ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on cross-cultural problems and how cultural competence, emotional intelligence, and resiliency can prevent and resolve these employee issues. Cross-cultural employee problems can be classified into two organizational relationships: the relationships of employees with other employees and the supervisor–employee relationship. Conversations with many managers who have successfully coped with myriad difficult employee issues illustrate a commonality in their approach. The approach that managers with extensive experience used in successfully resolving difficult employee issues also had elements of emotional competence and resilience. There is a new and emerging context for resolving cross-cultural problems. Most problems can be rationally traced to an incident or attitude that precipitated the problem. Some problems arise almost spontaneously; and while there may be many actions that can be pointed to as precipitating or continuing the problem, the situation defies most logic. Many employee problems have their roots in the multicultural informal organization and the informal cross-cultural relationships.
