The Role Of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) In Intercultural Communication And Multinational Team Performances

Based on the framework of Bandura’s social learning theory and Edward T. Hall’s inter-cultural communication competence theory, this thesis discusses the potential effect of individual’s cognitive cultural, behavioural and environmental aspects on inter-cultural communication, postulating cultural intelligence (CQ) as a key driver of cultural adaptation and team performances among culturally diverse students.Throughout an empirical case study of7post-graduate programmes at Imperial College Business School, the thesis observes, investigates and analyses322international participants in seven-month time. Drawing upon5different components, i.e., self-efficacy, contact approach, cultural intelligence, diversity and team performances,4sets of measurement items proving by researchers in relevant fields were adopted to assess and compare the potential impact of target group’s cognitive, motivational and behavioural CQ changes throughout experimental education over time, as well as their effects on team collaboration and performance. SPSS is adopted to justify the validity and reliability of collected data, while a path map analysis has been generated with coefficients, variance and correlations explained in details.The five hypotheses have been justified, illustrating3significant findings:Self-efficacy and contact theories are positively connected with cultural intelligence development; Cognitive and motivational cultural intelligence are directly related to positive team performances; while behavioural cultural intelligence is connected with team performance through the mediation of perceived team-efficacy; Culturally diverse student teams cannot perform as well as culturally homogeneous teams at the initial stage, but the performance growth rate and long-term competitive advantage are eventually greater than less diverse teams with the help of cultural intelligence. The result can have two-fold implications. For students, learning cultural differences and improving language capability is far from enough to work efficiently in culturally diverse contact, new skills and contact approach should also be acquired for both cultural adaptation and communication. For educators, such experiential education as Imperial College Business School is worth following since it might work better and more efficient in students’ cultural intelligence development than the traditional knowledge based cultural education. Limitation of the analysis as well as suggestions for further study is also discussed in the final part.