Cultural Intelligence and IB Education

1. CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND IB EDUCATION

Because of its contextual richness and behavioral dimensions, teaching and learning international business must extend beyond the simple conveying of facts and concepts to include experiential learning that leads to changes in student mind-sets (Aggarwal and Goodell 2012). Adaptation to cultural differences is an important component of global mind-sets needed by students and executives in international business. In order to achieve these goals, it is important to develop awareness of how cultural intelligence (CQ) enhances IB learning; as well as understanding and communicating the career benefits of CQ to students. Cultural intelligence can be defined as the ability of an outsider to interpret someone’s unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures in a similar way to that person’s compatriots (Earley & Mosakowski (2004). While in the previous issues we noted the necessarily diverse set of teaching tools in IB education, in this issue of JTIB we draw attention to the value of CQ to IB teaching.

Since the study of emotion in organizations has become central to our understanding of behavior at work, scholarly study of how to integrate emotional intelligence (EQ) into the classroom has been important. As CQ reflects the ability to manage international cultural differences, it is the cross-border equivalent of EQ. For example, as noted by Earley and Mosakowski (2004), cultural intelligence is a related extension of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence allows an understanding of what makes us human and awareness that there are important differences among people. Cultural intelligence goes further to allow discerning a group’s behavior—those features that would be particular to this group. Cultural intelligence is the ability to examine and cope with the gap between general behavior of all people and the idiosyncratic behavior of individuals. Thus, similar to the evolution of the study of EQ, scholarly study of the teaching and benefits of CQ has also evolved similarly.

The benefits of emphasizing intelligences such as cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence in business education, and for subsequent business career success, have been widely noted in the literature. For instance, Manning (2012) finds that service learning activities are more effective when directed to enhance and take advantage of cultural intelligence. Houghton, Wu, Godwin, Neck, and Manz (2012) offer a model that suggests that effective emotion regulation and self-leadership, as mediated through positive affect and self-efficacy, has the potential to facilitate stress coping in international business. Further, Bay and McKeage (2006) note that emotional intelligence (the ability to recognize, use and manage emotions) has become a skill that may allow accountants to perform better in a variety of areas such as leadership, client relations, and perhaps even decision-making.

As this preceding short discussion indicates, it is clear that understanding and emphasizing the role of CQ can greatly enhance the efficacy of IB education. It is certainly time for greater emphasis and understanding of CQ in the IB classroom.

2. INTRODUCING THIS ISSUE

This issue of JTIB is focuses on cultural intelligence in IB education. Papers published in the past issues of the Journal of Teaching in International Business reflect the varied learning environments of IB. In this issue, we highlight learning styles.

The first article in this issue, “Improving Intercultural Competence in the Classroom: A Reflective Development Model” by Jing Betty Feng of Farmingdale State College, highlights a four-stage reflective development model for use in the traditional classroom context to enhance intercultural competence for undergraduate students. The model provides a pedagogical approach for motivating students to engage in intercultural interactions, for helping them learn to make sense of their environment, and for advancing their learning about intercultural interactions. Results of a successful testing of the model are presented.

The second article in this issue, “Foreign Travel Experience and Cultural Intelligence: Does Country Choice Matter?” by Robert L. Engle of Quinnipiac University and Briana Nash of Terex Corporation, examines learning styles and their preferences in business education with an emphasis on international students. This study examines the impact of specific time-based country experience outside of the subject’s native regional cultural cluster on the development of a subject’s level of cultural intelligence. Using a sample of 143 subjects, their results suggest individuals who identified the country within which they have spent the most total time as a non-Anglo country, developed a higher level of cultural intelligence as compared to demographically similar U.S. citizens who have spent their most significant amount of time overseas in an Anglo cluster country. These findings supported hypotheses suggesting that for all four dimensions of cultural intelligence including metacognitive CQ, cognitive CQ, motivational CQ, and behavioral CQ, the non-Anglo cultural cluster group experience resulted in greater CQ development than with the Anglo cultural cluster group experience.

The third article in this issue, “Education-Related Factors in Cultural Intelligence Development: A Colombian Study” by Cristina Robledo-Ardila, Sara Aguilar-Barrientos, and Juan Pablo Román-Calderón of EAFIT University in Medellín, Colombia, also investigates factors that develop cultural intelligence. A study of 557 students of a Colombian international business undergraduate program finds that second language proficiency, multicultural team membership, and participation in curricular and extracurricular activities promote the development of the cultural intelligence of undergraduate international business students.

Also included in this issue is a book review by Raj Aggarwal. This review covers a textbook in international economics designed for classes with students in both international economics and international business. The text reviewed here is authored by W. Charles Sawyer and Richard L. Sprinkle and titled Applied International Economics, 4th Edition. One of the major forces underlying and propelling globalization is the wealth creation through the application of international economics principles. Further, international economic principles are important foundations for understanding much of international business (IB) including multinational enterprises (MNEs). Thus, knowledge of international economics is an important foundation for IB students and the selection of an appropriate text for this topic is important.

Additionally, in this issue we thank our article reviewers of 2015 for their generous commitment to the Journal of Teaching in International Business. The quality of the journal would undoubtedly suffer without their generous efforts. We are very grateful to our reviewers.

As in the past, we hope you enjoy reading this issue and that you find it thought-provoking—perhaps even providing ideas to further improve your own teaching. We would appreciate hearing your comments on this issue. We can be reached at [email protected].

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raj Aggarwal

Raj Aggarwal is the Sullivan Professor of International Business and Finance and the former Business Dean at the University of Akron, USA. He is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business and has won many awards as an outstanding scholar. He is also a Board Member of many mutual funds, corporations, and nonprofit organizations. He is a past area editor of the Journal of International Business Studies and the current Editor of the Journal of Teaching in International Business. Raj Aggarwal is the author of numerous publications and has over 3,100 Google citations and an h-index of 29.

John W. Goodell

John W. Goodell is an Assistant Professor at the University of Akron, USA. His recent publications include articles in Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Multinational Financial Management, International Business Review, and Emerging Markets Review. He is the Assistant Editor of the Journal of Teaching in International Business.