Engagement in Cultural Trigger Events in the Development of Cultural Competence

The dual forces of work that increasingly spans international boundaries and a rapidly diversifying domestic workforce require workers to develop skills to successfully negotiate the nuances and complexities inherent in cross-cultural interactions. Building upon the assumption that international experiences trigger growth in employees' cross-cultural competencies, we conducted a thematic analysis of 85 U.S. undergraduate students working and studying abroad to understand the characteristics of cultural experiences (i. e., trigger events) encountered during international living. Engagement in cultural trigger events emerged as a central category. In a second study, we trained 130 employees using the emergent definition of a cultural trigger event from Study 1. Specifically, we predicted and found an increase in cultural intelligence and a decrease in ethnocentrism following training on a series of cross-cultural trigger events replicating those experienced during international work assignments. The findings of these two studies collectively present an innovative and viable supplement to international immersion experiences for the development of cultural intelligence and provide a useful tool for organizations in our rapidly changing global marketplace.