Socio‐biographical Antecedents of Intercultural Effectiveness: The Neglected Factors¹

Abstract

Behavioural, attitudinal, cognitive and personality traits factors have been recognized as the main determinants of intercultural effectiveness. This paper argues for the need to recognize the plausibility that expatriates having similar behavioural, attitudinal, cognitive and traits characteristics may vary significantly in their intercultural effectiveness. This is because some expatriates may be effective or ineffective by chance or birth (ascribed rather than achieved). Therefore expatriates' 'socio-biographical' background, such as hisher ethnicity, age, nationality, educational qualification, profession (role) and religion, is noted as among the most significant factors that can impact on intercultural effectiveness. It is argued that these variables deserve serious attention given the diversity of expatriates from different national and ethnic backgrounds.

What do managers look for in candidates for international assignments?

“…Accordingly, an assignee needs to possess a complex amalgamation of technical, social, organizational, and cultural knowledge and skills (Ghoshal & Bartlett, ). Specifically, these include biological characteristics (Mamman, ; Tung, ), family situation (Harvey, ), job performance (Caligiuri, ), technical expertise (Mendenhall, Dunbar, & Oddou, ), completion of previous foreign assignments (Shaffer & Harrison, ), personality traits (Black, ; Caligiuri, ; Mol, Born, Willemsen, & Van Der Molen, ), and cross‐cultural competencies such as cultural adjustment (McEvoy & Parker, ), cultural flexibility (Shaffer, Harrison, Gregersen, Black, & Ferzandi, ), and cultural intelligence (Earley & Ang, ).…”

Menningaraðlögun erlends vinnuafls frá Póllandi: Ísland sem áfangastaður

“…Grunnviðmiðin eru baeði heimaland innflytjendanna (pólitískt umhverfi, efnahagur og lýðfraeðilegir þaettir) og gistiland þeirra (viðhorf, hugmyndafraeði, félagslegur stuðningur, þjóðfélagið í heild og minnihlutahópar). Persónueinkenni innflytjenda gegna veigamiklu hlutverki í aðlögunarferlinu; þar er til daemis um að raeða: aldur, kyn, menntunarstig, ástaeður fyrir brottför frá heimalandinu, fyrri reynsla af innflytjendum til annarra landa, menningarmunur milli gistilands og heimalands, viðhorf íbúa gistilands til innflytjenda, og atburðarás í báðum löndum (Ebrahim, 1992;Mamman, 1995;Zlobina, 2006). Niehoff og Maciocha (2008) fundu að tungumálafaerni og aldur hafa mest áhrif á árangur innflytjenda í menningaraðlögun.…”

“…Niehoff (2008) komst að því að eldri innflytjendur náðu betri árangri í aðlögun en þeir sem yngri voru. Á hinn bóginn sýndu aðrar rannsóknir fram á að yngri innflytjendur naeðu betri árangri en þeir sem voru eldri (Ebrahim, 1992;Mamman, 1995).…”

Cross‐cultural effectiveness of Western expatriate‐Thai client interactions: lessons learned for IHRM research and theory

“…According to Mamman (1995Mamman ( , 1996a, socio-biographical characteristics influence intercultural communication and the intercultural effectiveness of expatriates. The phenomenal fields of the sender and receiver are distinct and reflect their knowledge of, and attitudes and cultural orientation toward, the role of cultural factors in their communication process (Haworth and Savage, 1995) The socio-biographical characteristics proposed in the literature as influencing expatriate effectiveness are: (a) cultural setting (culture toughness, ethnocentrism, homogeneity-heterogeneity); (b) age; (c) gender; (d) ethnicity/nationality (ethnic background, stereotype, prejudice, and self perception); (e) religion; (f) linguistic ability; (g) education; (h) intercultural experience; and (i) role (expected role, enacted role, role status, role in terms of economic and social benefit).…”

“…To date, however, these groupings have not been assessed empirically. The need to consider the role of individual socio-biographical characteristics in studies of expatriate effectiveness is, however, well grounded in the intercultural literature (with the exception of the role variable) (Mamman, 1996a(Mamman, , 1996b) (See Table 1). Mamman (1996b) has grouped further these characteristics into primary, secondary, and mediating variables influencing the interaction adjustment of diverse employees.…”