Title: Growing up among cultures: intercultural competences, personality, and leadership styles of third culture kids

Authors: Monika F. De Waal; Marise Ph. Born

Addresses: Faculty of Social Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands ' Faculty of Social Sciences, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Abstract: The world seems to be increasingly in demand of global leaders with a transformational leadership style who do business across borders with intercultural ease. To identify such leaders, this study explores whether third culture kids (TCKs) (n = 121) compared to non-TCKs (n = 116) exhibit a stronger set of multicultural personality traits and intercultural competences, and whether TCKs compared to non-TCKs, via their multicultural personality traits and intercultural competences, prefer transformational leadership more. Results from group comparisons indicated that TCKs display more intercultural sensitivity than non-TCKs. Parallel mediated regression analyses showed that being a TCK, compared to not being a TCK, had a positive indirect effect on their preference for transformational leadership through open-mindedness, while it had a negative indirect effect on their preference for transformational leadership through flexibility and emotional stability.

Keywords: TCKs; third culture kids; transformational leadership; multicultural personality traits; intercultural competences; growing up in different cultures; mediated regression analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2020.105548

European Journal of International Management, 2020 Vol.14 No.2, pp.327 - 356

Received: 24 Mar 2018
Accepted: 12 Feb 2019
Published online: 03 Mar 2020 *

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