Managers identifying with two cultures are promoted faster than single-culture peers

Evidence

When we examined the rates of promotion for these managers and assessed their reputations in the high-tech industry, we again found that biculturals had been promoted faster and had better reputations than managers who identified themselves with only Israel or the United States, or neither country (Tadmor et al., 2010). These results held even when controlling for the big five personality traits, English language ability, gender, number of years in the United States, years of job experience, years with current company, and political orientation. In a subsequent study, we also found that biculturals were more likely to have created successful new products at work than separated or assimilated individuals (Tadmor et al., 2010). — Roderick M. Kramer, Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, Robert W. Livingston, Social Cognition, Social Identity, and…, 2252

Categorization

• QUESTION: Direction of causality is ambiguous from this correlational design — do bicultural identities cause success, or do successful global managers develop bicultural identities?