Cultural Intelligence in Thailand: An Examination of its Antecedents and Consequence

Abstract

Cultural intelligence (CQ) is one of the most successful development factors that can be employed for expatriate adjustment and performance in cross-cultural settings. Very little research has examined the association between different antecedents and intercultural outcomes through CQ from a holistic perspective. Specifically, the antecedents of CQ are usually considered a multidimensional construct. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among CQ’s antecedents (i.e., cross-cultural experience (CCE), general cross-cultural training (CCT), Thai CCT, and openness to experience) and CQ’s consequence (i.e., expatriate performance) within a sample of overseas teachers employed in international educational institutions in Thailand. Cultural intelligence was considered a mediating variable between CCE and expatriate performance, as well as between CCTs and expatriate performance. Openness to experience was considered a moderating variable between CCE and CQ, as well as between CCTs and CQ. Further, the effect of CQ-employed mindfulness was examined to see if mindfulness could explain additional variance in expatriate performance above and beyond the original components of CQ. Path analysis was primarily conducted to examine the sequences of relationships among the variables in the present study. A qualitative analysis was also conducted to better understand the learning of Thai culture from the actual experiences of overseas teachers in Thailand. Results showed that the variables used in this study are related to and contribute significantly to explaining expatriate performance. The overall fit of the proposed models that use CQ-employed mindfulness as a mediator variable is better than the overall fit of the proposed models that use CQ-only as a mediator variable. Overseas teachers with high openness to experience scores reported high CQ scores. There was also an interaction effect between CCE and openness to experience on CQ. Further, the overseas teachers with high CQ scores reported high expatriate performance scores. In addition, more general CCT days directly predicted higher CQ scores. Lastly, four major themes describing the learning of Thai culture emerged. This study concludes by discussing implications for research and practice, the limitations of the study, and recommendations for future research.