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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.

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.

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.

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

In this paper, the authors argue that multicultural skills and relational leadership act as enablers for open innovation, and thereby examine the process through which teams can utilize multicultural skills to support the development of relational leadership and knowledge sourcing and sharing (KSS) through individual interaction and relationship building. The authors address the following research question: How does relational leadership enable open innovation (OI) among employees with multicultural skills?

This paper applies a multi-level approach (team and individual level) and builds on interviews with 20 employees, middle and senior managers with multicultural experiences, working in open innovation environments.

The authors’ findings shed light on the process through which social exchange relationships among team members (e.g. R&D teams) and knowledge exchange partners are enhanced by the use of multicultural skills and support the development of relational leadership to facilitate KSS and ultimately OI. The decision for participants to collaborate and source and share knowledge is motivated by individual reward (such as establishing network or long-lasting contacts), skill acquisition (such as learning or personal growth in decision-making) and a sense of reciprocity and drive for group gain. The authors encourage greater human resource (HR) manager support for relational leadership and the development and use of multicultural skills to promote KSS.

Despite the value of our findings, this paper is not without limitations. The authors explained that the focus of this study design was on the work activities of the participants and their skill development and not specific projects or organizations. It was outside the scope of this study to examine variations across organizations and individuals as the authors wanted to focus on multicultural skills and relational leadership as enablers for OI. The authors recommend that future studies extend our research by unpacking how various boundary conditions including relational leadership and multicultural skills impact KSS and OI over the life cycle of innovation teams within large multinational organizations, across countries and ethnicities.

The study’s findings provide managers with improved understandings of how to enable an individual's willingness and readiness to source and share knowledge through multicultural skills and relational leadership. Managers need to ensure that human resource management (HRM) practices celebrate multicultural skills and support relational leadership in innovation teams. The authors suggest managers engaged in OI consider the components of social exchange as described by Meeker (1971) and utilize reciprocity, group gain, rationality and status consistency to support the emergence relational leadership and KSS in innovation teams.

In this paper, the authors contribute to the dearth of literature on the boundary conditions for OI by examining the role of relational leadership and characteristics/skills of the workforce, namely multicultural skills and contribute to the scarce research on the role of employees with multicultural skills and their impact on OI and present multicultural skills/experiences and relational leadership as enablers for OI.

This paper aims to investigate supervisor‐subordinates relations in a multicultural organisation and establish relationships between the background of employees and leader‐member (LMX) exchanges.

A large‐scale survey was designed and distributed to 300 employees of the national university in the United Arab Emirates. Quantitative data analysis using regression was conducted on SPSS.

The quality of exchanges and relations between supervisors and subordinates is related to the work experience of employees. Leadership should be top‐down and emphasise charisma to win employees' admiration and increase satisfaction. Commitment to the organisation is related to the quality of supervisor‐subordinate relations.

The research does not analyse supervisor‐subordinate dyads across multidisciplinary boundaries. All dyads work within the same discipline.

In a multicultural organisation, transformational leadership in supervisor‐subordinates demonstrates care for the personal relationships with a diverse group of people that in turn builds better leader‐member exchanges, trust and organisational commitment.

The study contributes to the understanding of how employees in a multicultural organisation perceive leadership and relations with supervisors.

The purpose of this paper is to show how individuals perceive the quality of intercultural interactions at work in multinational subsidiaries and to address the question of what actually prevails in their accounts, i.e., “the dark side” or “the bright side.”

The authors report the findings from five subsidiaries located in Poland and interviews with 68 employees of these companies.

The “bright side” dominated the interviewees’ accounts. The phenomenon of high social identity complexity or common in-group identity can help explain the findings. The results also shed some new light on the associations between the context of subsidiaries and the perception of the quality of intercultural interactions.

The paper contributes to the literature on cultural diversity and intercultural interactions in multinational subsidiaries. As the “bright side” of interactions was emphasized in the interviews, it particularly supports positive cross-cultural scholarship studies. Yet the explorative research does not allow for a broader generalization of the results.

Managers of multinational corporations (MNCs) should do the following: shape the context of MNCs to influence the dynamics of intercultural interactions and the way they are seen by their employees; emphasize common in-group identity to help their employees to adopt more favorable attitudes toward intercultural interactions; look for individuals with multicultural identity who display more positive approaches to intercultural contacts; place emphasis on recruiting individuals fluent in the MNC’s functional language; offer language training for the staff; and recruit employees with significant needs for development who will perceive more opportunities in intercultural contacts.

The research demonstrates that the multicultural workplace of MNCs may be recognized by employees as activating the positive potential of the individuals and organizations that make up a society.

The accounts of intercultural interactions are analyzed to illuminate some significant foundations of how individuals perceive such interactions. The study provides a qualitative lens and highlights the positive approach to intercultural interactions. It may redress the imbalance in prior research and satisfy the need for positive cross-cultural scholarship.

The negative cultural bias vis-à-vis international business and cross-cultural management has been duly acknowledged, necessitating recommendations towards investigating its positive effects. Methodologically, quantitative research clearly predominates, and there have been calls for alternative approaches. Thus, this conceptual paper addresses the research gap (methodological and thematic) by investigating if multicultural teams can be an essential part of the global workforce and whether positive effects exist regarding dynamic capabilities, learning and knowledge transfer.

The underlying ethnographic research design enabled exploring within the embedded single case study from an emic perspective, including qualitative observation and semi-structured expert interviews, and provided detailed insights into the company’s multicultural work environment.

The results reveal that applying a qualitative design allowed the needed exploration and show that multicultural, geographically dispersed teams are positively experienced and considered necessary in today’s globalised world. They are likely to increase in the future. Moreover, dynamic capabilities (multicultural competencies) are indispensable for multicultural teamwork. Regarding learning opportunities, different viewpoints for discussion and the ability to reflect on these offer valuable insights. In line with theory, multiculturality is considered a “two-edged sword”, providing simultaneous benefits and challenges. Contrary to the theory, even highly important information transfers can occur virtually, although occasional physical contact is essential for trust building.

The multinational family business offers a unique example of a positive relationship between multiculturalism and organisational excellence and demonstrates how the application of a qualitative methodology can support theory building by delivering a revised model of dynamic capabilities in multicultural environments with geographical dispersion.

In response to the somewhat paradoxical combination of increasing diversity in the global workforce and the resurgence of nationalism in an era of global mobility, the purpose of this paper is to uncover how employees on international assignments respond to exposure to new cultures. Specifically, the paper aims to explicate the underlying psychological mechanisms linking expatriates’ monocultural, multicultural, global and cosmopolitan identity negotiation strategies with their responses toward the host culture by drawing upon exclusionary and integrative reactions theory in cross-cultural psychology.

This conceptual paper draws on the perspective of exclusionary vs integrative reactions toward foreign cultures – a perspective rooted in cross-cultural psychology research – to categorize expatriates’ responses toward the host culture. More specifically, the study elaborates how two primary activators of expatriates’ responses toward the host culture – the salience of home-culture identity and a cultural learning mindset – explain the relationship between cultural identity negotiation strategies and expatriates’ exclusionary and integrative responses, providing specific propositions on how each type of cultural identity negotiation strategy is expected to be associated with expatriates’ exclusionary and integrative responses toward the host culture.

The present study proposes that expatriates’ adoption of a monocultural identity negotiation strategy is positively associated with exclusionary responses toward the host culture and it is negatively associated with integrative responses toward the host culture; expatriates’ adoption of a multicultural identity negotiation strategy is positively associated with both exclusionary responses and integrative responses toward the host culture; expatriates’ adoption of a global identity negotiation strategy is negatively associated with exclusionary responses toward the host culture; and expatriates’ adoption of a cosmopolitan identity negotiation strategy is negatively associated with exclusionary responses, and positively associated with integrative responses toward the host culture. The following metaphors for these different types of cultural identity negotiation strategies are introduced: “ostrich” (monocultural strategy), “frog” (multicultural strategy), “bird” (global strategy) and “lizard” (cosmopolitan strategy).

The proposed dynamic framework of cultural identity negotiation strategies illustrates the sophisticated nature of expatriates’ responses to new cultures. This paper also emphasizes that cross-cultural training tempering expatriates’ exclusionary reactions and encouraging integrative reactions is crucial for more effective expatriation in a multicultural work environment.

This paper identifies the key relationships of organizational effectiveness and leadership in southeast Asia. Managers from 1,065 multinational companies based in Thailand and representing 31 different nationalities participated in this study. International leader characteristics and organizational culture are found to determine an appropriate multicultural management style. Executive motivation is strongly influenced by this multicultural management style. Different dimensions of organizational effectiveness, including return on assets, most admired, job satisfaction and personal satisfaction are related to specific aspects of leader characteristics, organizational culture and multicultural management style.

In response to the somewhat paradoxical combination of increasing diversity in the global workforce and the resurgence of nationalism in an era of global mobility, this chapter aims to uncover how employees on international assignments respond to exposure to new cultures. Specifically, the study aims to explicate the underlying psychological mechanisms linking expatriates' monocultural, multicultural, global, and cosmopolitan identity negotiation strategies with their responses toward the host culture by drawing upon exclusionary and integrative reactions theory in cross-cultural psychology. This conceptual chapter draws on the perspective of exclusionary versus integrative reactions toward foreign cultures – a perspective rooted in cross-cultural psychology research – to categorize expatriates' responses toward the host culture. More specifically, the study elaborates how two primary activators of expatriates' responses toward the host culture – the salience of home-culture identity and a cultural learning mindset – explain the relationship between cultural identity negotiation strategies and expatriates' exclusionary and integrative responses. The following metaphors for these different types of cultural identity negotiation strategies are introduced: “ostrich” (monocultural strategy), “frog” (multicultural strategy), “bird” (global strategy), and “lizard” (cosmopolitan strategy). The proposed dynamic framework of cultural identity negotiation strategies illustrates the sophisticated nature of expatriates' responses to new cultures. This chapter also emphasizes that cross-cultural training tempering expatriates' exclusionary reactions and encouraging integrative reactions is crucial for more effective expatriation in a multicultural work environment.

This paper aims to examine the impact of religiosity and spirituality on employee performance in multi‐cultural and multi‐religious organisations.

This study adopted Religiosity Personality Index (MRPI) by Azimi et al., Spirituality Involvement and Beliefs Scale (SIBS) by Hatch et al., and Performance Measures by Sarmiento et al. The performance data was collected from employees, peers, and supervisors. The study administered and received all the 435 completed sets of questionnaires (435 employees, 870 peers, and 435 supervisors).

SEM analysis showed that religiosity and spirituality have a significant positive relationship with employees’ performance. Better spiritual condition improves performance. Religion functions as a moderating variable in employees’ job performance.

This study has extended the knowledge of spirituality in the workplace by confirming that spirituality is more significant than religiosity in influencing employees’ performance. Religion, however, moderates spirituality‐performance relationship.

Based on the empirical findings of this study, organizations may formulate new policies and strategies for improving employee performance by allowing and encouraging spiritual activities in the workplace irrespective of religious and spiritual beliefs, thereby facilitating understanding and mutual respect. A culture of respect for diversity of beliefs and faiths should be cultivated in the workplace by enforcing appropriate codes of conduct as well as instilling values of tolerance, respect and compassion, which would result in more productive teamwork and improved performance.

This is the only study that measured the impact of religiosity and spirituality on employees’ performance using three different sources of data: employees, peers, and supervisors.

This study examines employees' metacognitive cultural intelligence as a moderator in the relationship between leader-member exchange (LMX) and employees' subjective well-being.

We tested the conceptual model using regression analysis from a sample of 462 migrant workers in Australia.

The results demonstrated that employees' metacognitive cultural intelligence moderated the relationship between LMX and employees' subjective well-being in such a way that the effect was stronger among those employees with lower levels of metacognitive cultural intelligence.

The cross-sectional design, with self-reporting at one point in time, could affect a causal relationship among variables, although each relationship was built on strong theoretical perspectives. However, prior research emphasizes that a single source is not considered to be an issue when interactions are examined.

One way to improve metacognitive cultural intelligence for global leadership effectiveness could be through the introduction of diversity and cross-cultural training, such as didactic programs provided either in-house or by external institutions.

Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory, this paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating that employees' metacognitive cultural intelligence is a boundary condition that alters the strengths of the LMX–subjective well-being relationship.