Work-related acculturation: Change in individual work-related cultural values following immigration

Thousands of studies have demonstrated the need for culture-sensitive approaches when managing people in different countries. Approaches that work well in, for example, Canada may not work in China. It is now relatively well-known how cultures vary across countries and what management practices are more effective in different parts of the world. But how about managing immigrants who constitute a substantial part of the workforce in most industrialized countries? How long do immigrants retain their original cultural values and require a culture-sensitive approach? What are the factors that speed up or slow down the acculturation pace? Can assumptions about tacit work-related value acculturation be made based on changes in visible elements of culture such as language proficiency or cuisine and music tastes? The present study addresses the questions using a quasilongitudinal cohort analysis of responses of about two thousand immigrants residing in Western Canada. Although issues of cultural differences and acculturation have been extensively explored, the two fields have been developing completely independently, with cross-cultural research focusing on static tacit value differences and acculturation research being preoccupied with changes in visible artefactual elements of culture. The uniqueness of this study is that it is one of the first to bridge the two areas of research by exploring acculturation at both the value and artefact levels. The results show that acculturation is a lengthy process and the complete value assimilation may not occur even decades after immigration. The acculturation trend analysis identified several distinct stages of acculturation. While the positive significant relationship between acculturation at the visible artefact and tacit value levels has been confirmed, the results warn that judgement about value acculturation based solely on visible changes in cultural artefact may be misleading. Additionally, the study confirmed the important moderating role of frequency of contact with the host culture and provided the basis for explaining host culture rejection and over-acculturation. The dimensions included in the model were carefully selected to be most relevant to the workplace process to ensure applicability and relevance of the results for practitioner managers and immigration policy developers.