Cross-Cultural Competence Development Programs: A Literature Review

This literature review discusses methods for managing competence development programs in cross-cultural organizations. It highlights the importance of cross-cultural competency in global businesses, emphasizing skills, values, and principles that guide employees in interacting with diverse cultural groups. The review identifies barriers such as inadequate training structures and ethnocentrism, as well as enablers like international corporate volunteerism and social media communication. It synthesizes research on national and organizational culture, cultural attachment theory, and the role of diversity strategies. The review concludes that effective management and unique organizational cultures are crucial for fostering cross-cultural competence and successful operation in diversified markets. Desklib offers this document along with numerous other resources to aid students in their academic pursuits.

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
LITERATURE REVIEW COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
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1LITERATURE REVIEW COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
The aim of this essay is to discuss the methods of Managing Competence Development
Programs in a Cross-Cultural Organisation. After globalisation, the companies are growing
international gradually. In the international organisations, operative cross-cultural
communication helps the organisations to work more effectively. In this competitive world,
effective communication has been vital for successful presentation of the managers daily.
Therefore, understanding the cultural differences as well as overcoming the language barrier are
some of considerations that the employees must consider while they deal with the individuals
from different cultures. Cross-cultural competency is a set of skill, value and principle which
guide the employees to acknowledge, work and respect towards the optimal interactions among
the individuals and various cultural, ethnic groups. Due to increasing diversity in the
organizations, the managers are expected to enhance the cross-cultural skills among the
employees otherwise, this will lead to failure of the business. By gaining a detail understanding
of the methods of interact effectively as well as respectfully with the people from diversity of
cultures, employees of an international corporation, can maximize the chance of optimal
interactions. This study will point out the barriers and enablers of developing cross-cultural
competence in the global companies by conducting a literature review.
Literature review:
The idea of the cross-cultural competence is generated a huge intertest in the extent of the
international business. According to the researchers like Bartel-Radic and Giannelloni (2017), in
this particular subject, the amount of literature is much less in one hand and the solid
measurement tools for multidimensional construct have also not been well developed. As pointed
out by the authors of this study, the personality traits have a huge role to play in developing
cross-cultural competency, but these are to be linked to the other dimension of cross-cultural

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competencies. Based on these studies, therefore, the cross-cultural knowledge of the employees
is to be measured. The authors of this study have combined measurement tools like personality
trait scales as well as critical incident tool for idealising the two components of cross-cultural
competencies. These tools however are authenticated on the multinational samples of working
population so that a structured model can be developed to determine the cross-cultural
knowledge.
According to the researchers like Dolan and Kawamura (2015), cross-cultural
competency has become a necessary factor in the current business setting. It is a practical,
comprehensive and work-shop based program which allows the facilitators as well as the
organisational change authorities to guide the global organisations to gain competitive edge by
influencing the human resource management of the companies. This type so programs mainly
help the employees of the organizations to develop cultural skills through various practical as
well as theoretical ways. By gaining cross cultural skill, the human resource of the organisations
can develop competency to communicate and mix with the local employees and gain insight of
their culture. This enables the company to reduce conflicts among the human force in one hand
and see any matter from different perspectives. According to these authors, the organizations
need to engage the employees in the cross-cultural trainings, coaching, survey and tools so that
they gain the proper understanding of the culture where they are working in and keep the
organizational culture flexible for their own development.
On the other hand, the authors like Van Driel and Gabrenya (2013), have collected data
and samples of the military organisations. Ths study has assessed the feasibility of the growing
quantitative measures in the cross-cultural capability as one of the most important organisational
level constructs. In this study the authors have discussed cross-cultural competence as a part of

3LITERATURE REVIEW COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
individual level construct rather than considering it to e organisational level phenomenon. This
study has properly synthesised the cross-cultural competence measures, organisational
intelligence and different levels of analysing literature for constructing a theoretical basis for the
cross-cultural competency of the organizations. According to these authors, in tis aspect three
strategies can be identified for the cross-cultural competency in the organisational level of
examination.
According to the study detailed by Lee and Kramer (2016), the national culture has direct
connection with the organisational culture. The institutional theory has argued that the strong
effect of the national culture is capable of creating unique cultures through institutional
isomorphism. On the contrary, the organizational culture scholars have pointed out that the
organisations are efficient to create unique culture for bolstering the competitive advantage in the
market. This literature has bridged the gap between these two perceptions of cross-cultural
competency and proposed that the organization must have a tighter culture than a loose culture.
At the organiostioanl level, the diversity strategy varies dramatically and the organizations
purposefully use the diversity strategies. These effectively develop the unique organisational
cultures. The interaction between the general and the organizational cultures can consequence in
better constraining forces of the nation’s culture over the organisational culture. However, the
diversity strategies in the tight cultures effectively foster the distinct organisational cultures than
those in the slack cultures.
The research conducted by Hong et al. (2013), reveals that for developing cross-cultural
competency, cultural attachment theory can play a very important role. This theory assumes that
the adjustable solution of hoarding has been equivalent to the attachment of the infants to their
concierges. In order to identify the exact result, this study has gained knowledge from the

4LITERATURE REVIEW COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
research on the people of Indonesia working in Singapore. According to the authors of this
article, cultural attachment has an essential part to play in developing cross-cultural competency.
Cultural attachment works in two ways that include self-reported cultural addon styles between
host and native culture. Positive and affective transfer from the native as well as host cultural
icons. Through these methods, the employees can enhance their competency in their workplaces
by less issues of perceived discrimination.
In developing the cross-cultural competencies there are several barriers. According to the
cross-cultural theory of Hofstede, as the national culture directly connects the organisation
culture of the companies, therefore, there are some inevitable preventions in becoming one
highly diversified organization. The primary issue that prevents the employees to develop cross-
cultural competencies is the unavailable training structure of the companies that do not support
the resources to be distributed properly in the organization. According to the study by Levitt
(2016), cultural competencies are affected by the cultural factors of improperly built
international team dynamics. This process reveals this incompetence have greater implications
for the industry practice. The barriers to develop competencies are so intense that despite
decades of study and experiences with the cultural diversity, the multinational or global work
groups have continued to be questioned by the problems of ethnocentrism as well as prejudices.
In this context, the author has referred to the dynamic push-pull tension in international
teamwork. These issues are related to seemingly contradictory forces which include the diversity
of team members and desired unity of the purpose of the teams and their activities. Hence, there
is a serious demand for the amplified intercultural competency for the industry experts.
However, there are some factors present in the organisation also that enable the cross-
cultural competency to develop. According to Caligiuri et al. (2019), the development of cross-

5LITERATURE REVIEW COMPETENCE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS
cultural competency over the international corporate volunteerism has been gaining popularity in
the business firms in all over the world. The authors in their article have proposed three
structures of cross-cultural experiences which include project meaningfulness, contextual novelty
and social support. These features of the operations of the organization, can effectively facilitates
the development of cross-cultural competency among the employees of a firm. The authors have
collected data from a corporate volunteering program that used longitudinal design and had all
three features of cross-cultural competency. The research has identified a positive change among
the employees over time and the employees who have high baseline ross cultural competencies
can work in high contextual competencies.
Similarly, the authors Wankel (2016), have pointed out that the management can develop
cross-cultural competency through social media communication. This paper has revealed process
depending upon which the managers operating in an international business in this global context,
can motivate the employees to use alternative social media applications for the cross-cultural
training methods. This is due to the fact that social media has been increasingly the integral
portion of the contemporary communication. Therefore, this aspect can help the managers of the
global companies to enable cross-cultural competency in incorporating in training technologies.
This will engage the human resource to have different advantages as well as unique deployment
occasions for the cross-cultural knowledge development.
Therefore, it can be concluded that there are various factors present in an organisation
which either prevent the employees to develop cross cultural competency in the international
organisations. The managers need to effectively develop the unique organisational cultures
where the employees from different cultures can work simultaneously and without conflicts.
There are two categories of researches in this subject which either focus on the employees’

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effects of cross-cultural competency in enhancing diversity in the companies and another focus
on the responsibilities of the management to develop cross-cultural competency. There are
methods to develop cross-cultural skills that help the companies to operate successfully in the
diversified market.

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References:
Bartel-Radic, A. & Giannelloni, J. 2017;2016;, "A renewed perspective on the measurement of
cross-cultural competence: An approach through personality traits and cross-cultural
knowledge", European Management Journal, vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 632-644.
Caligiuri, P., Mencin, A., Jayne, B. & Traylor, A. 2019, "Developing cross-cultural
competencies through international corporate volunteerism", Journal of World Business, vol. 54,
no. 1, pp. 14-23.
Dolan, S.L. & Kawamura, K.M. 2015, Cross cultural competence: a field guide for developing
global leaders and managers, First edn, Emerald, United Kingdom; North America;.
Hong, Y., Fang, Y., Yang, Y. & Phua, D.Y. 2013, "Cultural Attachment: A New Theory and
Method to Understand Cross-Cultural Competence", Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol.
44, no. 6, pp. 1024-1044.
Lee, Y. and Kramer, A., 2016. The role of purposeful diversity and inclusion strategy (PDIS) and
cultural tightness/looseness in the relationship between national culture and organizational
culture. Human Resource Management Review, 26(3), pp.198-208.
Levitt, S.R. 2016, "Addressing cross-cultural teamwork barriers: Implications for industry
practice and higher education curricula", Industry and Higher Education, vol. 30, no. 5, pp. 315-
320.
Van Driel, M. & Gabrenya, W.K. 2013, "Organizational Cross-Cultural Competence:
Approaches to Measurement", Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 874-899.
Wankel, C., 2016. Developing cross-cultural managerial skills through social media. Journal of
Organizational Change Management, 29(1), pp.116-124.