Perceived Top Management Team Cultural Differences,employee Work Engagement And Job Performance In MNCs

Past research has focused on Top Management Team(TMT)cultural diversity and organizational performance.Insufficient attention has been unfold concerning the effects of perceived TMT cultural differences(PTMTCD)which describes how employees perceive cultural differences within their TMT and how those perceptions affect employee job performance constructs.This research fills this gap by exploring the relationship between PTMTCD and Task Performance as well as the relationship between PTMTCD and Contextual performance.Employee work engagement was tested as a mediator variable in these relationships and Cultural Intelligence was tested as a moderator between PTMTCD and Employee Work Engagement.To carry out this research,quantitative data from a total of573 useful questionnaires collected from employees of Chinese firms in Zimbabwe was analyzed and hypotheses were tested using structural equation model in AMOS 23 software,SPSS and STATA.Theories that were borrowed to support the research include the LMX theory,Social exchange theory,Employee engagement theory and the Cultural Intelligence theory.The findings of this research show that there is a significant negative relationship between PTMTCD and Task Performance.A negative significant relationship was also found between PTMTCD and Contextual Performance.There was also a negative significant relationship between PTMTCD and Employee Work Engagement.The moderation role of Cultural Intelligence was insignificant and to support the result,the researcher noted that Cultural Intelligence is not sufficient on its own to rectify challenges and problems caused by cultural differences because they negatively affect trust between employees and their leaders hence other measures must be implemented together with Cultural Intelligence such as identifying biases and value systems that are not employee friendly and executing strict measures to correct and redefine them.This way Cultural Intelligence will yield desired results within this context of research.Cultural Intelligence was identified to have a positive effect on Employee Work Engagement,Task Performance and Contextual Performance,making it an important variable to be prioritized by managers of MNCs.Following the research findings,it is of paramount importance for HR managers of MNCs to execute activities that reduce high PTMTCD levels,it is also important to execute trainings and setting up of policies that promote the increase of Cultural Intelligence levels within both the TMT and employee levels.