Biculturalism Pays Big Dividends
Nov 11, 2008
by David C. Thomas
Management research has typically assumed that individuals have only one cultural profile
Ali is an immigrant from Iran who works at a Vancouver bank. Tarvinder, who grew up in Punjab, is a lab technician in a Toronto medical lab. And Jim, whose parents emigrated from Hong Kong, is a middle manager for a multinational mining company. They are all unremarkable in Canada’s multicultural society. But they share a secret: When they go home after work, they switch to another identity – another way of being, often another language. They are bicultural.
Bicultural individuals internalize more than one cultural profile. They can be recent immigrants or second- or third-generation Canadians who grew up in traditional homes. While it was once thought that identifying with one culture meant abandoning another, it is increasingly clear that people can internalize more than one culture. This may be especially true in Canada, where immigrants are encouraged to maintain their traditional culture while integrating into Canadian society.
An increasingly tight labour market along with an ageing workforce, combined with the reduction in boundaries to migration, means Canadian organizations face a labour force (and a customer base) that is increasingly culturally diverse. Interacting effectively across cultural divides is now a fundamental requirement for today’s business people. Those who succeed in this environment recognize that cultural diversity is not so much a problem to be overcome but a resource – one that can benefit the bottom line.
There is a growing body of research in psychology investigating the effect of biculturalism on individuals. However, the effects of this new demographic on organizations is just beginning to be explored. Psychologists tell us that biculturals are different from monoculturals in ways that extend beyond just specific knowledge of two different cultures. For example, they seem to arrange knowledge differently in their minds and they are more resilient to criticism. To the extent that they have integrated their two cultural identities, they may be more creative. Recently, we have come to recognize that biculturalism is complex and multidimensional and that there may be many different ways of being bicultural. For example, some biculturals indentify with a single culture (for example either Canada or their home); others such as Ali, Tarvinder and Jim, shift cultural identities based on the situation in which they find themselves; still others have blended their two identities (people who think of themselves as Chinese-Canadian are an example); and, finally some individuals feel marginalized by both cultures.
Management research has typically assumed that individuals have only one cultural profile. However, given the changing patterns in the world’s workforce, it is increasingly the case that more employees and managers are bicultural. Recently, I along with professors Mary Yoko Brannen and Dominie Garcia in the United States have begun to ask questions about bicultural individuals in organizations such as:
— Do biculturals possess unique skills and abilities that allow them to function more effectively in today’s global and multicultural business environment?
— Can the subconscious and non-volitional way in which biculturals learn a new culture be applied to developing global managers?
— Are biculturals better able to cope with the potentially conflicting organizational identities imposed by the global enterprise?
— Can the way in which biculturals shift from one cultural context to the other (called cultural frame switching) help us to understand how global managers can choose from a repertoire of behaviours to adapt appropriately to the cultural context?
— Can the abilities of biculturals be leveraged to make learning and knowledge transfer across contexts less arduous, and hence facilitate global innovation?
Our preliminary findings are far from definitive, but they do suggest that biculturals have skills not available to monoculturals and that these can be valuable assets to organizations as they are confronted with a more culturally diverse environment. These skills are higher-order thinking skills that have developed as a result of becoming bicultural. And they are related to the effectiveness of these individuals in cross-cultural situations such as the ability to accomplish tasks with people who are culturally different. Furthermore, those individuals who, in the development of their bicultural identity, felt internal conflict in reconciling their two cultural profiles seem to be able to develop higher levels of these skills.
Thus, today’s organizations should recognize bicultural individuals as a valuable asset and find ways to leverage this important human resource. However, in order to know how best to take advantage of this new demographic, much more needs to be understood about bicultural individuals in an organizational context.
David C. Thomas is Professor of International Management in the Segal Graduate School of Business at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, where the Centre for Global Workforce Strategy is being proposed to research biculturalism and other issues in today’s multicultural workforce.
This article was published in the November 10, 2008 edition of the Financial Post. To read it online, visit