete project.
First, the teams work on writing a business plan for a hypothetical company. Soon, real companies started
approaching X-Culture with their real-life international business challenges. So in addition to a training platform, XCulture emerged as a promising consulting solution.
X-Culture is now testing different business challenge crowdsourcing models. Asking thousands of X-Culture
participants for ideas is like sending thousands of ants in all directions to search for food: if there is something sweet
out there, one of them will find it and tell the rest.
X-Culture is now experimenting with different solution crowdsourcing models. If all the teams work
independently, then the best solution is the one prepared by the best team. However, with a good process, a crowd
can produce a solution that is better than what can be offered by the smartest member of the crowd. Consider
brainstorming. Take 10 people, put them in separate rooms and ask them to generate ideas. Then take the same 10
people and put them in one room and ask them to generate ideas. When working in one room, they will generate
more and better ideas, because person A says something that gives an idea to person B, and person B says
something that gives an idea to person C. Working separate, they would have never thought of those ideas. Same
thing with crowdsourcing: with a proper process, the crowd can be collectively more intelligent than its smartest
individual member.
X-Culture was launched in 2010, and about 500 trainees from seven countries participated in the first season.
The number of participants has grown every semester, approaching 4,000 trainees from 100 universities in 40
countries on six continents in 2015.
Starting in 2015, the X-Culture competition is open to everyone and a sizable group of non-student professionals
is also taking part in it. Some of them are people seeking international experiences and training; some want to
improve their resume and obtain the X-Culture Global Team certificate; some are in it only for the competition and
prizes; some hope to impress their client organizations and get job offers; and some simply look for challenges to
exercise their brains and put their experience and skills to a good use.
There are four main divisions: undergraduate students, MBA students, EMBA students, and professionals.
Occasionally, we have mixed teams, but usually these four groups are kept separate. Most people take part in XCulture as members of global virtual teams, but some come with their own collocated teams and some choose to
compete individually. For students who take part in X-Culture as part of a for-credit course, global virtual teams is the
default arrangement. They can work in a collocated team or individually only with a permission of their instructor.
The X-Culture task and process, as well as the collaboration tools used by the teams are reminiscent of those
used in the modern workplace, making the project a very realistic preview of work in corporate global virtual teams.
X-Culture is like a time machine: the challenges you experience in your X-Culture team are exactly the same
challenges you will see in your corporate international team when you will be doing it for a living.
The project is also used as a research platform. We are trying to find out why some teams perform better than
others and what can be done to improve individual and team performance when collaborating internationally. The
results of the research will be shared with all participating trainees to further enhance learning and idea exchange.
Members of all teams that successfully complete the project receive X-Culture Global Collaboration Certificates.
Usually, the certificates are distributed by the instructors after the semester is over. Students can also ask for a highresolution print-ready copy or order a hard copy. Members of the best teams are invited to present their work at an XCulture Symposium.
The project requires a considerable investment of time and skills, so if students cannot fully commit to the project
or do not have the necessary skills, they are usually offered an alternative project to complete that doesn’t require
global collaboration.
Please watch the short video on this page for how X-Culture works and what’s in it for students.
X-Culture Challenges
A large number of companies approach X-Culture with their business challenges. We try to select about a dozen
challenges each semester, so that each challenge represents a different industry. You can see this year’s challenges
here.
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The challenge instructions include: company and challenge description, list of specific questions that need to be
answered in the competition report, a schedule with the weekly milestone tasks, and the report submission
guidelines.
Most companies also offer monetary incentives to the teams that prepare especially insightful business
proposals, and offer after-market commission to teams that choose to put their business proposal to a real-life test
and can prove their concept by getting a contract in the new market, as per their market entry strategy. Some
companies also offer prospects of employment for the X-Culture competition contestants who impress them most.
As an experiment, you are allowed to select your own company or write a proposal for a startup. Please see the
Challenges page for more information.
Real-Life “Ultimate” Test of Your Proposal
Many partner companies suggested that you put your business proposal to an “ultimate” real-life test and see if
what you are suggested can work on practice. You will be suggesting a new promising market and a way to present
and sell the client’s product/service in the new market. So many of them are suggesting you try to get a contract for
the product/service in the new market. If you succeed, you will receive an after-market commission (usually 15% of
the contract value) and in some cases a guaranteed employment at the client company. Moreover, regardless of
whether you succeed or fail, you will gain valuable real-life business experience and strengthen your resume. So we
encourage you to give it a try. Please see each individual challenge instructions for details.
IMPORTANT: This is completely optional. Your decision to try to get a contract will have no effect on your
grade/mark in X-Culture.
X-Culture Readiness Test
Being a team member is a big responsibility. Team members who are not ready or do not have the necessary
English or technical skills can spoil the experience for the entire team. Therefore, all X-Culture Competition
participants must pass a Readiness Test before they will be placed on international teams. A few days before the
project starts, all project participants will receive an email with a link to the X-Culture Pre-Project Readiness Test.
Only those who pass the test will be allowed to take part in X-Culture. Non-student professionals who participate in
the X-Culture competition individually do not have to take the Readiness Test.
Teams
Trainees are assigned to teams on a random basis. With so many trainees involved in the project,
accommodating individual requests for team composition is simply impossible. On the first day of the project, you will
receive the names of your team members in a personal email. Once teams are formed, we will not be able to move
you to a different team. However, non-student professionals can participate in the competition with their own team.
Your team will work completely autonomously. It will be up to you to decide if your team has a leader and, if so,
who that leader(s) should be, how you communicate and how you coordinate your work. Please see the Training
Module for tips, advice on various online collaboration and communication tools, and best practices of global
teamwork.
Changing Teams
We always get requests to move students to “another team.” People don’t like their team members, don’t like
their countries, like someone on another team and want to work with them. We can NOT move students to other
teams, unless it’s a case of sexual harassment or bullying and the move is needed to protect a student.
There are three reasons for that:
1. Work: it takes a tremendous amount of work to move a person from one team to another. It is hours of time
to look into the case, inform members of both teams about the change, make certain nobody objects to the
move, and update all our databases. We simply have no resources to accommodate such requests.
2. Reality: In the real workplace, we don’t get to choose our co-workers. We work with whoever happens to be
in our department. We don’t come to our bosses and demand that somebody be fired because we don’t like
the person.
3. Disruption and negative net effect: While the student who gets moved may be left more satisfied with the
project, the move usually adversely affects both teams due to the disruption to the workflow it causes.
Peer Evaluations
To monitor individual performance, there will be weekly peer evaluations. You will be asked to evaluate your
team members’ effort, intellectual contribution, creativity, leadership skills, and friendliness. These data will be used
for grading/marking purposes.
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Exclusion for Free-Riding
Each week, X-Culture participants complete a progress report. One of the questions in the weekly report will ask
if any of the team members are not actively participating. If the majority of the team votes to exclude a team member
for a lack of effort (free-riding), the case will be reviewed. If it is confirmed that the trainee in question is indeed not
actively participating in the project, the trainee will be excluded from the project.
Additional Team Members
Your initial team size will be 5-7 students. More team members may be added to the team in the first weeks of
the project. If after the first week or two you feel your team needs more team members, you can submit your request
in the weekly progress report. It is likely (although not guaranteed) that we will be able to add more people to your
team.
Alternative Team Arrangements for Student Participants
Non-student professionals can choose to compete individually, bring their own team request to be placed on a
global virtual team. They are in X-Culture for competition and prizes only and are completely free to choose their
team/individual arrangements as they wish.
For the student participants, the main value of X-Culture is in global virtual teamwork. By default, all students are
placed in global virtual teams. However, you do not want to or cannot be part of a global virtual team for any reason
(busy schedule, lack of language skills, personal objections), you can request that you:
(1) Complete the project individually. In this case, you will work on the same challenges, answer the same
questions, write the same report and submit it via TurnItIn as done so by the teams, and complete the same
weekly progress reports. However, you will avoid the hassles of teamwork, but you will have to write the
entire report on your own. You will still have to complete the weekly progress update surveys, but they will
contain no questions about your team (since you work alone), only the questions about the work you
completed in a given week. This option must be approved by your instructor first.
(2) Work in a one-country team. It is uncommon, but sometimes students choose to work in a co-located team
(all team members are students at the same university). This allows the teams to meet face-to-face. Usually,
these teams are culturally homogeneous (all team members are the same nationality), though if international
students are enrolled in the course and choose this option, the team can be culturally diverse even though all
team members are located in the same city. This option must be approved by your instructor first.
Surveys
During the project, all participants are asked to complete weekly progress surveys. The information is used to
evaluate individual and team performance, monitor progress, identify and correct problems, and improve the XCulture project in the future. Your feedback and suggestions will be much appreciated!
To ensure that your instructor can identify you and you can receive credit for completing the survey, your name
and team number will be recorded. Once the project is over, your personal information will be deleted, and only deidentified data will be used for further research.
The data collection has been approved by bodies governing the ethical conduct of research (i.e., the Research
Ethics Committee of the Institutional Review Board at the university hosting the project, and equivalent committees in
local universities, when required). Please note that if you object to the use of the data you provide during the project
for research purposes, you can request that the data be completely deleted once the project is over. Please see a
note at the end of this documents for more on research ethics.
For each survey, you will receive an email with your personalized link to the survey about four days before the
deadline.
Plagiarism
Every team report will be automatically scanned with sophisticated software to detect plagiarism.
This means that your instructor and team members are guaranteed to know if you plagiarize.
Anyone found guilty of plagiarism will be handled according to each university’s academic code of conduct.
One misconception that students have is that rewriting something is not plagiarism because they are “putting it in
their own words.” If the source is not officially acknowledged, it is plagiarism. Copying and pasting actually accounts
for only a small percentage of plagiarism. The majority of plagiarism is a result of text manipulation. Simply stated,
plagiarism is using someone’s work without giving the appropriate credit.
1. Copying and pasting text from on-line or printed sources without acknowledging the author is plagiarism.
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2. Simply modifying text from any sources is plagiarism. For example, replacing a few select words using a
Thesaurus does not constitute original work.
3. Using photographs, video, or audio without permission or acknowledgment is plagiarism.
4. Using another student’s work and claiming it as your own, even with permission, is plagiarism.
5. Paying someone to do your work and submitting it as your own is plagiarism.
6. Translation from one language and not acknowledging the original author is plagiarism.
7. Using an essay that you wrote for another class/another purpose and submitting it as new work is SELFPLAGIARISM and is basis for consequence or penalty. You may use your previous work as a basis for new
research but include the original work in your bibliography.
It is acceptable to support your answer with references to and short extracts from the work of others, but you must
acknowledge the work of others by citing the source. It is recommended that you use APA citation style. You can find
a brief summary on how to use it here or a more extended presentation on here (focus on slides 15-23). Do your best
with respect to the reference style, but don’t stress out too much about following it precisely – minor deviations from
the APA citation style are acceptable.
X-Culture Webinars
When possible, we organize one-hour-long online webinars with senior managers of X-Culture partner companies.
The managers will talk about their companies and the challenges they presented, share their business experience,
and provide career and business management insights. You can attend the webinars live, or watch the recordings
located here. Participation in X-Culture Webinars is optional. We strongly encourage you to participate as it is your
rare opportunity to meet business owners and senior managers in person and ask your questions.
Selecting the Winners, Performance Evaluation, Grading/Marking
Each report submitted by X-Culture contestants (individually or by teams) will be evaluated by 5-7 independent
experts. Based on their ratings, a pool of finalists will be selected and additionally reviewed by the X-Culture Award
Committee who will then select the winners.
The client companies usually agree with the Award Committee winner recommendations, but often clients prefer
to choose winners based on their own review. If the client and the Award Committee recommend different winners,
the client’s choice overrides the Committee choice.
The cash prizes and after-market commission offered by the client is paid directly from the client to the Winner of
the competition. X-Culture is not responsible for any of the payments.
For those who participate in the X-Culture competition as part of a for-credit course, the project typically
comprises 20-40 percent of the course grade/mark. The exact weight of the project and specific team and individual
evaluation criteria are set by each instructor and may vary from university to university.
The following individual and team performance indicators are taken into account:
1. Ability to meet deadlines: There are a number of deadlines that trainees must meet individually or as a team,
including:
- Pre-project Readiness Test (must pass to participate in the project);
- Weekly deadlines and progress report surveys: decision made by the team, surveys completed by each
team member individually;
- Post-project survey (must be completed to receive a grade/mark for the project).
2. Quality of the team report: Your team report will be evaluated by at least four different instructors. The
following aspects of the report will be evaluated:
- Accuracy and thoroughness of the company analysis;
- Feasibility and originality of the product;
- Quality of the market opportunity analysis, including the feasibility of the success criteria
- Accuracy and thoroughness of the market analysis;
- Feasibility of the suggested market entry mode and staffing policies;
- Feasibility and creativity of the marketing strategy;
- Quality of the arguments in support of the recommendations provided in the report (clarity, strength and
feasibility of the arguments – essentially how well you explain your decisions);
- Proper use of external sources and references;
- Clarity of presentation, formatting quality, readability, visual appeal, grammar.
The quality of the team report accounts for 40-60% of the project grade/mark.
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3. Peer evaluations: Every week you will be evaluated by your teammates in terms of your:
- Effort and commitment,
- Intellectual contribution,
- Work ethics,
- Help with coordinating team efforts,
- Friendliness and collegiality.
Peer evaluations account for 20-30% of the project grade.
Please note that most of the performance indicators are individual. This means that even though you will be
working in a team, your grade primarily depends on your personal performance. Specifically, it is up to you and only
you whether or not you complete fully and on time the tasks at hand. These include the pre-project training test,
reporting on progress with establishing contact with teammates, reporting your team progress in weekly surveys, and
completing the post-project survey, as well as what peer evaluations you receive from your teammates.
The only project components where your grade may also be influenced by your team members’ performance (or
a lack of thereof) is the overall quality of the team report.
This means that (1) you cannot expect your team members to do the work for you – most of it you will have to do
on your own - and (2) do not get upset if some of your team members are not performing well, as the lack of their
effort and commitment will not have a major effect on your individual grade/mark.
Submitting Reports
We use a centralized electronic team report submission system that works on the TurnItIn platform. When the team
report is completed, one student (per team) will electronically submit the report on behalf of their team. Each team is
required to submit only one report.
To submit your team report through TurnItIn, the member of the team who will be handling the submission on behalf
of the team will have to follow these steps:
Part 1. Create a TurnItIn account (time required: 60-90 seconds).
1. Go to www.turnitin.com.
2. Under the email box in the upper right corner, click on the link “Create Account”.
3. On the next window, under the “Create a New Account” heading, click on the “Student” link.
4. Each submission has its own Class ID. It is very important that you select the correct one:
To submit the preliminary draft (Milestone 9):
To submit the final report (Milestone 10):
Early Track (Aug-Oct)
Late Track (Oct-Nov)
10343001
10343037
10343022
10343042
Class enrollment password: xculture
Note: if you already have a TurnItIn account, simply log on using your “old” login information, click on the
“Enroll in Class” tab on the top, and repeat step 4.
Part 2: Submitting the paper (time required: 60-120 seconds)
5. Once the form is completed, you can log into your account. Your home page will list your classes. Select the
correct track (Early or Late) and the correct Milestone (Milestone 9: Draft or Milestone 10: Final Report).
6. Click on the "Submit" button.
7. Choose Single File Upload.
8. For the title of your submission, enter your team number (for example,. 123, DO NOT add words such as
“team” or “report”, the name of the file must only contain the number of your team).
9. Click on "browse" to locate the paper saved to your computer.
10. Click on the file and click "open".
11. Click the "upload" button at the bottom.
12. Click "submit" to confirm your submission. Once the submission is finalized, you will see “Your submission
was successful” on the top of the page. If you wait a few minutes, you will see you “originality report” that
shows how much and what parts of your report have been plagiarized.
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Schedule
The project is organized around a series of weekly tasks and deadlines. The exact dates and tasks are listed in
the challenge instructions. The dates are identical for all challenges, but the decision that the team must make each
week may be slightly different depending on your choice of the client company.
For each of the milestones, you will receive an email a few days before the deadline with a link to a progress
survey. Just click on the link and report your decision and progress on the project.
The general schedule looks like this:
Task
Milestone 1. Pre-project Readiness Test: All participants must review project materials and
successfully pass the Readiness Test.
You will receive an email with your personalized training test link several days before the deadline. The
test will include questions about the project and online collaboration tools, as well as questions about
your prior international experience and background.
Official start of the project, students placed on teams
Students whose semester starts later will be added to the existing teams once their semester
commences.
Milestone 2. Establish Contact and Meet your Teammates (skip if you’re working individually)
Report on your progress with establishing contact with your teammates: have communicated with all
your team members, a few questions to test if you met your team members and learnt something about
them.
Milestone 3. Select Client Organization and Product
From the list of challenges, select the one you would like to work on.
You may change the client at any time. So if later, for example, following a webinar with a particular
company, you decide to choose a different company, you may.
Milestone 4. Identify Market Success Factors
Please see your challenge instructions for details as the Milestone 4 question varies slightly from a
challenge to a challenge.
Generally, you need to explain your choice of the key market characteristics that are critical to the
economic success of your client in a new market and why. In other words, you must decide what kind
of markets your client should be looking for and why.
Milestone 5. Select a New Market
Please see your challenge instructions for details as the Milestone 5 question varies slightly from a
challenge to a challenge.
Generally, you have to select two most promising markets that satisfy your success criteria (as per
Milestone 4) and compare and contrast the two markets on each of the success factors identified as
critical in the previous. In other words, you must decide where you believe your client should move
next and why.
Milestone 6. Entry Mode and Staffing:
Please see your challenge instructions for details as the Milestone 6 question varies slightly from a
challenge to a challenge.
Generally, you need to suggest the optimal new market entry mode and staffing of the operations in
the new market and provide a detailed explanation for your choices. In other words, you need to decide
the best way for your client to establish presence in the new market (e.g., open its fully owned
subsidiary, create a joint venture, sell a license to a local company, etc.), and then explain whom to
hire to do the work there, how and why.
Deadline*
Early track:
Sun, Aug 23
Late track:
Sun, Oct 4
Early track:
Mon, Aug 24
Late track:
Mon, Oct 5
Early track:
Fri, Aug 28
Late track:
Fri, Oct 9
Early track:
Tue, Sep 1
Late track:
Tue, Oct 13
Early track:
Fri, Sep 4
Late track:
Fri, Oct 16
Early track:
Fri, Sep 11
Late track:
Fri, Oct 23
Early track:
Fri, Sep 18
Late track:
Fri, Oct 30
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Milestone 7. Product and Pricing
Please see your challenge instructions for details as the Milestone 7 question varies slightly from a
challenge to a challenge.
Generally, this week you must decide on how your product/service should be presented in the new
market in terms of brand name, packaging, etc., and what should be its price, and explain why.
Early track:
Fri, Sep 25
Milestone 8. Distribution and Promotion
Please see your challenge instructions for details as the Milestone 8 question varies slightly from a
challenge to a challenge.
Generally, you have to decide on how the product or service should be distributed (e.g., through sales
agents, stores, online, etc.) and advertised (on TV, newspapers, social media, etc.), and explain why.
Early track:
Fri, Oct 2
Milestone 9. Team Report DRAFT
This week you must submit a draft of your proposal. It does NOT have to be the complete document,
only what you have written so far. If you are working in a team, one submission per team please.
The name of the document must be the number of your team. No words, just one number.
The submission must be done via www.TurnItIn.com. Please see the challenge instructions for stepby-step guidelines on submitting your draft.
The document will be automatically scanned for plagiarism (may take several hours) and you will
receive a complete plagiarism report. If there are sections in your report that have been copied and
pasted, you will see that. So if any of your team members plagiarized, you will know it. You will have
one week to fix problems, if needed.
You can make any changes to the document before submitting the final version next week.
Milestone 10. FINAL Team Report
This week you must submit the final copy of your proposal.
If you are working in a team, one submission per team please.
The name of the document must be the number of your team. No words, just one number.
The submission must be done via www.TurnItIn.com. Please see the challenge instructions for stepby-step guidelines on submitting your final report.
The document will be automatically scanned for plagiarism (may take several hours) and the
plagiarism report will be sent to your instructor. Once the document is submitted, you will NOT be
allowed to make any changes to it.
Milestone 11. Post-project survey
Once the final team report is submitted, each student must complete the Post-Project survey. You will
be asked to comment on your experience and evaluate the performance of your teammates. Your
answers are extremely important and will help us improve the project in the future. Peer evaluations
will NOT be shared among the members of the team and will be seen only by the instructors.
Late track:
Fri, Nov 6
Late track:
Fri, Nov 13
Early track:
Fri, Oct 9
Late track:
Fri, Nov 20
Early track:
Fri, Oct 16
Late track:
Fri, Nov 27
Early track:
Sun,
Oct 18
Late track:
Sun, Nov 29
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Consent to Act as A Human Participant
Project Title:
International Student Collaboration Project: Dynamics and Performance in International Virtual Teams
Project Director: Dr. Vasyl Taras
One of the requirements of your International Business course is to complete an international collaboration
exercise. You will be teamed up with several other students who are enrolled in similar International Business courses
at universities around the world. Working as a team, you will be required to develop a business plan for an international
company.
To help you better understand and interpret your experiences and to give you a chance to compare your own
experiences with those of other student participating in the exercise, data about your prior international experiences,
your skills, and perceptions about international collaboration will be collected during the exercise. In addition, you will
be asked to provide peer evaluations once the project is over and the quality of the team reports will be evaluated by
the instructor. Additionally, your team may be assigned to an experimental condition to see if different approaches to
team management and coordination affect team dynamics and performance. A summary will be presented to you at
the end of the project so you can see how your experiences compare to those of other students, how team member
and team characteristics affect group dynamics and performance.
Once the project is over, all personal information will be deleted from the dataset and the data will be completely
unidentified making it impossible to match responses with names of the people who provided them.
The following consent form is to request permission to use your data from the international collaboration exercise
for our research project. The purpose of this study is to determine how cultural diversity, individual perceptions about
differences between cultures and prior international experiences, individual and team characteristics affect dynamics
and performance in virtual international teams.
While participating in the collaboration exercise is required as part of the course, giving your permission to have
your data used for the research project is completely voluntary. If you do not wish for your data to be used in the
study, please provide your signature at the bottom of this page and turn this page into your instructor. If you
indicate by signing and turning in this page that you do not wish for your data to be used, your data will be
excluded from the research project.
You have the right to refuse to participate (have your data used for the project) or to withdraw at any time. If
you choose to withdraw, you may request that any of your data which has been collected be destroyed unless it is in a
de-identifiable state.
Your decision to allow or to deny the use of the data you provided during the project for research related
purposes will have no effect on your grade.
If you agree to participate, we would like to use the following as data for our study: your pre-project and post-project
surveys, peer evaluations, the team performance evaluation you complete, and your end of project discussion.
The data collected as part of class will be collected on-line. Absolute confidentiality of data provided
through the Internet cannot be guaranteed due to the limited protections of Internet access. Please be sure to
close your browser when finished so no one will be able to see what you have been doing.
If you give permission for your data to be used in the research project, your personal information will be
removed and the data will be de-identified. De-identified data will be stored on a UNCG password protected
computer.
The risks associated with your participation in the study are minimal.
Please note the data collected during the project may be used for the purposes of research results of which may be
published in scholarly journals. Any publication will contain only a general summary of the results. No personal
information will be reported or shared.
If you have any concerns about your rights, how you are being treated or if you have questions, want more
information or have suggestions, please contact the Office of Research Integrity at UNCG at (336) 256-1482.
Questions, concerns or complaints about this project or benefits or risks associated with being in this study can be
answered by Dr. Vasyl Taras who may be contacted at (336) 256-8611 or [email protected].
If significant new information relating to the study becomes available which may relate to your willingness to
continue to participate, this information will be provided to you.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
If you do not wish to grant the right to use the data you will provide during the project for research-related purposes or
disseminate the data through a publication in scholarly journals or in any other form, please provide your name and
contacts on this form and return it to [email protected]. Your decision to not allow the use of the data for scholarly
research will have no effect on your course grade.
Name: ___________________________________
Email: ______________________
University: _________________________________________________
Signature _____________________________ Date: _____________________________