Publisher
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Place of Publication
Chattanooga (Tenn.)
Abstract
Interculturally sensitive individuals are more confident when it comes to intercultural interaction (Chen et al, 2000). For today’s globalized work force, intercultural interaction is common, making interculturally sensitive employees necessary. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of cross-cultural engagement on intercultural sensitivity, and to determine if monolingual and multilingual individuals have a greater increase in intercultural sensitivity. While many organizations understand the importance of having interculturally sensitive employees, there is not much information on how intercultural sensitivity is increased. Cross-cultural engagement can facilitate a positive view of an unknown culture (Marginean et al, 2019). Studies show that children growing up in multi- or bilingual homes are able to read referential cues, such as hand gestures, better and are more effective communicators (Yow et al, 2011). Participants in this study will be asked to participate from various global hospitality and education organizations located in the U.S., South Korea, and Thailand. An experimental design will be used to determine the relationship between cross-cultural engagement and Intercultural sensitivity and the relationship between monolingualism/multilingualism and intercultural sensitivity. Participants will be separated into two groups, monolingual and multilingual. Each group will be assigned a partner within the group with a different cultural background. Each participant will take a pretest of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS). The ISS consists of 24 items measured on a 5-point Likert scale. Partners will meet once a week to engage in a cross-cultural activity, and after six months, intercultural sensitivity will again be assessed using the ISS. A repeated measures ANOVA will be used to analyze the changes in the ISS scores pre and post activity, and a regression analysis will be performed to observe whether multilingualism predicts a greater increase in intercultural sensitivity. As the work force becomes more diverse and intercultural interaction becomes more prevalent, understanding ways for employees to become more interculturally sensitive becomes more important. This research will evaluate whether cross-cultural engagement can increase intercultural sensitivity and whether multilingual individuals will have an advantage in increasing intercultural sensitivity. In practice, if cross-cultural engagement has a positive effect on Intercultural sensitivity, managers can increase opportunities for employees to engage with individuals from different cultures so that their intercultural sensitivity will build up.
Date
10-16-2021
Subject
Industrial and organizational psychology
Document Type
posters
Language
English
Rights
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Included in
The effect of cross-cultural engagement on intercultural sensitivity levels in monolingual and multilingual individuals
Interculturally sensitive individuals are more confident when it comes to intercultural interaction (Chen et al, 2000). For today’s globalized work force, intercultural interaction is common, making interculturally sensitive employees necessary. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of cross-cultural engagement on intercultural sensitivity, and to determine if monolingual and multilingual individuals have a greater increase in intercultural sensitivity. While many organizations understand the importance of having interculturally sensitive employees, there is not much information on how intercultural sensitivity is increased. Cross-cultural engagement can facilitate a positive view of an unknown culture (Marginean et al, 2019). Studies show that children growing up in multi- or bilingual homes are able to read referential cues, such as hand gestures, better and are more effective communicators (Yow et al, 2011). Participants in this study will be asked to participate from various global hospitality and education organizations located in the U.S., South Korea, and Thailand. An experimental design will be used to determine the relationship between cross-cultural engagement and Intercultural sensitivity and the relationship between monolingualism/multilingualism and intercultural sensitivity. Participants will be separated into two groups, monolingual and multilingual. Each group will be assigned a partner within the group with a different cultural background. Each participant will take a pretest of the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale (ISS). The ISS consists of 24 items measured on a 5-point Likert scale. Partners will meet once a week to engage in a cross-cultural activity, and after six months, intercultural sensitivity will again be assessed using the ISS. A repeated measures ANOVA will be used to analyze the changes in the ISS scores pre and post activity, and a regression analysis will be performed to observe whether multilingualism predicts a greater increase in intercultural sensitivity. As the work force becomes more diverse and intercultural interaction becomes more prevalent, understanding ways for employees to become more interculturally sensitive becomes more important. This research will evaluate whether cross-cultural engagement can increase intercultural sensitivity and whether multilingual individuals will have an advantage in increasing intercultural sensitivity. In practice, if cross-cultural engagement has a positive effect on Intercultural sensitivity, managers can increase opportunities for employees to engage with individuals from different cultures so that their intercultural sensitivity will build up.
Department
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Dept. of Psychology