Duff, Tahbaz, & Chan (2012). The Interactive Effect of Cultural Intelligence and Openness on Task Performance (original) (raw)

The continuing growth in globalisation necessitates a better understanding of how to harness the synergy that comes from effective cross cultural management. This study contributes to current understanding of the individual level factors contributing to the effectiveness of exchanges between culturally diverse team members. Although there is research evidence demonstrating that certain personality traits and cultural intelligence are related to task performance, very little effort has been spent on investigating the interactions of these concepts in a cross cultural setting. An experiment with 102 (51 cross cultural dyads) students was designed to test the interactions between cultural intelligence and openness on the perception of task performance. Results showed that behavioural intelligence enhanced task performance and that openness interacts with the other three dimensions of cultural intelligence (meta cognitive intelligence, cognitive intelligence and motivational intelligence) to moderate task performance. Research and practical implications for diversity management are presented.