Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

Cultural Intelligence and Levels of Readiness

The third and final variable in the model represents an overall level of readiness to communicate in ways that are beneficial to global organizational learning. We use the concept of cultural intelligence (abbreviated as CQ) (Ang and Van Dyne, 2008; Early and Ang, 2003) to explore the characteristics of individuals who are more likely to have the capability to overcome the communication barriers to organizational learning in MNCs described above.

Cultural intelligence is conceptualized as having four main dimensions: meta-cognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral (Ang and Van Dyne, 2008). Meta-cognitive CQ refers to the ‘individual’s level of conscious cultural awareness during cross-cultural interactions. People with strength in meta-cognitive CQ consciously question their own cultural assumptions, reflect during interactions, and adjust their cultural knowledge when interacting with those from other cultures’ (Ang and Van Dyne, 2008: 5). It can thus be seen as a higher-order cognitive process. Cognitive CQ, on the other hand, is more concerned with understanding how cultures differ and includes knowledge of the norms and practices of other cultures that a person accumulates through study or personal experience. Motivational CQ refers to the ‘capability to direct attention and energy toward learning about functioning in situations characterized by cultural differences,’ that is, being willing to expend the energy to understand ...