The influence of cultural diversity on organizational citizenship behaviors in professional sport teams: The moderating role of intercultural competence

Abstract

Professional sports teams provide a relevant setting for the study of multicultural work groups. Engaging in additional tasks or voluntary efforts—broadly referred to as organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs)—is key to the effective functioning of such teams. Unfortunately, cultural diversity has been shown to decrease team cohesion and could therefore be detrimental to OCBs. However, intercultural competence (IC) should help team members understand and adapt to the cultural diversity in their teams. Because these aspects remain poorly understood, this study examines the influence of cultural diversity on OCB (i.e., sportspersonship, civic virtue, helping behavior), and the moderating role of IC. A vignette survey study was conducted with 219 professional athletes from different sports (i.e., football, basketball, and volleyball), each exposed to one of three scenarios representing different levels of cultural diversity. Data were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling. Results suggest an inverted curvilinear relationship between cultural diversity and OCB, with OCBs being significantly lower in the moderate cultural diversity condition compared to the low and high conditions. In addition, the results suggest that athletes’ level of IC acted as a positive moderator between the level of cultural diversity and perceptions of OCB. These findings are discussed in relation to the literature on cultural diversity and (sport) team dynamics.