In-Depth Analysis of Recent Intercultural Competence Measurement Tools

Abstract

The international market and the increase of culturally diverse teams nowadays asks employees to be able to work and collaborate with people from different backgrounds. Recent years have witnessed the emergence of intercultural competence measurement tools for the assessment of an employee’s intercultural competences. For organisations and their managements, it is often useful to examine how interculturally competent their employees or teams are in order to determine who is suitable for a certain task. On top of that, the results of the tools show what is still needed in order to work together as efficient as possible. However, there is no review of the tools’ applicability to the newest theories about the development of intercultural competences. The most salient research is conducted by Darla K. Deardorff. This study addresses this gap of literature. It seeks to find three appropriate intercultural competence measurement tools and evaluate each of them with regard to their view on culture, approach of assessment, and scope. The in-depth analysis of the three themes leads to a clear understanding of the tools. Moreover, it helps to find out whether their approaches and results are valid and sufficient in order to grasp a distinct idea of the complexity of an individual’s intercultural competences. The results of this research allow to detect the advantages of the tools and some points of criticism. Moreover, conclusions can be made as to whether the tools apply to the most salient research on the development and use of intercultural competences.