Predicting task performance and helping in multicultural teams : a skill-activation model of intercultural perspective taking.

• Main Author: Rockstuhl, Thomas.
• Other Authors: Ang Soon
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business::Management::Organizational behavior
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51312
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In light of the continuing globalization of the workplace, the current study furthers our understanding of perspective taking in intercultural contexts and addresses two questions raised by Parker, Atkins, and Axtell (2008) about previous perspective taking research in organizational contexts. These questions concern a lack of understanding about a) the effects of perspective-taking skill, and b) contextual moderators of the relationships between perspective taking and outcomes. To this end, I integrated role-taking theory (Katz & Kahn, 1978) with the notion of skill activation to delineate a theoretical model of intercultural perspective-taking skill in multicultural teams. This model takes into account the effect of team members’ intercultural perspective-taking skill on task performance and helping. The model also specifies team cultural diversity as an important moderator of these effects. I tested this model using field data (members working in multicultural teams) from multiple sources (self-reported, performance-based, and peer-reported), and at multiple points in time (in a three-month team project). In Study 1, findings from a sample of 132 international students indicated that intercultural perspective-taking skill was positively related to both task performance and helping. Consistent with my skill activation arguments, the positive effect of intercultural perspective-taking skill on task performance strengthened as (deep-level) team cultural diversity increased. Similarly, the positive effect of intercultural perspective-taking skill on helping strengthened as (surface-level) team cultural diversity increased. In Study 2, I replicated this moderation effect in a sample of 188 working adults and extended the findings from Study 1. In particular, I showed that intercultural perspective-taking skill predicted task performance and helping beyond a wide range of other predictors such as sex, job experience, international experience, language competence, cognitive ability, Big Five personality traits, intercultural empathic concern, and intercultural perspective-taking tendency. These results speak to the robustness and importance of intercultural perspective-taking skill to effective functioning in multicultural teams. They also suggest that in addition to one’s motivation to take another’s perspective, one’s proficiency in doing so impacts intercultural effectiveness significantly. Together, these findings suggest that intercultural perspective-taking skill contributes greatly to effective functioning in intercultural contexts, and that the importance of this skill becomes more pronounced as cultural diversity in the context increases. I discuss the implications of these findings for future research and practice.