A study on the key soft skills for success ful participation of students in multinational engineering education

Resumen

Soft-skills have proved to be a necessary complement to technical skills in today’s multinational workplaces. Asuniversities are facing the challenge of promoting internationalization and mobility in students and teachers, they haveto decide how to help their students in developing these skills as well as increase their awareness on the cultural differencesin multinational settings. After a long trajectory of participation in multinational educational experiences, the authorslaunched a survey to check if their previous findings on the preferred soft skills by educational experts and managers stillremain valid after 5 years. Another goal of the study was the analysis of the link between preference for specific soft skillsand cultural background in each country as characterized by Hofstede’s indicators. The data collected from 123 expertsfrom 45 different countries haveconfirmed the existenceof a stable core set of preferred soft skillsat global level and also forEuropean countries. Results have also shown links between specific cultural indicators and preference for some soft skills.