Title: The better, the worse, and the bicultural: examining bicultural competence and bicultural liability in elite football teams

Authors: Mike Szymanski; Ebru Ipek

Addresses: EGADE Business School, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico ' Beedie School of Business, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract: Researchers have argued that biculturals have performance and behavioural advantages over their mono-cultural peers within multi-cultural teams. We test this claim with performance data from 442 association football players that participated in the 2012-2013 English Premier League season. As expected, bicultural individuals were found to exhibit higher levels of creativity and manifest leadership behaviour more often than monoculturals did; however, biculturals were also found to exhibit higher levels of stress susceptibility and were regarded as less effective leaders by their teammates. We use these findings to develop the construct of bicultural liability and identify how biculturalism can affect individual skills.

Keywords: biculturalism; bicultural competence; bicultural liability; cross-cultural management; global leadership; cultural intelligence.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2020.105550

European Journal of International Management, 2020 Vol.14 No.2, pp.357 - 380

Received: 26 Jul 2018
Accepted: 03 Apr 2019
Published online: 03 Mar 2020 *

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