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In a globally connected world, it is increasingly common for individuals to belong to and be influenced by more than one culture. Based on a critique of conceptualizations from psychology, management, marketing, anthropology, and sociology, we bring clarity and consistency to conceptualizing and measuring multiculturalism at the individual level. We propose that individual-level multiculturalism is the degree to which someone has knowledge of, identification with, and internalization of more than one societal culture, and recommend methods to measure each dimension. Finally, we suggest how individual-level multiculturalism influences and is influenced by social networks and power dynamics in international organizations.

This paper explores the relationship between national culture and individuals’ psychological contracts. Predicted relationships were drawn from prior theory that identified cognitive and motivational mechanisms through which culture manifests its influence. The dominant forms of psychological contracts were evaluated against predictions based on the national-level cultural values of vertical and horizontal individualism and collectivism in four countries. Results of interviews with 57 participants indicated that French interviewees (vertical individualist) described their psychological contracts as primarily exploitive, Canadians (horizontal individualist) as primarily instrumental, Chinese (vertical collectivist) as primarily custodial and Norwegians (horizontal collectivist) as primarily communitarian. Exploration of the conditions under which patterns deviated from those predicted by the theory indicates potential areas for future theoretical development.

Most organizations focus their attention on simply achieving gender diversity on their boards. This approach misses the point. There is a complex relationship between board gender diversity and good governance, where diversity on corporate boards can have negative, positive, or neutral impact on organizational performance, indicating that organizations may only reap the benefits of gender diverse boards under proper conditions. This paper examines which conditions allow gender diverse boards to flourish, and which conditions drive gender diverse boards to fail.Organizations usually increase female representation on boards of directors in order to achieve one of two goals: gender parity or improved governance. Each goal is influenced by different circumstances, and thus the approach to achieving each goal must be different. Three unique recommendations are offered to organizations trying to achieve each goal. Gender, ethnic and cultural board diversity all share related justifications and challenges, so organizations that follow the recommendations in this report will be well positioned to benefit from all three sources of increased diversity on their boards of directors.

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