Employee intercultural effectiveness in a multicultural workplace: theoretical propositions,strategies and direction for future research

This paper attempts to identify some of the key factors that can impinge on employee intercultural effectiveness in a multicultural workplace. Behavioural, attitudinal, cognitive and personality factors have been recognized as the main psychological factors that can impinge on intercultural effectiveness. Because intercultural effectiveness can be influenced by employee's sociobiological background, employee's ethnicity, age, country of origin, educational/professional attainment and religion are noted as among the factors that can impinge on intercultural effectiveness as well. In addition to these factors, employees' intercultural effectiveness is argued to be influenced by prior experience and organizational factors such as structure, systems, policies. Given the significance of sociobiological background, strategies for managing this background have been presented. Finally, the paper offers direction for future research.