Managing the Intercultural Interface: Third Cultures, Antecedents, and Consequences

We offer a conceptualization of third culture in intercultural interactions and describe its different forms as well as its antecedents and consequences. Third culture is a multicultural team's shared schema that contains not only team and task knowledge, but also a shared set of beliefs, values, and norms grounded in the national cultures of the team members. We develop a typology to distinguish third culture schema form on two dimensions: third culture strength and third culture content. We then propose both team process and team composition variables that influence the emergence of these different forms. Furthermore, we use social identity formation and sensemaking mechanisms to propose the effects of these third culture forms on team performance.