Social support and acculturative stress in the multicultural workplace

Abstract

Organizational dynamics are changing due to cultural variability among employees. Little communication research explores ways in which organizations attempt to adapt to multicultural issues such as cultural stereotyping, language barriers, and employee attempts to acculturate. This study explores cultural differences in employee perceptions of social support received from sources in a multicultural organization. In addition, the study explores the relationship between Hispanic employees’ emotional acculturative stress and the social support they perceive receiving from organizational sources. Hispanics reported receiving more social support from their Hispanic coworkers than Anglo‐Americans reported receiving from that source. No differences were found in either group's perceptions of the amount of social support received from Anglo‐American coworkers and persons in supervisory positions. Social support received from Anglo‐American coworkers was found to be significantly related to Hispanics’ emotional acculturative stress. Praise and help with personal problems emerged as the types of support most closely related to emotional acculturative stress. Methodological dilemmas for conducting multicultural organizational research and implications for organizational management in providing social support to employees are discussed.