Title: Culture shock in the post COVID-19 era: toward a new normal academic life

Authors: Walter Vesperi; Navneet Gera; Concetta Lucia Cristofaro; Marzia Ventura

Addresses: Department of Cultures and Societies, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy ' Bharati Vidyapeeth Institute of Management and Research, A-4, Rohtak Rd., Paschim Vihar, New Delhi, Delhi 110063, India ' Faculty of Management, E-campus University, Via Isimbardi 10, 22060 Novedrate, Italy ' Department of Law, Management and Sociology, Magna-Græcia University of Catanzaro, Campus 'S. Ventura', Catanzaro, Italy

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound consequences on the behaviour and habits of people in organisations. The objective of this study is to analyse the level of culture shock (CS) that university students have manifested after the period of distance learning (DL) and their physical return to university facilities. The Mumford (1998) questionnaire for the measurement of culture shock (CSQ) was implemented. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected from 341 questionnaires. The survey sample consists of university students from five different Italian universities. The study offers an innovative application to CSQ questionnaire (1998). Results show that university students suffer from culture shock when they return to university facilities after distance learning. Women with an average age above 30, in large universities, is the category most affected by culture shock. The results can help universities introduce actions to aid students' psychological and emotional well-being.

Keywords: culture shock; CS; university student; COVID-19; questionnaire CSQ; academic culture; human resource development; HRD.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2024.140263

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2024 Vol.36 No.2, pp.229 - 245

Received: 24 Mar 2023
Accepted: 05 Jun 2023
Published online: 01 Aug 2024 *

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