Intercultural Competence at Work: The Origins of an Implicit Trait Policy

An implicit trait policy (ITP) on intercultural competence reflects a worker’s self-beliefs regarding effectiveness of behavior in an intercultural work situation. A worker’s ITP thus integrates the worker’s competence on endorsement or selection of effective behavior like intensifying intercultural contacts and avoidance or rejection of ineffective behavior like discrimination. The present study researches to which extent selection and rejection have different origins by mapping worker data (N = 3,310) from a large governmental public employment service located in Belgium, Flanders onto the present study’s updated ITP framework of intercultural competence. Results show that a worker’s competence to avoid ineffective behavior like discrimination originates independently and partially different from the worker’s ability to endorse effective behavior like intensifying intercultural contacts. These results also trend further towards two actual behavioral outcomes. For instance, both processes of effective selection and rejection of behavior are relevant for the worker’s intensity of intercultural contacts. However, only rejection remains relevant for avoiding the display of discriminatory behavior in the future. Therefore, a work floor intervention to promote intercultural contacts needs a different approach than preventing discrimination, as both outcomes could originate differently. The results of the present study thus predict that the key to a successful work floor intervention resides in addressing the appropriate ITP origins in order to select or reject the targeted intercultural behavior.