Software engineering companies´ multicultural education

The Software Engineering (SE) industry is experiencing the effects of strong globalization. The world is changing rapidly in many areas including financial, technological, economic, and political, but the structures of SE companies are also changing. This means that companies are becoming closer to each other, and geographical distance and national borders are losing their meaning. Because of this globalization, companies are facing more competition in their market area. SE companies are in the middle of complex networks with many interest groups. One effect of globalization is that companies more often collide with multicultural issues on national and organizational level. In earlier studies, it has been shown that the standards and guides that are used in the SE education concept do not include much knowledge about multicultural factors in the SE sector. This paper examines how SE companies should educate their employees on cultural factors. This study examines the need for culture education from two aspects: the general level of cultural education in a company and the SE level of cultural education in a company. The factors in the last level are special characteristics, processes, and products. A cultural education experience has been introduced with one case company. The study summarizes the areas of recommended cultural education in a single table - the cultural education framework. Finally, a potential research idea for a cultural maturity model is discussed.