Study examines thoughts and feelings that foster collaboration across cultures

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/cbs-set091212.php

Public release date: 12-Sep-2012
Contact: Evan Nowell
Columbia Business School

NEW YORK -- September 12, 2012 -- The musician Paul Simon came to fame collaborating with his childhood friend Art Garfunkel, yet launched another chapter with his Graceland album, collaborating with musicians from Soweto. Ratan Tata made his name expanding his family's firms in India, yet in recent decades has reached even greater success helping foreign firms such as Daewoo and Jaguar find new markets.

Whether artists, entrepreneurs, or executives, some individuals are especially able to bridge cultural gaps and leverage foreign ideas and opportunities. Why can some people collaborate creatively all around the world while others succeed only with people quite similar to themselves? Are there psychological characteristics that distinguish global collaborators? Do they form different kinds of relationships?

New research by Michael Morris, the Chavkin-Chang Professor of Leadership at Columbia Business School, finds that mindfulness about cultural assumptions is a key driver. People who are habitually aware of their cultural frameworks tend to develop more affectively trusting relationships with people from other cultures, opening the free flow of ideas that is intrinsic to creative collaboration. The paper, published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, is led by former Columbia Business School doctoral student Roy Y.J. Chua (currently an assistant professor at Harvard Business School) and co-authored by current Columbia Business School doctoral student Shira Mor.

The globalization of business is increasingly creating demand for managers adept at working creatively with people from diverse backgrounds. Researchers have drawn attention to individual differences in cultural metacognition, the proclivity to reflect on and fine-tune one's cultural assumptions when interacting with others. In three studies using different ways of measuring cross-cultural collaboration, Morris's research team found that success can be predicted from an individual's cultural metacognition score, assessed with a survey inventory beforehand.

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One key insight from this research is that having a diverse professional network is not enough. For many executives, the creative potential in their cross-cultural relationships goes unrealized, because these relationships lack the trust that fosters open sharing of ideas. Another insight is that mindfulness on one side of an interaction can suffice. In the final study, pairs succeeded as long as one of the two partners had high cultural metacognition and was therefore able to bridge the cultural gap in the interaction.

Fortunately, cultural metacognition is a social intelligence capability that can be developed. One way is through taking on assignments in other countries and actively comparing notes with others to gain a richer sense of how cultural lenses shape perceptions. The research suggests that such an effort should pay off in two ways: closer relationships with associates from different backgrounds, and more success in collaborating on innovative deals or ideas.