Abstract
ABSTRACT Intercultural competence is a topic that has been increasingly focused on academic researches, mainly related to the context of multinational companies and multicultural teams. The literature on intercultural competence is broad, permeated with many concepts and models of its development, but the main focus is on individual (cognitive/behavioral approach). There are few studies on the group level whose approach emphasize the process. The objective of this study was to empirically test the concept of group intercultural competence (GIC) and analyze its development in multicultural teams, as indicated by Leung, Ang and Tan (2014) . This research can be characterized as qualitative, of exploratory-descriptive type, with an interpretive approach that embraces sequential intra-method triangulation, with interpretative and content analysis. As the results, the process of GIC development was found to occur towards more mature levels of GIC and to be characterized by an upward spiral pyramidal process, where the lowest level evolves to higher levels of GIC through a cycle of inter-cultural learning. This development occurs over time and is permeated by conflict, reflection and change, covering the elements of GIC: interaction, efficacy, cultural differences, intercultural learning and communication, such as cause and consequence. Based on the theoretical and empirical contributions, it was possible to adjust and validate a proposed GIC concept, to adjust the relevant elements and dimensions for GIC analysis, and to understand how the GIC is developed through a procedural perspective where there is an intercultural learning cycle permeated by conflicts, reflections, interaction and changes.
Highlights
Companies have increasingly felt the need to develop global strategies to obtain satisfactory results in a global environment, where intercultural coexistence plays an important position in organizational and social life (Adler & Gundersen, 2008; Bueno & Freitas, 2015)
As the main contribution of this article was to adjust and validate the concept of group intercultural competence (GIC) and its development, and based on the results and the adjustments proposed upon field immersion, both concepts were altered to help the field to discuss intercultural competences on collective levels
Even the analysis of the data collected made it possible to identify the facilitating and inhibiting factors for the process of GIC development, based on the assessment of the practices carried out by the MNC that minimize the difficulties related to intercultural experience, and the advantages of working in multicultural environments
Summary
Companies have increasingly felt the need to develop global strategies to obtain satisfactory results in a global environment, where intercultural coexistence plays an important position in organizational and social life (Adler & Gundersen, 2008; Bueno & Freitas, 2015). In the context of a globalized world, studies on Intercultural Competence (IC) have emerged in order to understand how it influences the performance of individuals, teams and organizations. One of the most widely accepted definitions of IC in the literature is that it is the ability to interact effectively with culturally different people (Wang, Taiwen, Freeman, Fan, & Zhu, 2014). It is understood and studied from an individual perspective with focus on the cognitive and behavioral dimensions (Deardorff, 2015; Hammer, 2015). There is a gap in international IC literature when it comes to group and organizational IC
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