The Impact of Perceived Foreign Language Proficiency on Hybrid Team Culture
- This study examines the impact of perceived foreign language proficiency on hybrid culture building in multicultural teams. Hybrid culture includes a mutually shared set of norms, communication patterns, problem-solving approaches, and synergistic task coordination that result from the diverse cultural backgrounds of the team members. Language is the main vehicle for communication and plays a major role in social interaction and therefore hybrid culture building. We argue that the level of perceived language proficiency of multicultural team members influences hybrid culture building; consequently, adequate language skills lead not only to an efficient task solution but are also an important factor in creating interpersonal relationships and building a shared culture. Our empirical analysis supports the positive influence of language proficiency in hybrid teams; however, foreign language proficiency is more influential on cognitively oriented areas of multicultural teamwork than on affective ones.
Author: | Carolin Fleischmann, Laura-Christiane Folter, Jolanta Aritz |
---|---|
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1177/2329488417710440 |
Parent Title (English): | International Journal of Business Communication |
Document Type: | Article (peer reviewed) |
Language: | English |
Publication Year: | 2020 |
Volume: | 57 |
Issue: | 4 |
Page Number: | 20 |
First Page: | 497 |
Last Page: | 516 |