Cultural Intelligence

In a global market where international teams, initiatives, and joint ventures are increasingly common, it is extremely important for people to integrate themselves quickly in new cultures. Effective strategies for selecting and training people on global perspectives are critical for managing businesses. Current theories in management and psychology do not provide adequate frameworks to explain the successes or failures of people working and managing in foreign cultures. In this book, the authors develop the idea of cultural intelligence and examine its three essential facets: cognition, the ability to develop patterns from cultural cues; motivation, the desire and ability to engage others; and behavior, the capability to act in accordance with cognition and motivation. In their presentation of this new conceptual framework, the authors provide a critical review of the existing literature. They explore the fundamental nature of cultural intelligence and its relationship to other frameworks of intelligence.

P. Christopher Earley is Professor and Chair of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School. Soon Ang is Professor and Chair of the Division of Strategy, Management, and Organization at the Nanyang Business School, Singapore.