That’s Familiar! Testing a Theory of Recognition Primed Decision-Making in Global Work Performance

Global work is complex and demanding. Responding to recent calls for constructs to be grounded in the phenomenon of global work, we highlight the importance of intercultural familiarity – the degree of previous exposure to difficult intercultural challenges – for understanding effectiveness in global work contexts. Drawing on the recognition primed decision making (RPD) model in the naturalistic decision-making paradigm, we propose that intercultural familiarity will enhance the quality of situation judgment and situation response in resolving intercultural dilemmas. Based on SJT research, we further argue that situation judgment and situation response should predict global work performance. We tested our hypotheses in two multisource, time-lagged field studies (Study 1: 122 call center agents from the Philippines; Study 2: 165 employees from 42 countries located in 5 regional offices of a MNE headquartered in Switzerland) for constructive replication. Situation judgment and response were coded using the ...