Arabic-accented English and its impact on Hiring Success.

Abstract

With the rise of globalization, the workplace is becoming very global and international and thus requires managers to consider employing non-native speakers. This study aimed to investigate the influence of Arabic-accented English on the evaluation of job applicants during an interview done by Dutch and German listeners and whether there is a difference between the strength of stereotypes associated with Arabs and Britons. Listeners were randomly assigned to one of the two-accents and were asked to evaluate the speaker as a job applicant on different variables by listening to a recorded speech sample. The results of this study showed that the Arabic-accented English speakers were evaluated more negatively and were seen as less hirable than the British-Accented English speakers. The results of the stereotype content model showed that Britons had higher stereotypes associated to them than Arabs.