Cultural Intelligence: A Review and New Research Avenues

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12118
• Author: Snejina Michailova,Dana L. Ott
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 20, 99–119 (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12118

Cultural Intelligence: A

Review and New Research Avenues

Dana L. Ott and Snejina Michailova1

Department of Management and International Business, University of Auckland Business School, Owen G Glenn

Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland 1142, New Zealand, and 1Department of Management and International

Business, University of Auckland Business School, Owen G Glenn Building, 12 Grafton Road, Auckland 1142, New

Zealand

Corresponding author email: s.michailova@auckland.ac.nz

Cultural intelligence (CQ), an individual’scapability to function and manage effectively

in culturally diverse situations and settings, has become the focusof a vibrant scholarly

conversation and a flourishing area of multidisciplinary research. Since the introduc-

tion of the concept in 2002, substantial research has been conducted concerning its

definition, the validation of its measurement, and the examination of its development

and predictive capabilities.The present paper systematically reviews 73 conceptual and

empirical articles published on CQ from 2002 to 2015 in management and international

business journals as well as in education and psychology. The authors discuss two

distinct conceptualizations of CQ, developmentswithin the conceptual research, and op-

portunities for further theorizing. They also cluster the empirical studies based on how

CQ was used and identify patterns, achievements and challenges within the literature.

Finally,based on their analysis, they identify promising avenues forfuture research and

propose specific questions that can further advance the scholarlyconversation on CQ.

Introduction

What allows individuals to interact effectively with

others across cultures? Exactly which abilities are

necessary for effective cross-cultural interactions

in an increasingly diverse business environment?

How can people with these abilities be identified?

These are relevant questions that continue to occupy

the attention of researchers and practitioners alike.

Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) refer to over 300

characteristics and traits that have been used in mod-

els and frameworks to label what these individuals

possess, but a lack of construct clarity and validity has

continued to plague this area of research, with schol-

ars calling for some frameworks to be ‘abandoned

altogether’ (Van de Vijver and Leung 2009, p. 405).

We greatly appreciate the feedback we have received from

Associate Editor Julia Richardson and the anonymous

reviewers. We are also thankful to Kerr Inkson for his

comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

A concept that has gained considerable attention,

cultural intelligence (referred to as CQ because it

is conceptualized as a facet of intelligence) was

introduced in an article by Earley (2002) and in

Earley and Ang’s (2003) book Cultural Intelligence:

Individual Interactions across Cultures. Cultural

intelligence is ‘a person’s capability for successful

adaptation to new cultural settings, that is, for

unfamiliar settings attributable to cultural context’

(Earley and Ang 2003, p. 9). Individuals with high

CQ are culturally competent, having a repertoire of

cognitive, behavioral and motivational abilities to

work effectively with members of different cultures

and adapt to foreign environments. A person who is

able to generate new interpretations and behavior in

a culture where their learned cues and behaviors do

not fit has high CQ. People with high CQ expect that

misunderstandings will happen in other cultures and,

as a result, they delay judgment of any situation until

they accomplish understanding (Brislin et al. 2006).

The scholarly conversation on CQ has become

a flourishing area of multidisciplinary research.

C2016 British Academy of Management and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Publishedby John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington

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100 D.L. Ott and S. Michailova

Cultural intelligence appeals to a large audience

who believe that being comfortable in multicultural

environments requires more than just cognitive

intelligence. Since the introduction of the construct

and the establishment of the predictive validity of the

Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) (Ang et al. 2007),

empirical research on CQ has proliferated in multiple

disciplines, including anthropology, business and

management, education, nursing, political science,

psychology and sociology. Many studies have

focused on determining the relationship between CQ

and correlates, predictors and consequences that are

important especially in International Business (IB),

and there has been particular interest in expatriates’

CQ and its effects on adjustment, performance and

general effectiveness during international assign-

ments. More recently, researchers have considered

CQ as a dependent variable to identify its antecedents,

with a particular interest in activities that lead to its

development.

In this paper, we systematically organize the in-

sights gained about CQ over a 13-year period since

its introduction, and identify avenues for future re-

search. Our review differs from previous ones (Ang

et al. 2011; Leung et al. 2014; Ng et al. 2012) in a

few important ways. First, we include in our analysis

articles on CQ published in several disciplines: IB,

Management, Education and Psychology. While we

target primarily IB and Management audiences, we

acknowledge that they have often relied on CQ re-

search embedded in Education and Psychology,mak-

ing it problematic to exclude research conducted

in these disciplines. Second, we discuss not only

the original conceptualization of CQ (Earley 2002;

Earley and Ang 2003) that has dominated the litera-

ture so far, but also the conceptualization by Thomas

et al. (2008). We identify and analyze the key sim-

ilarities and differences between these two concep-

tualizations, and bring clarity to a space that, de-

spite criticisms, has been limited by its reliance on

one conceptualization. Third, while previous reviews

have focused only on antecedents to and outcomes

of CQ (Ang et al. 2011; Ng et al. 2012) or ex-

clusively on outcomes of CQ (Leung et al. 2014),

we also review articles that treat CQ as a media-

tor or moderator. This is an important addition, be-

cause the scholarly conversation on CQ can be en-

riched by insights that stem from research analyses

and models that extend beyond direct effects. Last,

we offer the most recent and updated review of the

CQ literature by including articles published through

2015.

Our review is structured in three sections. In the

first section, we describe the processes we adopted to

identify and select articles for our review,summarize

where CQ has been published, and depict the tempo-

ral developments of the literature. Then, we examine

this literature in detail. In the final section, we discuss

the main findings of the review, and outline avenues

and specific questions for future research that hold

promise for advancing the vibrant scholarly conver-

sation on CQ.

The review process

With the aim of presenting a comprehensive yet

focused review of the CQ literature, we confine the

scope of our search as follows. First, we exclude

books and book chapters, and only review studies

published in ranked peer-reviewedacademic journals.

Although these rankings are inherently subjective

and are continuously being debated and criticized,

they provide a set of criteria that authors use for

selecting studies to review. Such criteria are not read-

ily available for books and book chapters. Second,

while we acknowledge that CQ has been a topic in

multiple streams of literature, here, we only review

publications related to expatriation and international

assignments, which are relevant to individuals who

cross international borders or to those who are being

groomed for future positions where they may do so.

Based on this criterion, we see publications related

to education and those using student or expatriate

samples as relevant. We justify our scope by noting

that, despite international assignments often being

unsuccessful (Cole 2011; Harvey and Moeller 2009;

Stroh et al. 2000), their numbers are increasing,

and this growth is expected to continue (Brookfield

2014; Ernst and Young 2013). In addition, when CQ

was introduced, it was seen, owing to the extensive

intercultural interactions experienced by expatriates,

as a set of skills to aid them (Earley and Ang 2003).

Furthermore, the majority of literature on antecedents

to CQ use student samples based on the view that CQ

is an important skill set for graduates in the current

globalized business environment. Third, we include

publications with research conducted at the individual

level of analysis. Cultural intelligence was originally

conceptualized as an individual-level construct and

when introduced Earley and Ang (2003, p. 6) stated:

‘CQ as a group-level construct does not really make

sense in the way that we approach the construct, just

as an individual-level definition of intelligence or

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