The European Single Market has come a long way towards the free movement of people, goods, services and capital. Institutions, organizations, businesses and individuals, can operate, compete and coexist within a supranational society of people with divergent cultural backgrounds from 27 member states; a complicated canvas that becomes even more so from the increasing influx of immigrants seeking a better life in Europe.

Externally, European organizations expand their scope of activities following EU's leading position in the global political and economic arena, including its role in the so much needed Islamic - Western mutual understanding and reconciliation.

This reality is reflected in the complexity of the business, governance and administrative environment that demands a high level of cultural competency. Organizations and their managers need much more than "cultural awareness". They need to develop a high level of cross-cultural know-how, directly related to the challenges they are facing in their professional lives that can potentially become an organizational resource. Effective training and exposure to culture-related management issues will improve managers' effectiveness in a wide spectrum of international and home settings.

Yet, Higher Education Institutions across Europe are reluctant in taking on the issue of cross-cultural management. A recent search found not a single course built into a regular undergraduate programme. At the postgraduate level, cross-cultural management is well represented in Nordic management schools, especially in Finland and Denmark, in Austria and the Netherlands. This is not the case, however, in most other European countries. Furthermore, there is a lot of variation regarding the quality and perspective of cross-cultural management training delivered from educational or vocational institutions.

The interdisciplinary nature of CCM training is certainly an issue. To the extent that "cultural values are considered as basic motivators in life and prescriptions for peoples' behaviour", culture affects every human activity, organization or structure. Hence, an effective course should address cross-cultural management from an all round perceptive, examine a wide range of controversial subjects and explore methods of smoothing/resolving cross-cultural differences or even exploit their existence, involving a variety of disciplines.

An initiative of the Cross-Cultural Management Research Group of the EuroMed Research Business Institute, this programme is the collective response of the partner institutions to the situation described above. Students and academics from different cultural backgrounds will meet and work together in addressing controversial issues caused by cultural differences, in all facets of modern management, and create opportunities from overcoming their personal prejudices. This will prove more effective in defeating the reluctance of HEIs than introducing the subject separately, i.e. institution by institution. At the same time, the proposed approach will serve better the, so much needed, establishment of a commonly accepted high standard for cross-cultural management training across Europe.