{"id":705,"date":"2012-01-24T15:43:30","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T14:43:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/?p=705"},"modified":"2012-01-24T15:43:30","modified_gmt":"2012-01-24T14:43:30","slug":"biculturals-an-emerging-demographic-in-organizations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/2012\/01\/24\/biculturals-an-emerging-demographic-in-organizations\/","title":{"rendered":"Biculturals \u2013 an emerging demographic in organizations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With globalization on the rise, the role of individuals in mediating and communicating between and within different cultures becomes very important for international organizations. In light of such context, the scholars Brannen and Thomas (2010) highlight the topic of bicultural individuals, who are a growing yet unexplored demographic. Their introductory article (Brannen & Thomas, 2010) provides an overview on \u2018biculturals\u2019 and their meaning for organizations, thus addressing the knowledge gap in the area.<\/p>\n

Beginning with a definition, the authors state that \u2018bicultural individuals identify with two (or more) distinct cultures because of having internalized more than one set of cultural schemas\u2019 (2010; p. 6). In this context, a cultural schema should be understood as a collection of one\u2019s knowledge about values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that are common to a specific culture. The authors note that it is important to distinguish between cultural identification and cultural knowledge; and that surface characteristics are not always indicative of biculturalism. In other words, answering the question \u2018Who am I?\u2019 in reference to some culture(s) does not necessarily imply speaking the language of or looking like the population of the country one identifies with.<\/p>\n

Moving to implications of \u2018being bicultural\u2019, Brannen and Thomas (2010) note that having two or more cultures to operate with, these individuals develop more complex cultural representations. Referring to earlier research (Tadmor et al., 2009), the authors also argue that this more complex cultural representation increases one\u2019s cognitive complexity across more general domains. Specifically, the ability to articulate with and combine several cultural identities positively affects general cultural skills, such as being more empathetic, flexible, being able to think and act in more novel and creative ways. Drawing on results of earlier research (e.g. Brannen et al, 2009; Leung et al, 2008), the authors conclude that biculturals \u2018may excel as boundary spanners in multicultural teams, bridge among organizational joinings in culturally different contexts, or be catalysts for creativity and innovation because of their cognitive complexity\u2019 (Brannen & Thomas, 2010; p. 11).<\/p>\n

Apart from the abovementioned advantages, Brannen and Thomas also bring up some drawbacks of being bicultural. Specifically, they discuss the difficulties that a bicultural person may encounter due to other people\u2019s expectations, who confuse ethnicity with country-specific knowledge. For example, it is often expected that biculturals speak languages of their multiple cultures, or have deep knowledge associated with these cultures. Although such expectation might sound logical at first, most often it does not reflect reality because biculturals are usually raised in hybrid cultural contexts. Brannen and Thomas (2010; p. 11) argue that \u2018mistakes such as this may make it difficult for bicultural employees to contribute their most important abilities and, at the same time, could reinforce the personal insecurities that many biculturals feel\u2019.<\/p>\n

In summary, it seems that biculturals are a quite interesting and important demographic that may stimulate an entirely new way of thinking about cultural diversity in organizations.<\/p>\n

Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brannen, M. Y., & Thomas, D. C. (2010). \u2018Bicultural individuals in organizations: Implications and opportunity\u2019. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, <\/em>10, <\/em>1, 5-16.<\/p>\n

Brannen, M. Y, Garcia, D. and Thomas, D. C. (2009). \u2018Biculturals as Natural Bridges for Intercultural Communication and Collaboration\u2019, Proceedings of the International Workshop on Intercultural Collaboration, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA.<\/p>\n

Leung, A. K.-Y., Maddux, W. W., Galinsky, A. D. and Chiu, C.-Y. (2008). \u2018Multicultural Experience Enhances Creativity: The When and How\u2019, American Psychologist,<\/em> 3, 1, 9-81.<\/p>\n

Tadmore, C. T., Tetlock, P. E. and Peng, K. (2009). \u2018Acculturation Strategies and Integrative Complexity\u2019, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology,<\/em> 40, 105\u201339<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With globalization on the rise, the role of individuals in mediating and communicating between and within different cultures becomes very important for international organizations. In light of such context, the scholars Brannen and Thomas (2010) highlight the topic of bicultural individuals, who are a growing yet unexplored demographic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18330],"tags":[18418,18421,18420,18419],"class_list":["post-705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-views-and-news-about-expatriates","tag-bicultural-individuals","tag-cultural-diversity","tag-cultural-skills","tag-international-organizations"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/345"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":711,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705\/revisions\/711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/expatriatus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}