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1 – 10 of over 8000This chapter provides insights into young peoples’ perceptions of intercultural relationships. Intercultural relationships consist of partners with different racial, ethnic or…
Abstract
This chapter provides insights into young peoples’ perceptions of intercultural relationships. Intercultural relationships consist of partners with different racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds. Increasing migration rates, multicultural societies and supportive societal attitudes have created more opportunities for intercultural relationships to form. These factors have contributed to the growing rates of intercultural couples in Australia. It is important to note that some intercultural partners face social barriers that are less common among non-intercultural partners. Young people are of particular interest since intercultural relationship rates are higher in younger generations and education settings are becoming more multicultural. Nonetheless, the complexities of contemporary intercultural relationships and how they may render young people vulnerable has been often overlooked. This chapter is based on a case study that responds to an overarching question: How do young people perceive intercultural relationships? The study involved semi-structured interviews with eight participants between 20 and 26 years of age. The participants had diverse backgrounds and lived in Melbourne. The findings reveal perceptions of significance and acceptance of intercultural relationships. Also revealed are perceptions of social factors that perpetuate vulnerability relating to intercultural relationships in terms of stereotyping, racism and people’s reactions more generally.
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Bolanle Oyindamola Adebayo and Hannah M. Sunderman
To maximize the benefits of intercultural mentoring relationships, which are increasing in today’s diverse higher education environment, the current article conceptualizes the…
Abstract
Purpose
To maximize the benefits of intercultural mentoring relationships, which are increasing in today’s diverse higher education environment, the current article conceptualizes the connection between intercultural mentoring and cultural competence among mentors and mentees as a learning process.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual paper discusses the nuanced aspects of intercultural mentoring. Ultimately, the current article presents a framework for a bidirectional relationship between intercultural mentoring and cultural competence through experiential learning theory and intergroup contact theory, resulting in implications for practitioners and actionable research directions.
Findings
The article highlights the interplay and interdependence of cultural competence and intercultural mentoring through experiential learning and intergroup contact theory. Cultural competence influences the quality of intercultural mentoring relationships. Conversely, intercultural mentoring relationships can develop cultural competence in mentors and mentees through experiential learning, producing positive intergroup contact behaviors. Findings suggest the need for active learning and unlearning among mentors and mentees in intercultural mentoring relationships to maximize developmental outcomes (e.g. cultural competence).
Originality/value
The proposed framework emphasizes that (1) the possession of cultural competence is a critical success factor for intercultural mentoring relationships, (2) the development of cultural competence is an outcome of successful intercultural mentoring relationships, and (3) intercultural mentoring relationships should be regarded as experiential learning platforms that can produce positive intercultural traits such as cultural competence.
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Donal Rogan, Gillian Hopkinson and Maria Piacentini
This paper aims to adopt a relational dialectics analysis approach to provide qualitative depth and insight into the ways intercultural families manage intercultural tensions…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to adopt a relational dialectics analysis approach to provide qualitative depth and insight into the ways intercultural families manage intercultural tensions around consumption. The authors pay particular attention to how a relational dialectics analysis reveals a relational change in the family providing evidence to demonstrate how a family’s unique relational culture evolves and transitions.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative insights from a relational-dialectic analysis on 15 intercultural families are used to illustrate the interplay of stability with instability in the management of intercultural dialectic tensions within these families.
Findings
Intercultural dialectical interplay around food consumption tensions are implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Examples of dialectical movement indicating relational change are illustrated; this change has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides qualitative insights on relational dialectics in one intercultural family context and reveals and analyses the dialectical dimensions around consumption in the context of intercultural family relationships. The research approach could be considered in other intercultural and relational contexts.
Practical implications
Family narratives can be analysed within the context of two meta-dialectics that directly address how personal relationships evolve; indigenous dialectic tensions within a family can also be identified.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates the qualitative value of a relational dialectics analysis in revealing how food consumption changes within families are the result of reciprocal or interdependent learning, which has consequences for relational change.
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Jonna Koponen, Saara Julkunen, Mika Gabrielsson and Ellen Bolman Pullins
The purpose of this paper is to explore how business-to-business (B2B), intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationships develop using the lens of identity…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how business-to-business (B2B), intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationships develop using the lens of identity management theory (IMT; Imahori and Cupach, 2005).
Design/methodology/approach
The research uses qualitative semi-structured interviews on 18 targeted relationships with customers from another culture conducted with business-to-business salespeople.
Findings
The findings indicate that our respondents' relationships moved from trial toward enmeshment and on occasion toward the renegotiation phase, as described in IMT. In the case of low cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships reached the trial and enmeshment phase. In the case of high cultural diversity between salesperson and customer, the relationships on occasion evolved toward the renegotiation phase. Salespeople's cultural intelligence (CQ) facilitates the development of interpersonal, intercultural salesperson–customer relationships.
Originality/value
The authors transfer IMT from the personal relationship development arena to B2B intercultural, interpersonal relationships, address a gap in the literature in the understanding of salesperson–customer interpersonal relationships in different contexts and develop a theoretical model to understand intercultural, interpersonal salesperson–customer relationship development across different levels of cultural diversity.
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Donal Rogan, Maria Piacentini and Gill Hopkinson
Recent global migration trends have led to an increased prevalence, and new patterning, of intercultural family configurations. This paper is about intercultural couples and how…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent global migration trends have led to an increased prevalence, and new patterning, of intercultural family configurations. This paper is about intercultural couples and how they manage tensions associated with change as they settle in their new cultural context. The focus is specifically on the role food plays in navigating these tensions and the effects on the couples’ relational cultures.
Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative relational–dialectic approach is taken for studying Polish–Irish intercultural couples. Engagement with relevant communities provided multiple points of access to informants.
Findings
Intercultural tensions arise as the couples jointly transition, and food consumption represents implicit tensions in the household’s relational culture. Such tensions are sometimes resolved, but sometimes not, leading to enduring tensions. Dialectical movement causes change, which has developmental consequences for the couples’ relational cultures.
Research limitations/implications
This study shows how the ways that tensions are addressed are fundamental to the formation of a relational family identity.
Practical implications
Recommendations emphasise the importance of understanding how the family relational culture develops in the creation of family food practices. Marketers can look at the ways of supporting the intercultural couple retain tradition, while smoothly navigating their new cultural context. Social policy analysts may reflect on the ways that the couples develop an intercultural identity rooted in each other’s culture, and the range of strategies to demonstrate they can synthesise and successfully negotiate the challenges they face.
Originality/value
Dealing simultaneously and separately with a variety of dialectical oppositions around food, intercultural couples weave together elements from each other’s cultures and simultaneously facilitate both relational and social change. Within the relationship, stability–change dialectic is experienced and negotiated, while at the relationship’s nexus with the couple’s social ecology, negotiating conventionality–uniqueness dialectic enables them reproduce or depart from societal conventions, and thus facilitate social change.
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Marian van Bakel, Vlad Vaiman, Charles M. Vance and Arno Haslberger
To enlarge the focus on international mentoring beyond traditional company-assigned expatriates, this conceptual paper examines important contexts and dynamics of intercultural…
Abstract
Purpose
To enlarge the focus on international mentoring beyond traditional company-assigned expatriates, this conceptual paper examines important contexts and dynamics of intercultural mentoring involving traditional expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs), with both as mentors and mentees.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper explores how intercultural mentoring in different contexts can guide the individual professional development of expatriates and HCNs, and in doing so, contributes to MNC knowledge management and organization development.
Findings
Major contributions of this paper include increased attention to the role of culture in mentoring, and an illumination of important intercultural mentoring opportunities and imperatives involving traditional company-assigned expatriates and HCNs, who are key global talent players in MNC knowledge management and overall operations performance. This paper also provides practical recommendations on how organizations can facilitate mentoring within a global context, as well as suggestions for viable avenues for future research, including further extending the global talent reach of international mentoring.
Originality/value
This paper emphasizes the importance of taking the intercultural context into account when planning and managing mentoring in MNCs and outlines how culture can affect mentoring relationships involving traditional company-assigned expatriates and HCNs. This contextual aspect has often been neglected in the extant literature, yet can be crucial for the success of mentoring relationships that cross cultural borders. With its inclusion of HCNs, this paper also expands the picture of international mentoring beyond the traditional focus on company-assigned expatriates.
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Allan Bird, Mark Mendenhall, Michael J. Stevens and Gary Oddou
Research on expatriation and global leadership has been characterized by wide variations in defining what constitutes intercultural competence. Greater progress can be achieved if…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on expatriation and global leadership has been characterized by wide variations in defining what constitutes intercultural competence. Greater progress can be achieved if a comprehensive definition of the intercultural competence domain can be established, particularly with regard to the specific context of global leadership. This paper aims to focus on the issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct an extensive review of the global leadership and expatriation literatures, integrating and synthesizing prior theoretical and empirical efforts to develop a comprehensive domain definition for intercultural competence in the context of global leadership.
Findings
The domain of intercultural competence in the context of global leadership comprised three dimensions – perception management, relationship management and self management. Each dimension is characterized by facets that further delineate aspects of intercultural competence.
Research limitations/implications
The domain definition of intercultural competence for global leadership appears to be well supported in prior theoretical and empirical work focusing on expatriation and global leadership; however that work was fragmented in nature. A test of the comprehensive model, i.e. all three dimensions and 17 facets, is called for, as well as the validation of an instrument that measures them.
Originality/value
The paper integrates and synthesizes the extensive body of theoretical and empirical work related to intercultural competence and clearly establishes the content domain, thereby enhancing the efficacy of future theoretical and empirical efforts.
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Michael Stevens, Allan Bird, Mark E. Mendenhall and Gary Oddou
Based on a review of multiple literatures, a comprehensive content domain of essential intercultural competencies for effective global leaders is presented. This domain is then…
Abstract
Based on a review of multiple literatures, a comprehensive content domain of essential intercultural competencies for effective global leaders is presented. This domain is then used to guide the development of the Global Competencies Inventory (GCI), a 160-item self-report measure that assesses the degree to which individuals possess the intercultural competencies that are associated with global leader effectiveness. Using sample sizes ranging from several hundred to nearly 9,000 subjects, evidence from several studies is presented showing the GCI to have convergent validity, predictive validity, and freedom from demographic and ethnic subgroup biases. Implications for theory and future research are also discussed.
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