Acculturation spillovers between work and nonwork settings

Abstract

Work-nonwork spillover research extensively examines how the gains/losses obtained in a work setting may carry over to a nonwork setting along its relevance inside and outside organizations. However, we still do not know in what other ways work settings may spill over to nonwork settings – especially for immigrant populations. To address this gap, we examine whether organizations might create spillovers that shape the way immigrants acculturate (i.e., the degree to which they adopt the mainstream national culture and/or retain the heritage culture) in their nonwork settings and the way through which this might occur. More precisely, we examine whether immigrants' perceived diversity climate in work settings is associated with immigrants' diversity beliefs, which might then influence immigrants' acculturation spillover beliefs and ultimately the way immigrants actually acculturate in their non-work settings. Using structural equation modeling with a sample of 428 Hispanic immigrants, we found that Hispanic immigrants' perceived diversity climate was positively associated with their diversity beliefs, which in turn were positively associated with their acculturation spillover beliefs vis-à-vis adopting the mainstream national culture, but not retaining the heritage culture, which in turn were positively associated with the actual adoption of the mainstream national culture and heritage culture retention in nonwork settings, respectively. We expand work-nonwork spillover research by integrating it with acculturation theory and suggesting the potential impact organizations may have on Hispanic immigrants' acculturation in nonwork settings.