Adult Learning Basics

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Managing Cultural Differences in Learners

Cultural intelligence (CQ) was a term coined by Christopher Earley and Elaine Mosakowski in a Harvard Business Review article published in 2004. According to them, CQ is an ability to deal with national, corporate, and occupational cultures. Since the 2004 publication of the article by Earley and Mosakowski, several books have been published about CQ (see, for instance, Livermore 2015; Peterson 2018; Thomas and Inkson 2017). Culture, of course, refers to unspoken beliefs about the right and wrong ways to behave.

Sharing certain features of emotional intelligence (EQ), CQ has to do with distinguishing culturally grounded behaviors from those that are idiosyncratic (individual) or norm-based (unique to ...