The Effects of Intercultural Training upon the Organizational Performance of Multinational Corporations in China

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between intercultural training and the organizational performance of multinational corporations. Fifteen multinational corporations operating in China participated in the investigation. In the study, survey and case study were utilized as research instruments, and questionnaire and semi-structured interview were two prime data-collecting techniques. Only a small number of the respondents offered intercultural training to their employees. It was also discovered that cultural differences could give rise to serious management problems and intercultural training could significantly improve the organizational effectiveness by overcoming such differences. Although the paper is based on a piece of qualitative research with no explicit comparative data, the findings seem to suggest that intercultural training can be a high-value contributor to the business success of multinational corporations. Therefore, it would be advantageous for multinational corporations to incorporate systematic intercultural training into their human resources development strategy