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Effective screening and selection of expatriates is a critical function in organizations, yet the use of paper and pencil instruments in expatriate selection is limited by the paucity of existing validity evidence. This study assessed the discriminant, convergent, and predictive validity of two Intercultural Competence measures (the Behavioral Assessment Scale for Intercultural Communication Effectiveness and the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale) and three Interpersonal Competence measures (the Interpersonal Competence Questionnaire, the Social Problem-Solving Inventory-Revised: Short Version, and the Self-Monitoring Scale). The Intercultural competence measures exhibited discriminant validity with the Interpersonal competence measures and none of the five measures exhibited convergent validity. However, four of the five measures did predict ratings of intercultural decision quality in an intercultural organizational scenario.

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Training designs are critical to the success of intercultural training programmes. A common typology for classifying intercultural training designs distinguishes among the following dimensions: experiential discovery versus didactic expository and culture‐specific versus culture‐general training. The purpose of this paper is to assess different intercultural training designs referring to this typology. First, a concept of intercultural competence is developed. Based on this concept experiential training designs are favoured as they allow to train the cognitive, affective and behavioural component of intercultural competencies. In the second part of the paper an empirical study in the USA and Germany is conducted in order to assess whether the degree of intercultural competencies differs between the two nations. As no considerable differences can be identified the benefit of culture‐general training is discussed. Significant skills to be focused on in intercultural training are described and specific measures for pre‐assessment devices in intercultural training are presented.

Epiphytes cause a strong light attenuation for submersed macrophytes. Various abiotic and biotic factors determine epiphyte density, among them nutrients, water clarity and possibly allelopathy. We compared epiphyte biomass on the major occurring macrophytes, among them allelopathically active species in four shallow eutrophic lakes in Upper Swabia (Southern Germany). We determined epiphyte chlorophyll a, organic carbon, nitrogen and ashfree dry mass. Mean epiphyte chlorophyll a per macrophyte ranged between 100 and 400 µg g −1 dm in summer and increased up to 1700 µg g −1 dm in autumn. Few differences between species and lakes were observed. No apparent relation was found between epiphyte density and physical or chemical variables of the lakes. Epiphytes had a molar stoichiometry of organic carbon to nitrogen (C:N) slightly below 7:1, a ratio considered to be optimal also for benthic algae. Lakes with higher concentrations of humic compounds exhibited a significant higher ratio of organic carbon to epiphytic chlorophyll a, indicating a higher proportion of heterotrophs in the epiphyte layer. In one lake, one phenotype of Elodea nuttallii exhibited a significant higher C:chl a ratio than other macrophytes. Allelopathy as a factor responsible for this difference is discussed.