Cultural Interviews with German-Speaking Executives: Introduction

Cultural Interviews with German-Speaking Executives is a compilation of brief video clips in which German executives discuss cultural issues that are of interest to North Americans. The objective of the interviews is three-fold: First, provide practical cultural information about business topics. Second, the interviews provide vocabulary in areas within a professional setting. Third, these materials provide non-native speakers of German with multiple examples of natural speech. The creation of these materials has been a joint project between the Center for International Business Education and Research at the University of Texas at Austin and Saint Edwards University, also located in Austin, Texas. Professor Orlando Kelm conducted the interviews and coordinated the digitization and design of the web page. Professor Marc Rathmann worked on the transcriptions of the interviews and tested the materials in his classes. At Saint Edwards University, Professor Kerstin Somerholter coordinated the transcription and translation. We recognize Monika Auchterlonie and Franz Wambach for their work on the transcriptions and translations.

Instructions to view the video clips

1. At any time you may return to this introduction page by clicking anywhere on the top title bar (the area with the cutout faces of the executives).
2. Under the title bar is a gray strip with the general topics of discussion: Negotiation Practices With North Americans, Stereotypes About North Americans, View By Executives. At any time you may scroll over these titles to see a list of the specific topics. Click on any of the topics to view the interviews.
3. Each interview topic page has thumbnail pictures of the German executives, view their comments by clicking either on the thumbnail picture or on the executive's name. This will open a new window with the video clip.
4. The video clips are saved as embedded QuickTime movies. In the top right corner are three icons. Click [G] to view the German transcription, [E] to view the English transcription, or [N] to view the video without any text at all. Start, stop, and pause buttons are located below the video clip.
5. The video clips may also be downloaded in MP4 format so they can be viewed on an ipod. In order to do so, click on the small red font.

Download PDF versions (right/control click) of the transcriptions and translations of all of the interviews

Negotiation Practices with North Americans --- Stereotypes About North Americans

Orlando R. Kelm
University of Texas at Austin
Kerstin Somerholter
Saint Edwards University
Marc Rathmann
University of Texas at Austin