Cultural intelligence and relationship quality in the cabin crew team: The perception of members belonging to cultural minority groups

Abstract

The study explored the contribution of cultural intelligence (CQ) to team relationship conflict and team trust from the perspective of minority cabin crew. Data were obtained from 320 Thai crew members from 7 non-Thai airlines. CQ was negatively related with team relationship conflict and was positively related with team trust. The negative contribution of CQ to team relationship conflict was lower for the Thai crew members who were proficient in the foreign language used by the native members, and for the Thai members who worked in the flights that had a high proportion of Thai crew members on the team.

Keywords:

• Cross-cultural team
• cultural intelligence
• diversity
• social identity

Acknowledgments

This research received financial support from the National Institute of Development Administration.