Intercultural communication in a multicultural work environment: The role of personality traits regarding job outcomes of airport staff

As the world is becoming more connected, intercultural communication is omnipresent in today’s society. Not every individual interacts with people from different cultural backgrounds the same way. Personality traits have shown to be predictors for job outcomes such as job satisfaction and job performance. Nevertheless, not much is known about the influence of personality traits within an intercultural setting. To measure intercultural effectiveness, the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) has been established. With the help of it, this study researched the influence of the MPQ on job satisfaction, innovative work behavior and job performance amongst airport staff that engages in customer service. Additionally, the role of two mediators, Quality of Intercultural Interaction (QII) and job-related stress was examined. To answer the research question, a survey was conducted amongst airport staff that engages in customer service at European airports. The majority of the final sample (N=177) included staff that works at Zurich airport, featuring jobs like flight attendants, check-in personnel and the hospitality sector. Results showed a positive relation between multicultural personality traits, and self-reported job satisfaction, innovative work behavior and job performance. The traits Emotional Stability and Open-mindedness were the strongest predictors for the three outcome variables. As for the mediators, significant effects could only be found for specific traits and outcome variables. QII partially mediated the effect of Cultural Empathy, Social Initiative and Emotional Stability on job performance. Job-related stress mediated the effect of Cultural Empathy and Emotional Stability on job satisfaction partially, whereas it fully mediated the effect of Social Initiative on job satisfaction. It can be concluded that QII was found a significant mediator for the effect of MPQ traits on job performance and that job-related stress was a significant mediator for the effect of MPQ traits on job satisfaction. In sum, airport staff’s personality is related to the way they perform the job, their innovative behavior and to how satisfied they are with their job where they often engage with people from different cultural backgrounds. This study underlines the importance of personality within an intercultural context and advises human resource management to consider this when looking for eligible candidates that match an international job profile.