Diffusion of the effect of cultural training of the leader in the structure of heterocultural task groups

Abstract

In a heterocultural task group, the favourableness of the leader-to-member behaviour, as rated by an observer, is greater when the leader is trained in the interpersonal norms of the culture of another group member. The effect of training decreases systematically as the relation of variables to the leader-member interaction decreases. 16 Americans were trained in the Thai culture and 16 received control training. Each one of the 32 groups engaged in a construction task and was composed of an American, as leader, and 2 Far Eastern members, 1 being a Thai. Each participant and an observer rated the group effectiveness on 5 variables. The intercorrelation pattern among variables and raters is described. For each variable, the size of the mean difference between trained and control groups varied according to the position of the variable in the intercorrelation pattern.