۱- Introduction

۲- Study 1

۳- Study 2

۴- Discussion

References

Abstract

We propose three features of cross-cultural experiences, contextual novelty, project meaningfulness and social support, facilitate the development of cross-cultural competencies. Using a longitudinal design, the employees in Study 1 participated in an international corporate volunteerism program designed with all three features. These results found a positive change over time in cross-cultural competencies. Results of Study 2, also longitudinal, suggest that the participants’ post-assignment cross-cultural competencies are the highest: (1) when employees with higher baseline cross-cultural competencies work in high contextual novelty (i.e., international location) and (2) when employees with lower baseline cross-cultural competencies work in low contextual novelty (i.e., domestic location).

Introduction

Understanding how cross-cultural competencies can be developed is an important issue for organizations – and has been an important issue since the era of globalization began in the 1990s (Bird & Mendenhall, 2016). For nearly 30 years, companies have flagged the need for more leaders who could “thrive in a world that reflected this new reality of real-time, multiple spanning of technological, financial, cultural, organizational, stakeholder, and political boundaries” (Bird & Mendenhall, 2016, p. 4). The lack of culturally competent professionals continues to negatively affect the competitiveness and growth of multinational corporations (MNCs); roughly 30% of US-based companies have been unable to exploit global business opportunities due to lack if global capabilities of leaders (Ghemawat, 2012) and one-third of global CEOs reported canceling global strategic initiatives due to talent-related concerns including the need for agile leaders (PWC, 2012). Like CEOs, Human Resource (HR) managers recognize this need to develop leaders’ cross-cultural competencies. When surveyed, over 700 global chief human resource officers (CHROs) named this as their most important HR deliverable for their MNCs’ future global competitiveness, stating that HR’s “…ability to identify, develop and empower effective, agile leaders is a critical imperative for CHROs…” (IBM Corporation, 2010, p. 4). It is not only the senior organizational leaders who recognize the need for cross-cultural competencies; professionals, irrespective of nationality, recognize the same deficit in themselves. When over 13,000 professionals from 48 countries in 32 industries selfrated their effectiveness on twelve managerial tasks, the three tasks with the lowest ratings were the only three on the list with an intercultural component (i.e., integrating oneself into foreign environments, intercultural communication, and leading across countries and cultures; DDI and The Conference Board, 2015). Similarly, the Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed business leaders from 68 countries and found that 90% of them reported that “cross-cultural management” is their top challenge when working across borders.