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ABSTRACT This study examines cultural identity salience - defined as the extent to which an individual finds the cultural backgrounds of his or her team members to be salient within the context of multinational teams. Instead of assuming that the cultural backgrounds of team members in a multinational team are salient to each team member, cultural identity salience was assessed empirically in a study of 15 culturally heterogeneous teams based in the United States. The results suggest that team members who have the same country of origin as either most or very few of their fellow team members view culture as being salient. In addition, team citizenship behavior was found to be exhibited when there was dispersion in team members' cultural salience assessments. This study offers a new approach for empirically assessing the effects of culture in multinational teams. Implications for multinational team composition efforts are discussed.
KEY WORDS. culture . identity salience . multinational teams . team citizenship behavior team member perceptions
The tendency for companies to conduct business internationally and the inclusion of people from different cultural backgrounds in the workforce have increased the likelihood that employees will work with colleagues who have different cultural backgrounds. In addition, the growing emphasis on teamwork (e.g. Mohrman et al., 1995; Sundstrom et al., 1990) suggests that the extent of contact among managers from diverse backgrounds has increased in recent years. However, just because a variety of cultures are represented in a work team does not mean that culture is salient to team members.
Instead of assuming that culture is salient to team members and affects work team dynamics, this article empirically assesses the extent to which a team member experiences cultural identities within the team as being salient. More specifically, the first objective of this study is to examine empirically the extent to which an individual's differences from others on the team with respect to nationality affect how he or she thinks of other team members in terms of their cultural backgrounds. This study thus offers empirical evidence that addresses a common assumption made by both researchers and practitioners that cultural differences are relevant to team members just because the team is multi-- national in composition. Cultural identity salience is measured at the...