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NICE aims to discuss and highlight the challenges and opportunities faced by the Australian service sector within the context of growing numbers of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) customers and employees as Australian society becomes more multicultural.

We engage with multicultural communities and organisations to explore and understand the capabilities and level of readiness of service ecosystems to engage with persons from CaLD backgrounds and navigate through intercultural experiences in a more effective manner.

Our activities include seminars, workshops, special sessions, publications and special issues, social media campaigns, industry and community engagement, student internships, research projects, and curricula development, among others.

Inter -Cultural Experiences Symposium

Navigating Intercultural Experiences [NICE] Symposium: Challenges & Opportunities in providing services to persons from CaLD backgrounds

This symposium was held on the Curtin Bentley campus [18 November, 2021] to outline the challenges and opportunities faced by service businesses in Western Australia, with growing cultural diversity among their key stakeholders, including customers, employees, suppliers etc. Delegates from industry, academia and multicultural community groups were in attendance to discuss and better understand the various issues related to providing services to multi-cultural communities in Western Australia.

The event commenced with a keynote from Dr Rateb Jneid, President of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils (AFIC) who highlighted a new agenda for the future relationship between Islamic and non-Islamic communities in Australia. This was followed by presentations and discussion by our industry partners representing a broad spectrum of community-based organisations.

  • Navigating Inter-Cultural Experiences in Australian Community Services Ecosystem: An Introduction (Zahra Daneshfar, School of Management and Marketing, Curtin University, Bentley, WA).
  • Dealing with challenges facing people from CaLD backgrounds in the mental health sector: An NGO perspective (Adrian Munro, CEO, Richmond Wellbeing, Perth, WA).
  • Exploring the challenges and opportunities for the new migrants into Western Australia (Stuart Tomlinson, CEO, Multicultural Futures, Fremantle, WA).
  • Challenges facing a multicultural aging population (Henrietta Podgorska, Communications and Community Engagement Manager, Umbrella Multicultural Community Care, Perth, WA).
  • Engaging multicultural communities in swimming and water safety programming (Meg Abercromby, Health Promotion, Research and Evaluation Officer and Lauren Nimmo, Senior Manager – Health, Research and Communications, Royal Life Saving WA).
  • Understanding the policy framework for navigating intercultural service experiences (Dr Rita Afsar, Research Fellow (Honorary), University of Western Australia, Perth, WA).

Major Publications

  1. Lee, Liane W.Y., Sharma, P. & Barnes, B.R. (2022), “Adopting big data to create an “outside-in” global perspective of guanxi”, Journal of Business Research. 139(February), 614-628.
  2. Kingshott, R.P.J., Chung, H., Putranta, M.P., Sharma, P., & Sima, H. (2021). Religiousity and psychological contracts in Asian B2B service relationships. Industrial Marketing Management. 98(October), 138-148.
  3. Kingshott, R.P.J., Sharma, P., Sima, H., & Wong, D. (2020). The impact of psychological contract breaches within East-West buyer-supplier relationships. Industrial Marketing Management. 89(August), 220-231.
  4. Sharma, P., Leung, Y.K., Kingshott, R.P.J., Davcik, N. & Cardinali, S. (2020). Managing uncertainty during a global pandemic: An international business perspective. Journal of Business Research. 116(August), 188-192.
  5. Ho, M.H.W., Chung, H. Kingshott, R.P.J. & Chiu, C.C. (2020). Customer engagement, consumption and firm performance in a multi-actor service ecosystem: The moderating role of network coordination. Journal of Business Research. 121 (December), 557-566.
  6. Gaur, S., Kingshott, R.P.J., & Sharma, P., (2019). Managing customer relationships in emerging markets: Focal roles of relationship comfort and relationship proneness. Journal of Service Theory & Practice. 29(5/5), 592-609.
  7. Kingshott, R.P.J., Sharma, P., Hosie, P. & Davcik, N. (2019). Interactive impact of ethnic distance and cultural familiarity on the perceived effects of free trade agreements. Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 36(1), 1‐49.