The relationship between multicultural competence, foreign language mastery and job performance.
Keywords
Loading...
Authors
Issue Date
2016-08-15
Language
en
Document type
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Title
ISSN
Volume
Issue
Startpage
Endpage
DOI
Abstract
Multiculturalism and multilingualism form two of the main characteristics of the contemporary business environment. Simultaneously, they also present two of its main challenges. In order to perform well in internationally oriented jobs, employees have to match a certain competence profile. In order to provide more insight into what employers should bear in mind during their selection and hiring processes, this study investigated the relationships between multicultural competence, measured by the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ)’s personality dimensions, foreign language mastery, measured by amount and proficiency of foreign languages spoken, and self-assessed job performance.
With a set-up based on earlier research, 72 German professionals filled in a questionnaire and were divided into nationally and internationally working employees, called national and international internal stakeholders. In line with previous research, partial evidence for a relationship between multicultural competence and foreign language mastery was found. The two international stakeholder groups did to some extent differ in terms of foreign language mastery, and hardly in terms of multicultural competence. Only the amount of foreign languages spoken was found to be predictive of group membership, which contradicts with earlier results. Multicultural competence and foreign language mastery were found to be related to job performance in the international internal stakeholder group. The current findings enrich previous research in the field and help employers to get a more clear vision of the competences which are required in contemporary workplaces.
Key words: Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), multicultural competence, foreign language mastery, job performance, personality.
Description
Citation
Supervisor
Faculty
Faculteit der Letteren