Cultural Intelligence and Institutional Success: The Mediating Role of Relationship Quality

Developing intercultural competence through a cultural metacognition-featured instructional design in English as a foreign language classrooms

The soaring demand for intercultural competence (IC) in the globalized world has made it a key concern in foreign language education. Most existing training on IC has often focused on providing immersive intercultural experiences, equipping learners with cultural knowledge, and simulating intercultural situations. However, some of these approaches may not be feasible in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms, nor are they effective to prepare learners to cope with the complexities and uncertainties in novel intercultural situations unless there specifically involves higher-order thinking. Thus, this study took a perspective of cultural metacognition and examined whether and how could an instructional design that highlighted cultural metacognition facilitate learners' IC development in an EFL classroom at the tertiary level in Chinese mainland. Fifty-eight undergraduate students enrolled in an English Listening, Viewing, and Speaking course were involved in the instruction, and questionnaires and focus groups were employed for the data collection. A paired sample t-test revealed that there was a significant enhancement in students' intercultural competence in terms of affective, metacognitive, and behavioral dimensions, but not in the knowledge dimension. Thematic analysis indicated that the instructional design was effective in supporting students' intentional knowledge acquiring, developing positive intercultural attitudes, and promoting the translation of cognition into actions. The findings thus confirmed that the instructional design featuring cultural metacognition can be used in domestic EFL contexts, such as College English classrooms at the tertiary level in Chinese mainland, as an effective way of enhancing learners' IC. This study also offered additional evidence of how students' IC development was achieved through a range of metacognitive processes, which may provide implications for teachers to design their IC instructions in similar EFL educational settings.

Core self-evaluations and project managers' competencies: the moderating role of cultural intelligence

Purpose

The study investigates the effects of core self-evaluations on project managers' competencies. The study further examines the moderating effect of cultural intelligence between core self-evaluations and competencies.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, with a descriptive-survey approach, necessary data were collected from a sample of project managers of Iran's Ministry of Communication and Information Technology through questionnaires. The conceptual framework of the study was tested according to structural equation modeling by PLS software.

Findings

Findings show that core self-evaluations have positive and significant effects on project managers' competencies among which psychological stability has the greatest effect. Furthermore, the moderating role of cultural intelligence in the relationship between core self-evaluations and project managers' competencies was confirmed. According to the calculated coefficient, motivational cultural intelligence had the greatest role.

Research limitations/implications

The data were collected using a questionnaire at a single point in time, and thus, not allowing cause–effect inferences. Also, the demographic variables were not controlled.

Practical implications

The results of this study provide some implications for HRM professionals and project managers interested in promoting a system of HR practices that contributes to enhancing project managers' competencies and effectiveness.

Originality/value

This study advances our understanding of the factors that have an effect on project managers' competencies, specifically on a list of main competencies necessary for project managers' performance. Moreover, it suggests that project managers' competencies will benefit from cultural intelligence, which will display a greater effect when embedded in highly diverse cultural contexts.

How relationship quality, autonomous work motivation and socialization experience influence the adjustment of self-initiated expatriates in China

Purpose

The continued expansion of organizations outside China's planned economy due to the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI) is expected to increase recruitment of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs). Drawing on social capital, motivation and socialization theories, this study examines the experiences of SIEs in China, which is considered one of the most difficult locations for foreigners to work. While previous research has focused on the impact of individual characteristics on adjustment, this study explores the interplay among relationship quality (trust and shared vision), autonomous work motivation, socialization experience and adjustment.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the developed theoretical framework, hypotheses are proposed and tested using data collected by surveying 274 SIEs in China.

Findings

Relationship quality with host country nationals (HCNs) was positively associated with adjustment, and autonomous work motivation fully mediated this relationship. Socialization experience moderated the association between relationship quality and autonomous work motivation. Specifically, SIEs' socialization experience strengthened the associations of trust and shared vision with autonomous work motivation. However, socialization experiences failed to moderate the mediated effects of trust and shared vision on adjustment via autonomous work motivation.

Originality/value

This study answers repeated calls for more research on SIEs' adjustment and SIEs working in non-Western countries, especially China. The findings underscore the importance of studying SIE-HCN work relationships and the theoretical value of autonomous work motivation as an underlying mechanism by which the quality of an SIE's relationship with an HCN colleague influences adjustment.

The Role of Extraversion and Openness on Host Country Nationals' Task Performance and Contextual Performance at Work

Purpose

This study answer calls for research on host country nationals (HCNs) by examining factors that may influence HCN task performance and contextual performance during work with their self-initiated expatriate (SIE) colleagues.

Participants and Methods

Data on personality traits (extraversion, openness), socialization self-efficacy, and frequency of interaction, task, and contextual performance were collected by surveying 373 Chinese HCNs. The first author recruited the HCNs through SIEs working and living in China. SIEs who participated in this project provided the email addresses of HCNs with whom they worked.

Results

The frequency of interactions fully mediated the relationship between (a) extraversion with task and contextual performance and (b) openness with task and contextual performance. Only socialization self-efficacy moderated the mediating effects of extraversion on task performance via the frequency of interaction; it also moderated the mediating effects of openness on contextual performance via the frequency of interactions, but not in the hypothesized direction.

Conclusion

This study investigated the neglected stakeholder in the expatriation process, namely, HCNs, and what factors may impact HCNs' performance during work and collaboration with their SIE colleagues.

Theoretical foundations of antecedents of internationalization and moderators in multinationality–performance relationship

Purpose

In this paper, the authors undertake a systematic analysis of multinationality–performance (M-P) literature published in the last decade, when antecedents for internationalization and moderators of the M-P relationship had attained a center stage in international business and international management research. Though M-P relationship is one of the most widely studied topics within international business literature, so far synthesis of the entire theoretical landscape is missing in extant literature.

Design/methodology/approach

Through keywords search process, the authors found 111 studies in management literature that look at internationalization, its antecedents, performance of internationalized firms, and moderators of the M-P relationship. The focus of this study is to identify theoretical foundations used to explain the antecedents and moderators in M-P relationship, in order to suggest the future research direction for the field. The authors classify the antecedents and moderators based on their theoretical underpinnings not only to identify commonly used theoretical foundations in the last 10 years of international strategy research but also to highlight potential areas for future research.

Findings

The authors’ analysis indicates that research on international strategy in the last decade was dominated by theory testing in the context of developed economies. The authors’ review suggests that majority of the antecedents and moderators in the M-P relationship are anchored within institutional theory, organizational structure, resource-based view, social capital, and upper echelon theory.

Originality/value

The authors’ findings are indicative of a rich research potential of M-P relationship in the contextual research setting of emerging markets while leveraging more diversified theoretical bases and multiple levels of research design.

Management of Innovations in Cross-Cultural Communication within an Organization

This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the discussion on the issue of cultural intelligence, bilingualism, and the relationship between language proficiency and cultural intelligence. The primary purpose of the research is to explore the relationship between bilingualism (or high language proficiency in two languages) and cultural intelligence. The systematization of literary sources and approaches for solving the problem indicates that a significant link between these constructs could be expected. The relevance of the decision of this scientific problem is that this relationship has not yet been the subject of any previous research. Investigation of the paper topic is carried out in the following logical sequence: a thorough look into a conceptual and theoretical framework of cultural intelligence, bilingualism and the link between cultural intelligence and language proficiency; in the second part of the paper two hypotheses are developed on the base of previous research, and the corresponding methodology is described. The theoretical model of the explored relationship is tested using the SmartPLS-SEM 3 program. The objects of the survey are 243 undergraduate students studying in the English study program at the University of Finance and Administration in the Czech Republic. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that there is a positive correlation between the level of foreign (non-native) language proficiency and cultural intelligence score. Language competence predicates the overall rating for CQ. The metacognitive and motivational factors of CQ play a substantial role within the framework of this relationship. On the other hand, data do not confirm a statistically significant difference between the group of bilingual and monolingual respondents. The results of the research can be useful for those who manage people across cultures and prepare students for working abroad or in international teams such as language teachers at universities. Keywords: cultural intelligence, language proficiency, bilingualism, biculturalism, cultural frame switching, PLS-SEM, intercultural effectiveness