Cultural Stereotyping, Convergent Expectations, and Performance in Cross-Cultural Collaborations

A laboratory experiment tested the hypothesis that under certain conditions, convergent expectations based on cultural stereotypes may have coordination and performance benefits in cross-cultural collaborations. One hundred and fourteen participants (58 of white European and 56 of Asian descent) worked on a collaborative learning task in same-sex dyads. The independent variables were the dyad’s cultural composition (similar vs. diverse) and whether members could communicate using instant messaging (yes or no). The results showed that (a) when members could not communicate, culturally diverse dyads used cultural stereotypes for task assignments, which resulted in fewer coordination errors and better collective performance when compared to culturally similar dyads; (b) when members could communicate, culturally similar dyads performed as well as culturally diverse dyads; and (c) the influence of cultural stereotypes on task assignments persisted for culturally diverse dyads. There was no support for the hypothesis that culturally diverse dyads would experience more negative socioemotional reactions than culturally similar dyads.