Cultural Diversity In Research

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESIS:

CULTURAL DISSIMILARITY AND JOB PERFORMANCE:

The notion of culture, as recognized in the scientific community, has been around for a while. Before becoming relevant to the fields of psychology, education and management, it had been delineated and studied by archaeologists and anthropologists who focused mainly on languages, traditions and artifacts (Taras, Rowney and Steel 2009a). Culture is often depicted as an ‘onion’ with three layers: the outer layer embodies the explicit artifacts and products of the society, the middle layer symbolizes the norms and values that guide the society, and the inner layer represents all the implicit assumptions that guide people’s behaviour (Hofstede 1980 ; Trompenaars

(van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Comparative fit reflects the extent to which a categorization results in clear between-group differences and within-group similarities. Comparative fit increases with smaller perceived differences within groups and greater perceived differences between groups. The higher the comparative fit, the more likely subgroup categorization will occur, which may result in intergroup bias and deteriorated group functioning (Gaertner, Mann, Murrell, & Dovidio,

On a typical day at work, employees often encounter obstacles and experience setbacks when trying to complete their duties and tasks. Some become discouraged, lose motivation and give up; others remain hopeful, create alternate plans, and persevere. Managers—who often aim to increase their employees’ job performance—are likely interested in identifying which employees will strive toward task and goal completion and which will languish in the face of adversity. Although largely ignored by organizational researchers until recently, the construct of hope as conceived by Snyder et al. (1991) may be helpful in explaining which employees are more likely to successfully accomplish their tasks and goals in spite of setbacks. Moreover, recent theory on positive organizational scholarship (Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003) and positive organizational behavior (e.g., Luthans, 2002a, 2002b) suggests that hope plays an important role in employee performance (e.g., Adams, Snyder, Rand, King, Sigman, & Pulvers, 2002; Shorey & Snyder, 2004). According to these frameworks, employees who possess positive psychological capacities such as hope, optimism, resiliency, and self-efficacy are likely to be more productive and higher-performing employees. research has also been found on the job behaviors