Cultural brokering is the act of facilitating cross-cultural interactions among others. In a three study, mixed-methods project, we develop a phenomena-driven scale to measure cultural brokering. Multicultural individuals - people who identify with more than one culture - are found to broker across cultures more frequently than monoculturals, who identify with one culture. In addition, we find that brokering varies depending on the cultural diversity of the organization. Multicultural individuals only engage in significantly more brokering behavior than monocultural individuals when working in organizations with low levels of cultural diversity, indicating these organizations may gain the most from employing multicultural individuals.

Stacey R Fitzsimmons (Ph.D. Beedie School of Business) joined University of Victoria's Gustavson School of Business in 2014, after three years as an Assistant Professor at Western Michigan University. Her research objective is to improve the way people work with others across cultures. She does this by examining how bicultural and multicultural employees contribute to global teams and organizations. Stacey's research has been published in Academy of Management Review, Human Resource Management Review, Organization Studies, and Organizational Dynamics. She won the 2013 International Human Resources Scholarly Research award from the Academy of Management, for most significant annual contribution to international human resources management.