The Impossibility of Client–Therapist “Match”: Implications and Future Directions for Multicultural Competency

Extensive research has examined the influence of client–therapist racial, ethnic, or cultural match on outcomes in therapy. Further, many narrative reviews have summarized the literature in this area, and several meta-analytic reviews have examined the strength of the influence of client–therapist match. The present narrative review builds on previous studies by discussing several critical issues in this literature. In particular, we add to the extant literature reviews by contextualizing the challenges of defining and measuring client–therapist match given the possible broad range of diverse intersectional identities. As matching is not always possible, recommendations for working with clients of a different cultural background are discussed. Suggestions for multicultural competence training are included. We also provide a case example of how intersectionality of identities can inform the therapeutic context. The current article provides updated insights into the client–therapist match literature and emphasizes specific recommendations for education, training, and supervision.

Interactions between children and their early childhood educators: The effect of cultural match on communication

This paper describes the findings of research into children’s interactions with educators who were of the same or different culture from that of the children. The research investigated the effect of cultural context on the children’s communication and the quality of their interactions in one mainstream early childhood setting. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal educators were video-recorded interacting with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal children in an early childhood education and care setting. The interactions between the children and their educators were categorised according to whether the culture of the educator matched that of the child (cultural match), or not (cultural non-match). The interactions were transcribed and the children’s communication analysed across a variety of linguistic measures. Results indicated that the children’s communication with their educators differed in qualitative but not quantitative measures in response to cultural match. These findings support the need for further research in this area.

Information Technology Outsourcing in Australia

In Australia, popular discussion of the growing market in outsourcing information technology (IT) has been spurred by decisions of several large companies and the Australian government to outsource IT operations, but there has been little academic research into outsourcing in Australia. This chapter reports research into Australian IT outsourcing based on data collected in 1999. The research objectives were to measure the incidence of outsourcing among Australian firms, identify the functions outsourced, the reasons why managers considered outsourcing, the costs and benefits of outsourcing, possible changes in modes of and motivations for outsourcing and factors that are associated with successful outsourcing arrangements. The nature of and motivations for outsourcing have evolved; for example, cost saving is not (if it ever was) the prime motivator. The three most important factors driving outsourcing in Australia are access to skills, improved service quality and increasing managers’ ability to focus on core business activities. Decisions to outsource are weakly correlated with company size, but are not related to industry sectors. The factors most associated with successful IT outsourcing were the cultural match between the vendor and client, and the nature of the contractual arrangements—partnerships are more fruitful than rigidly interpreted black letter contracts. Outsourcing (not just of IT) is becoming increasingly popular; we suggest reasons for this and propose further research. The research used quantitative and qualitative data. A survey was used to collect data from 277 informants, and six interviews were used to explore managers’ reasons for outsourcing and relate these to the success of outsourcing arrangements. Outsourcing of many business processes (not just IT) is becoming increasingly frequent in Australia. Where appropriate, themes are illustrated by outsourcing activities other than IT.