Assessing the Effects of Cultural Intelligence on Team Knowledge Sharing From a Socio-Cognitive Perspective

Exploring the longitudinal effects of emotional intelligence and cultural intelligence on knowledge management processes

Managing knowledge has become a new reality for multinational corporations (MNCs). Previous studies in the management field have closely examined personality traits as stable dispositional constructs over time, but they oversighted the possibilities that seemingly stable traits are likely to have different effects on outcomes in varying time waves. Combining horizontal and longitudinal surveys, this study collected two-wave datasets of 216 employees from MNCs, and built Fixed, Continuous and Interacting Models to investigate the effects of individual emotional intelligence (EI) and cultural intelligence (CI) as key traits on the processes of organizational knowledge management (KM) over time. This study discovered the fixed, continuous and interacting roles of EI and CI in KM processes at different times, and it also concluded that the traditional assumption of conceptualizing the effects of dispositional variables as fixed should be re-examined. The findings provided empirical and statistical evidence for future research as well as management suggestions for MNCs implementing KM practices.

Relationship between cultural intelligence and learning organization

Human capital is one of the critical resources for organizations around the world, and it requires significant learning and development (L&D) investments as a structured approach to become a learning organization. The study evaluates the relationship between cultural intelligence and learning organization by analyzing 364 responses received from employees-working across Indian organizations from varied sectors. The dimensions used for measuring learning organization in the study are – information sharing and accessibility, systematic problem solving, acceptance of error and experimenting with new approaches. Results demonstrate a significant positive relationship between learning organization and its four dimensions and cultural intelligence. The findings have implications for organizations to inculcate learning organization disciplines for improved cultural intelligence while also bridging the gap in the existing literature.

Building Collective Efficacy to Support Public Health Workforce Development

CONTEXT

Leaders in public health have made great advances in workforce development over the past 30 years, while shifting from an emphasis based in training on individual, technical skills to a more holistic development approach, which boosts crosscutting skills. Efforts to increase public health workforce capabilities remain focused on workers as individuals, rather than the workforce as a collective unit.

PROGRAM

Research has shown that a strategic adult learning approach can improve both individual capabilities and the collective performance of the workforce, which can be explained using social cognitive theory and the concept of collective efficacy, or the collective belief of workers in the ability of the group to succeed. We explain how a prior training program pushed us to explore this approach.

IMPLEMENTATION

The proposed approach covers proposed implementation strategies to build collective efficacy as part of existing workforce development initiatives, with a focus on 5 key steps.

EVALUATION

Experience in fields as diverse as sports psychology and organizational development has shown that it is possible to evaluate changes in collective efficacy using measures that can be adopted in public health.

DISCUSSION

Adjusting existing public health workforce development initiatives to build collective efficacy can help link workforce self-confidence to performance. More actionable data are needed to determine the best methods for achieving those goals in the field of public health.

Sustainable innovation in the context of organizational cultural diversity: The role of cultural intelligence and knowledge sharing

With the in-depth development of globalization, individuals are increasingly embedded in a culturally diverse environment. Effective communication and management ability (Cultural Intelligence) of employees in this type of diverse and heterogeneous environment impacts behavior and performance, affecting the sustainable innovation ability of organizations. Researchers have not yet fully assessed the impact of individuals' cross-cultural management ability on sustainable innovation. Using Cultural Intelligence Theory and Trait Activation Theory, this paper discusses the influence of individual cultural intelligence on sustainable innovation behavior. The results showed that employees' cultural intelligence positively affected their sustainable innovation behavior. Employee knowledge sharing plays an mediating role between intelligence and behavior. Differences in organizational culture have a negative moderating effect on the impact of employees' cultural intelligence on knowledge sharing and sustainable innovation behaviors. The research results provide theoretical guidance for managing organizational cultural diversity and advancing cultural intelligence and sustainable innovation behaviors among employees.

Can Cultural Intelligence Affect Employee's Innovative Behavior? Evidence From Chinese Migrant Workers in South Korea

This empirical study explores the effect of cultural intelligence (CQ) on migrant workers’ innovative behavior, as well as the mediating role of knowledge sharing on the CQ-innovative behavior relationship. Besides, it also examines the extent to which the mediating process is moderated by climate for inclusion. Using survey data collected from Chinese migrant workers and their supervisors working in South Korea (n = 386), migrant workers’ CQ is found to positively impact their innovative behavior through enhanced knowledge sharing. However, it is observed that this indirect relationship is significant, only for migrant workers in a strong climate for inclusion. Thus, these findings reveal the underlying mediation and moderation mechanism and consequently unveil the important role of migrant workers’ CQ in shaping their behavior. This study provides insightful and practical implications to a multicultural organization, where culturally diverse migrant workers work together.

Group Intercultural Competence: Adjusting and Validating Its Concept and Development Process

ABSTRACT Intercultural competence is a topic that has been increasingly focused on academic researches, mainly related to the context of multinational companies and multicultural teams. The literature on intercultural competence is broad, permeated with many concepts and models of its development, but the main focus is on individual (cognitive/behavioral approach). There are few studies on the group level whose approach emphasize the process. The objective of this study was to empirically test the concept of group intercultural competence (GIC) and analyze its development in multicultural teams, as indicated by Leung, Ang and Tan (2014) . This research can be characterized as qualitative, of exploratory-descriptive type, with an interpretive approach that embraces sequential intra-method triangulation, with interpretative and content analysis. As the results, the process of GIC development was found to occur towards more mature levels of GIC and to be characterized by an upward spiral pyramidal process, where the lowest level evolves to higher levels of GIC through a cycle of inter-cultural learning. This development occurs over time and is permeated by conflict, reflection and change, covering the elements of GIC: interaction, efficacy, cultural differences, intercultural learning and communication, such as cause and consequence. Based on the theoretical and empirical contributions, it was possible to adjust and validate a proposed GIC concept, to adjust the relevant elements and dimensions for GIC analysis, and to understand how the GIC is developed through a procedural perspective where there is an intercultural learning cycle permeated by conflicts, reflections, interaction and changes.

Relationship between team culture and team performance through lens of knowledge sharing and team emotional intelligence

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between team culture and team performance through the mediating role of knowledge sharing and team emotional intelligence.

Design/methodology/approach

The study advocated that team culture influences the knowledge sharing behavior of team members and the development of emotional intelligence skill at the team level. Further, it is hypothesized that knowledge sharing and team emotional intelligence positively influence team performance. By adopting a quantitative research design, data were gathered by using a survey questionnaire from 535 respondents representing 95 teams working in private health-care institutions.

Findings

The findings significantly indicated that knowledge sharing and team emotional intelligence influence team working. Furthermore, this study confirms the strong association between team culture and team performance through the lens of knowledge sharing and team emotional intelligence.

Practical implications

This investigation offers observational proof to health-care services to familiarize workers with the ability of emotional intelligence and urge them to share knowledge for enhanced team performance. The study provides in-depth understanding to managers and leaders in health-care institutions to decentralize culture at the team level for endorsement of knowledge sharing behavior.

Originality/value

This is amongst one of the initial studies investigating team members making a pool of knowledge to realize potential gains enormously and influenced by the emotional intelligence. Team culture set a platform to share knowledge which is considered one of the principal execution conduct essential for accomplishing and managing team adequacy in a sensitive health-care environment.

Autonomous team members’ expectations for top-leader involvement

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine incongruities between autonomous team members’ expectations for top-leader involvement with teams and their perceptions of top-leader involvement actually encountered in their own team experiences.

Design/methodology/approach

Interview feedback was sought from three participants from each of six autonomous teams to capture explanations of their lived experiences from team participation. Transcribed data were examined through thematic analysis, from which patterned responses and meanings relevant to the research inquiry were identified.

Findings

To foster a team environment and shape the organizational context to align with autonomous team members’ expectations, organizational leaders should give significant attention to all-inclusive recruitment; frequent, face-to-face communication between themselves and team members; and an unwavering resource allocation.

Originality/value

This study addresses a unique realm of team research in addressing the need for top leaders to understand team members’ expectations for their involvement in shaping an organizational context most conducive to team effectiveness.

Exploring cultural intelligence truths: A systematic review

Orientation: To identify and report on cultural intelligence truths.Research purpose: To explore cultural intelligence truths by means of a systematic review of the cultural intelligence literature.Motivation for the study: Cultural intelligence truths must be systemised if the business and academic communities are to derive optimal value from the diverse knowledge base.Research design, approach and method: The research was qualitative in nature, comprising a systematic literature review. The period covered was from 01 January 2002 to 31 May 2015. The final number of included studies was 76, representing 48 different journals. Cultural intelligence hypotheses were identified and thematically categorised. Validated hypotheses constituted truths (i.e. truth statements). Key findings are both reported and commented on.Main findings: Cultural intelligence hypotheses may be classified into 13 separate themes plus a ‘not categorised’ group. In total, 60% of the hypotheses on cultural intelligence have given rise to truth statements. Accordingly, there remains some divide between theorised cultural intelligence relationships and how these have played out under empirical investigation.Practical managerial/implications: Business professionals will find it easier to consume the cultural intelligence literature, thereby facilitating their understanding of how best to leverage the knowledge in equipping the workforce to function optimally in cross-cultural interfaces. Scholars will be better positioned to tailor the focus and structure of cultural intelligence studies going forward.Contribution: Cultural intelligence truths have been systematically identified, organised and reported on.

The relationship between cultural intelligence and i-deals

Purpose

Cultural intelligence is the capacity to decode and harmonize with another culture for cultural synergy effects. This paper aims to examine whether cultural intelligence can activate idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) through trust as a mediator and HR localization as a moderator.

Design/methodology/approach

Cross-sectional data from respondents from joint ventures or 100 per cent foreign-invested firms in Vietnam business setting, which were tested through the structural equation modeling, provide the evidence for the research model.

Findings

Research results confirmed the positive effect of cultural intelligence on identity-based trust and knowledge-based trust, which in turn influence i-deals. HR localization was also found to play a moderating role on the relationship between identity-based trust or knowledge-based trust and i-deals.

Originality/value

Cultural intelligence literature, from this study, is further deepened through its role as a trigger for the path from cultural intelligence to i-deals.

Diversity and creativity in cross-national teams: The role of team knowledge sharing and inclusive climate

Diversity literature has demonstrated negative effects of surface-level diversity and positive effects of deep-level diversity. How do two types of diversity among cross national team members influence team knowledge sharing and team creativity? The purpose of this study is to explore conditions that leverage the positive and restrain the negative effects of team diversity on team knowledge sharing, which leads to team creativity. We expect inclusive climate as the significant condition and knowledge sharing as the profound intervening mechanism between team diversity and team creativity relationship. We tested the hypotheses with data from a sample of 60 cross-national research teams from several universities in China. The results support the hypothesized relationships among inclusive climate, team knowledge sharing, and team creativity. Our findings contribute to the advancement of team diversity and team creativity literature, and their theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Political Skill, Trust, and Efficacy in Teams

Political skill, frequently understood as a social skill at work, is argued to be a valuable resource not only at the individual level but also for the teams. Using hierarchical linear modeling and data from 525 students, organized into 115 teams, we demonstrate that political skill at the individual level shapes individual perceptions of team efficacy and trust in team. Both the level and the composition of political skill within the team are found to be critical for these team emergent states, albeit they play out differently for team members who are high versus low in political skill.

Corporate Ethical Values and Turnover Intention

Corporate ethical values have been studied in a number of ways to understand how they influence the behavioral intention or actions of employees to achieve organizational survival and success. Nevertheless, they have not been considered as much within international business organizations, specifically around the issue of turnover which is important for those concerned with retaining knowledgeable staff in the organization. This study develops a model that explains how corporate ethical values influence turnover intention based on social identity theory and ethical principled theory. The empirical results find that career satisfaction directly relates to turnover intention whereas corporate ethical values indirectly relate to turnover intention through the full mediation of organizational identification. Meanwhile, the effects of career satisfaction on turnover intention and on organizational identification are positively moderated by corporate ethical values. Last, managerial implications and research limitations are discussed.

Modeling Team Performance

Drawing on social identity theory and conflict theory, this study develops a research model that explains the development of team performance. In the model, team performance is indirectly related to authentic leadership and empathy via the full mediation of team identity and relationship conflict. Meanwhile, the positive relationship between team identity and team performance and the negative relationship between relationship conflict and team performance are hypothetically moderated by passion. Empirical testing of this model, by investigating team personnel from high-tech firms, confirms the integrative applicability of social identity theory and conflict theory for improving team performance. Last, the managerial implications and limitations of this study based on its empirical findings are provided.

Better to be flexible than to have flunked

Purpose

– High team performance helps achieve several organizational benefits, such as strengthened competitive advantages, enhanced productivity, and higher profits and market share. For these reasons, the purpose of this paper is to propose a model based on the framework of proactive motivation and the theory of collectivism to analyze the formation of service flexibility and team performance.

Design/methodology/approach

– To test the hypotheses, this study conducts a survey of service staff in teams from high-tech firms in a well-known industrial zone in Northern Taiwan. These teams provide service for their industrial customers. From the survey, this study confirms the full mediating mechanism of service flexibility among the teams.

Findings

– The test results reveal that service flexibility fully mediates the relationship between team performance and its exogenous factors. Whereas collectivism negatively moderates the relationship between team efficacy and service flexibility, it does not moderate the relationship between service recovery and service flexibility. Furthermore, collectivism positively moderates the relationship between service flexibility and team performance.

Originality/value

– This study provides important findings that complement previous literature by examining three fresh antecedents for explaining how team performance is motivated by the mediating role of service flexibility and how some of the study’s model paths are moderated by collectivism. The mediating role of service flexibility indicates that managers can apply service flexibility as a firewall that calibrates a team’s input and output. Managers should encourage the application of agile solutions and advanced technology for facilitating team flexibility, consequently improving team performance.

Intercultural Competence

We review recent theoretical and empirical developments in the intercultural competencies literature, highlighting contemporary models and empirical research in organizational contexts. We survey the current conceptualizations of intercultural competencies and propose that intercultural competencies can be classified based on traits, attitudes and worldviews, capabilities, or a combination of these dimensions. We identify key psychological, behavioral, and performance outcomes associated with these models. We review empirical studies of intercultural competencies at the group level and discuss emerging models of dyad-level, firm-level, and multilevel intercultural competencies. We evaluate the current measurement of intercultural competencies and suggest alternative approaches. Finally, we examine research on selection, training, and development of intercultural competencies. We end each section by identifying future research foci, and we offer an integration of the literature at the end of the review.