Research note: the development of an Arabic cross‐cultural adjustment scale

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to report on the development of an Arabic language scale for measuring cross‐cultural adjustment in the Arab world, predominately the Middle East. It also comments on aspects of psychometric tools and their appropriateness for use in cross‐cultural management research.Design/methodology/approachBlack and Stephen's Cross‐Cultural Adjustment Scale was translated into Arabic using the method of back‐translation and a pilot item‐by‐item debriefing. It was then administered to 111 Arabic‐speaking employees of a single firm.FindingsThe Arabic language version yielded high alpha coefficients and a subsequent factor analysis revealed three primary factors of cross‐cultural adjustment, namely, Work Adjustment, Interaction Adjustment and General Adjustment, which corresponded closely to the original English version of the scale, with two minor exceptions.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is confined to the cultural‐linguistic context in which it was executed.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that an Arabic version of the three‐factor scale is useful for measuring adjustment in Arabic‐speaking samples and implies the wider generalizability of the cross‐cultural adjustment construct. The development of this scale in an important region for migrant labor is highly relevant to practice.Originality/valueAn Arabic version of the most widely used cross‐cultural adjustment scale is of value to researchers and practitioners. The Muslim sample drawn from the Middle East region also makes the paper highly original.