Do multicultural faculty members perform well in higher educational institutions? Examining the roles of psychological diversity climate, HRM practices and personality traits (Big Five)

Abstract

Purpose

Globalization has brought many challenges to organizations, namely, in managing the performance of multicultural workforces to achieve organizational objectives. Past researchers have highlighted many factors that influence the employee’s performance, but the nature and scope of these factors is limited to the conventional setting. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop a comprehensive framework to better understand the role of the psychological diversity climate, HRM practices and personality traits (Big Five) in job satisfaction and performance of the multicultural workforce.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected from 258 faculty members working in Saudi Arabia’s higher educational sector. Structural equation modeling was used with Amos 18 to analyze the data.

Findings

The findings of this study suggest that managers should adopt diversity practices to improve the psychological diversity climate among multicultural workforce. In addition, diversity training and unbiased performance appraisal systems also increase the faculty member’s job satisfaction and performance in multicultural settings. Finally, managers should consider openness to culture and sociability traits while selecting faculty members to work in multicultural settings.

Originality/value

This framework has never been tested in higher educational institutions and in multicultural setting.

Citation

Bhatti, M.A., Alshagawi, M., Zakariya, A. and Juhari, A.S. (2019), "Do multicultural faculty members perform well in higher educational institutions? Examining the roles of psychological diversity climate, HRM practices and personality traits (Big Five)", European Journal of Training and Development, Vol. 43 No. 1/2, pp. 166-187. https://doi.org/10.1108/EJTD-08-2018-0081