The Elusive Cultural Chameleon: Cultural Intelligence as a New Approach to Intercultural Training for the Global Manager

TLDR

The global economy and shifting political tides underscore the need for intercultural understanding, prompting a debate on how to prepare managers for multinational, cross‑country assignments. The study seeks to determine how to assess readiness for cross‑cultural assignments and whether high IQ predicts better adjustment. The authors develop and explore cultural intelligence (CQ) as a framework for training and education of global managers. The CQ framework recommends training that incorporates metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral components, marking a departure from traditional value‑centric intercultural education.

Abstract

The global economy and shifting political tides make the need for intercultural understanding and education obvious. Where historically the focus of intercultural training has been on preparing an individual to work in a new culture, today's organizations routinely ask managers to work in multinational environments and move from country to country. This challenge has created a strong debate about how to prepare managers for such challenging assignments. How ought people be assessed to understand their readiness for such assignments? Do high intelligence quotient (IQ) people adjust better than others to new cultural challenges? The topic of cultural adjustment and its assessment remains compelling but incomplete. Our focus here is the development and exploration of the concept of cultural intelligence, or, CQ (Earley, 2003; Earley & Ang, 2003), along with its implications for training and education for global work assignments. Our approach suggests that training for the global manager should include metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral components. The CQ approach represents a significant break from conventional wisdom of focusing on cultural values for intercultural education.