Bridging Cultural Perspectives Through Emerging Disruptive Technology

Abstract

This research was conducted in Auckland, New Zealand between November 2019 and April 2021.  It outlines how emerging disruptive technology might help subject matter experts or professionals increase their Māori and Pacific cultural intelligence and disrupt systemic racism.

Bridging Cultural Perspectives looks at how subject matter experts might embed this knowledge so interactions with their Māori and Pacific stakeholders are more empathetic and culturally competent. It also explores the attitudes and behaviours that subject matter experts (SMEs) have that prevent them from becoming culturally competent or empathetic.

Phase 1 of this research identified the cultural intelligence challenges faced by subject matter experts and the types of support they needed. The aim was not only to improve their cultural ways of working but to unpack what systemic racism and unconscious bias at work looked like and how they might address these issues. Phase 2’s focus was to understand the drivers of systemic racism and to plan, execute, complete and evaluate a digital prototype that would disrupt these drivers. The aim was to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes when working with and for Māori and Pacific peoples.

This has resulted in two prototypes – the first is a digital platform for workplaces that uses nudge learning to raise peoples’ cultural intelligence through an organisation’s digital channels and devices.  The second is a cultural intelligence academy that uses blended learning to raise the cultural intelligence of subject matter experts. Using systems practice, I also created a cultural intelligence framework and two systems maps that chart the deep structures of systemic racism and the behaviours that underpin them.