Cultural Intelligence: Antecedents and Propensity to Accept a Foreign-Based Job Assignment

Abstract

IntroductionIn light of ever increasing pace of globalization and especially given sharp increase in levels of foreign direct investment from developed and developing countries alike, role of expatriate has never been as important as it is today. It has been argued that expatriates play an especially important role in a corporation's competitiveness (Takeuchi et al., 2005) with estimates of as high as 80% of middle and large companies sending their professionals abroad (Black & Gregersen, 1999). The cost of an overseas assignment is typically very high for corporation, with estimates of 1 50% to 200% of salaries being required per year to maintain an expatriate (Downes, Varner & Hemmasi, 2010) and when seen from perspective of a 4 year assignment estimates of costs can be as high as US$2 million (Klaff, 2002). Evidently, given importance of institutional knowledge gained through such assignments, companies often consider them as being essential to their business, and importance of getting best qualified employees to fill such positions may be considered critical. However, there have been continuing reports of expatriate performance issues and even failure (Downes, Varner & Hemmasi, 2010) and that a number of problems have contributed to expatriate performance issues including cultural shock , stress, and cultural adaptation (Carraher, Sullivan, & Carraher, 2004; Chen, Lin & Sawangpattanakul, 2010).Given these performance issues, question arises as to whether or not firm's best employees would accept an offer to take an assignment abroad. Further, companies need to know what factors would increase likelihood of accepting such a position. It has been argued that cultural intelligence and relevant previous experience lead to successful expatriate performance, retention, and overall career success (Shaffer and Miller, 2008). Given their importance for expatriate success, could it be that these factors may also make a person more likely to accept a position overseas in first place? This area of research, having been introduced by Earley and Ang (2003) less than ten years ago, is relatively unexplored and, to our knowledge no research to date has examined specifically these potential antecedents to an employee's decision to accept a job in a foreign country.This study proposes a unique model (Figure 1) and uses university business students in United States and France to test model's relationships. The paper investigates whether or not personality has an impact on cultural intelligence and multicultural behavior, as well as whether or not cultural intelligence and multicultural experiences can predict propensity of a subject to accept an offer for assignment in a country with a culture very different from his/her own. The specific variables examined in this study include: openness to experience (openness); multicultural behavior; cultural intelligence; and likelihood of accepting a job in a country with a very different culture. The implications from such research may give companies further insight into how to develop and select expatriates as well as assist teachers and researchers in building expatriate development models.We will begin with a brief review of cultural intelligence and what we suggest may be key antecedents and then introduce a model from which research hypotheses are developed. We then review sample and methodology used in testing research followed by presentation of results, before discussing of these results as well as underlying study's limitations and offering suggestions for future research.Cultural IntelligenceCultural intelligence (CQ) is defined as an individual's capability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings (Early & Ang, 2003). This definition is consistent with Schmidt and Hunter's (2000) definition of general intelligence as the ability to grasp and reason correctly with abstractions (concepts) and solve problems(3). …