Cultural Training Based on a Theory of Relational Ideology

Abstract

This article describes the development of a theory-based cross-cultural training intervention, named relational ideology training, and reports a field experiment testing its effectiveness in facilitating intercultural collaborations. The intervention was based on our Protestant relational ideology (PRI) theory and cross-cultural research derived from this theory. An experiment compared the effectiveness of this novel intervention with the well established cultural assimilator training. Results show that compared to cultural assimilator training, relational ideology training is more effective in improving managers' task performance and affective adjustment in cross-cultural ventures. Important practical and theoretical benefits can be gained from integrating theoretical advances in cultural psychology into cross-cultural training. We discuss the implications of RI training as an empirically validated intervention for Americans living locally yet working globally.

Notes

¹Due to constraints placed on the researchers by the university program and sponsor organizations, it was not possible to include a third, no-training group.

²Company contacts were asked by program coordinators to complete a survey about their evaluation of participants. Items included in this survey provided host's perspectives on the participants' success in building relationships and communicating with company contacts. Due to the low response rate for this survey, we were unable to conduct analyses on these ratings. These host evaluations of participants' performance were designed to provide a valuable complement to participant's self-ratings. Interestingly, prior research has found a close correspondence between such host and self-report ratings (e.g., Earley, 1987). Whether such correspondence would be replicated in the present experiment unfortunately could not be examined.