Farley, S., Dawson, J. orcid.org/0000-0002-9365-8586, Greenaway, T. et al. (2 more authors) (2022) Does international status affect competence ratings in newly formed multinational teams? The role of psychological safety growth and verbal behavior. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 53 (10). pp. 1277-1299. ISSN 0022-0221
Abstract
National status has been found to influence how people are perceived in multinational teams. Team members from an international background are often perceived as less competent than those from the local context. Studies mainly focus on language differences to explain this phenomenon, but in this study, we offer a different theoretical explanation. We propose that national status can affect psychological safety and its development within teams, which in turn affects verbal behavior and competence ratings. To test this notion, we examine differences in psychological safety growth, verbal behavior and competence ratings among home country nationals based in the United Kingdom (UK) and international members of newly formed multinational teams. In a sample of 519 team members (101 teams), results showed that internationals, compared to home country nationals, have lower initial psychological safety, as well as slower development in psychological safety over time. Furthermore, the relationship between national status and competence ratings was partially mediated by psychological safety growth and verbal behavior. These results were fully replicated on a separate sample of 538 team members (90 teams) in a second study using an identical research design. However, exploratory analyses indicated that the pattern of findings were not consistent across team members from Africa, Asia, and Europe. The psychological safety of home nationals only started and grew more quickly than that of Asians, while only African and Asian team members spoke less and were rated as less competent. Together these results have implications for managers of newly formed multinational teams.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | multinational teams; national status; psychological safety; verbal behavior; competence ratings |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health (Sheffield) > School of Health and Related Research (Sheffield) > ScHARR - Sheffield Centre for Health and Related Research The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Management School (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 05 Aug 2022 15:09 |
Last Modified: | 03 Oct 2022 18:10 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/00220221221115654 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:189754 |