Paper Details

Name: Prachi Tyagi
Country: India

Year: 2026
Volume: Vol-13, Issue-2, Year-2026 ( July- December)
Page Number: 192-205
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23012882

This study reports an exploratory survey of employees' perceptions of cross-cultural friction and HR practices in culturally diverse workplaces. A conceptual model linking communication, trust, team performance, and Cultural Intelligence (CQ) provides the theoretical background. The survey did not directly measure trust, CQ, or team performance, and it did not measure communication effectiveness as a distinct construct. It asked about perceived communication difficulty and respondents' general views about communication and trust. The survey therefore does not test hypotheses H1–H3.
An anonymous online questionnaire was completed by 70 respondents recruited through convenience and snowball sampling. Two post-hoc indices were calculated: a four-item Perceived Cultural Friction index (Cronbach's alpha = .63) and a six-item HR Cultural-Management index (alpha = .91). The modest reliability of the Friction index requires particular caution.
Spearman correlations in this sample show an association between perceived communication difficulty and perceived team impact (rho = .65, p < .001), and between more frequent intercultural interaction and greater reported communication difficulty (rho = .65, p < .001). The Friction index was also positively associated with the HR-practice index (rho = .66, p < .001) and the overall HR-effectiveness rating (rho = .43, p < .001). These are unadjusted, cross-sectional associations, not evidence of causation or of HR buffering friction. In this sample, 72.9% rated HR's overall role as effective or very effective.
The findings are descriptive and should not be generalised beyond this self-selected sample. The study is best read as a pilot motivating a larger study with validated measures and direct sampling of cross-border virtual teams, not as a confirmatory test of the conceptual model.

Keywords: Perceived Cultural Friction, HR Practices, Culturally Diverse Workplaces, Cross-Cultural Communication, Exploratory Survey, Cultural Intelligence Conceptual Model