Learning Style Preferences of Management Students– A Cross-Cultural Perspective –

This paper investigates the relationships between cultural values and the learningstyle preferences of students. By linking Kolb’s model of learning style preferences to thecultural differences of individual learners we develop hypotheses that are tested against datacollected from 953 students from 74 different national backgrounds enrolled in managementcourses at universities in Germany, the UK, the USA, Russia, Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands,Poland, China and the UAE. Our findings show that learning style preferences differ acrosscountries and that these preferences are affected by a number of cultural values. We also findimportant differences in the learning styles of male and female students and between local andexchange students. The results are of importance to teachers and managers active in theeducation and development of individuals from different cultural backgrounds and forresearchers interested in the influence of cultural values on learning style preferences..