INTERCULTURAL EFFECTIVENESS AND PERSONALITY AS PREDICTORS OF PERFORMANCE IN MULTICULTURAL WORKERS

OF THE THESIS Intercultural Effectiveness and Personality as Predictors of Performance in Multicultural Workers by Stephanie Ann McGinty Master of Arts in Psychology San Diego State University, 2011 Globalization and a globalized workforce have become common topics in the popular media and organizational research. Multi-national corporations (MNCs) strive to “go global” in order to access new markets for revenue stream, low labor costs, and centers of technical expertise. In doing so, they often find a need to create collaborative teams that stretch across the globe. Domestic teams become more diverse as expertise from every corner of the world is "imported" to fill talent gaps. As multicultural work, both virtual and live, becomes more common, Intercultural Effectiveness the ability to work effectively with individuals from different cultures becomes increasingly important. Current research on intercultural effectiveness focuses mainly on expatriate populations, including individuals temporarily residing in a foreign country as students, missionaries, or corporate or government expatriates. Very little research investigates personality, intercultural effectiveness, and performance relationships in the context of multicultural workers. This field study hopes to contribute to the growing body of knowledge regarding intercultural effectiveness, with focus on relationships that are generalizable to multicultural (including transnational) workers. The relationships explored in this study are based on research that suggests that: (1) personality, biography, and demographic variables influence one's intercultural effectiveness; (2) intercultural effectiveness influences job performance; and (3) the relationship between intercultural effectiveness and job performance is moderated by job characteristics. Specifically, this study explored relationships between Big Five personality variables; intercultural effectiveness, as measured by cultural intelligence (CQ); and job performance. Task interdependence was explored as a potential moderator. Three hundred and sixty five employees identified as multicultural workers of an MNC (from several countries) were invited to participate in an online survey including CQ, Big Five personality dimensions, task interdependence, and demographic variables. The respondents were asked to provide their immediate supervisor's email address for participation. Supervisors were contacted to provide performance ratings and assess task interdependence for their employees, as well as demographic variables. The final sample included 152 participants and 25 supervisors, which resulted in 25 participant-supervisor dyads. Significant relationships were found between personality variables and CQ as well as between CQ and performance, particularly when observing relationships between subcomponents of CQ and performance subtypes (e.g., task and contextual performance). CQ did not significantly predict performance and task interdependence was not a significant moderator on its own in these relationships; however, a three-way interaction was observed