Navigating Acculturation : Culture-Caused Critical Incidents between Dutch Ethnic Majorities and Ethnic Minorities and How to Balance Them

Recent migration trends have significantly increased cultural diversity in Western European societies, transforming them from homogenous to heterogenous. This shift has impacted the workforce, making cultural acculturation crucial as immigrants adapt to new environments. While previous research has mainly focused on exploring the differing views between ethnic majorities and minorities, it often overlooks the (in)voluntary acculturation process of immigrants over time. A few studies try to underscore these shortcomings, but it remains unexplored in empirical evidence. Therefore, this study aims to gather empirical validation and gain a deeper understanding of cultural acculturation in a multicultural work environment. By employing a real-time data approach, this study uses a single case study of ethnic minority members and Dutch ethnic majority members, working at a hotel. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted. The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) revealed that while certain “we”-culture characteristics are gradually lost over time, others remain deeply ingrained in one’s identity. Moreover, the findings challenge existing acculturation theories, in particular, Berry et al., (1987) acculturation stress model, and advocate largely for Enklaar’s (2021) acculturation framework as a more accurate reflection of the stages of cultural adaption. However, this comes with an important nuance; The phases of acculturation vary by characteristic, meaning not all characteristics of an individual go through the same phase of acculturation at once.