Expatriates’ Cultural Intelligence and Cross Cultural Adjustment

Abstract

Cultural intelligence (CI) focuses on intercultural settings and is driven by the practical reality of globalization in the workplace. A complementary form of intelligence CI is capable of explaining the variation between people in coping with diversity and functioning in new cultural settings. Research has indicated that poor cross-cultural adjustment influences not only expatriate performance but also a reason for premature termination of global assignments. Failure to adapt to local cultures in China, India, and the U.S. was the major reason for low rate of expatriate assignment success. 145 expatriates working in multinational companies in Bangalore participated in this study. Two reliable, valid and standardized tools were administered- Cultural Intelligence Scale, Soon Ang (2007) and Expatriate Adjustment Scale, Black and Stephens (1989). The study found that expatriates had a moderate level of cultural intelligence and adjustment. Cultural intelligence was positively correlated to cross-cultural adjustment. Companies should train expatriates to develop their cultural intelligence which would result in better adjustment to the host location and reduce the desire to return to home prematurely.