International career aspirations: Can multicultural personality traits predict the interest in working abroad?

Abstract

The business world is faced with the need to create new strategies in order to identify a global mentality and an international motivation in professionals who hardly work anymore in monocultural environments. This study investigates the characteristics of international career aspirations to identify multicultural personality traits that may predict interest in working abroad. Empirical research has been carried out with 243 individuals using the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), a multidimensional instrument whose objective is to measure multicultural efficacy. The results of the study suggest that open-mindedness and flexibility are the main predictors of interest in working abroad. These findings have important implications for organizations that require suitable candidates to work effectively in international and multicultural environments.