Each person in the class should interview a manager from the United States who has either worked abroad as an expat or been intensely involved in cross-cultural business activities in one or more nations. Using the cultural metaphors in Gannon (2004) and other sources, the interviewer should construct a series of questions asking for comparisons between doing business in the United States and doing business in a country where the manager has worked. It is particularly useful for the interviewer to read the chapter on

“American Football” from Gannon (2004) and the chapter on the chosen nation to hone a number of in-depth questions that will facilitate such comparisons.

Also helpful is the critical incident methodology, that is, asking the interviewee to think of a time, and then to describe it orally, when a major problem resulted directly from the differing perspectives of U.S. executives and their counterparts in the chosen nation. Each interviewer should write a five-page, double-spaced paper describing the interview, after which there can be a general class discussion.