Openness Towards Language Differences and Cultural Differences in Multicultural Teams: How Do They Interact?

In this paper, we address how different types of positive attitude towards international diversity among team members can influence team outcomes. Our study explores whether openness to language diversity could contribute to the effect of openness to value diversity becoming more salient. Data was collected from 1085 team leaders of highly globalised academic research teams in the Nordic region. The results show a significant and positive effect of openness to different cultural values on team outcomes. Furthermore, in teams rated more open to language diversity, the impact of openness to value diversity on team performance is enhanced. Effects of different types of diversity attitude have been assessed in extant literature. No prior studies, however, have focused on the interaction between the different types of diversity attitude. This is an important omission because one type of diversity attitude could function as a boundary condition for other types of diversity attitude.