EL MUNDO hOy. GESTIÓN DE LA DIVERSIDAD. UN IMPERATIVO ...

The Assessment of Intercultural Training Efficacy...
Though Plasticity and Stability may, at first sight, seem semantically
opposed, they can in fact be complementary. In a changing environment,
plasticity is necessary for the maintenance of stability. The
opposite of plasticity is not stability but rigidity, while the opposite of
stability is not plasticity but instability. Even though extreme plasticity
could potentially render stability more difficult (and vice versa) in general
the two traits should be considered mutually supportive, separable,
but positively related (Grossberg, 1987).
Digman (1997) & Carrol (2002) detected one limitation of interpreting
the factors as representing the socialization process and personal
growth. These concepts refer more closely to developmental processes
and outcomes than to personality dimensions per se. In contrast to Digman
and Carrol, we see this limitation as an advantage for this paper,
because development processes fit even better with intercultural matters
(Hammer, 2007).
4. Method
4.1. Participants
Approximately 50 trainees each year participate in an intercultural
training programme offered by the Competence Training Section of
a German corporation before expatriation. Research subjects included
thirty employees. Fifteen of them, so-called «trainees» from the trained
group, were enrolled in the expatriation process at the end of 2009
and received intercultural training. The other 15 belonged to the control
group. During the pre-test phase, 30 questionnaires were administered
and thirty were completed. In the post-test phase, another thirty tests
were applied. The control group completed their fifteen, but only nine
employees from the trained group completed the tests. Therefore they
were organized into two groups in the following manner: 9 trainees (6
men; 4 with previous expatriation experience) in «trained group» and
the other fifteen (only men; 4 with previous expatriation experience) in
the «control group». This last group received no intercultural training.
The ages of the subjects ranged from 42 to 49 years.
209