Intercultural training: six measures assessing training needs

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop recommendations for measures assessing intercultural training needs for international human resource management. Based on scientific as well as application‐oriented criteria the aim is to select six measures assessing general intercultural competencies and with the help of behaviour ratings in interactive intercultural exercises to evaluate the psychometric quality and practicability of the questionnaires for training purposes.

Design/methodology/approach

Psychometric quality including prognostic power of ICSI, FLCS, NVCCS, ISAS, TIHK, and SIB was tested by correlating subjects' questionnaires results with observations of their actual behaviour in intercultural exercises.

Findings

Satisfying psychometric quality and prognostic validity of almost all measures was found. Especially TIHK, ICSI, and FLCS score well for assessing training needs whereas the results for SIB were problematic.

Research limitations/implications

The study observed student participants of the same culture. Replication studies should examine large samples of different cultural backgrounds and manager populations.

Practical implications

Human resource managers may benefit from gaining knowledge about which measures to use for identifying employee's weaknesses in intercultural competence in order to create tailor‐made training interventions.

Originality/value

The study is the first providing information about the psychometric quality, including predictive power, of six measures, that assess intercultural skills to detect intercultural training needs.

Citation

Graf, A. and Mertesacker, M. (2009), "Intercultural training: six measures assessing training needs", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 33 No. 6, pp. 539-558. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090590910974419