Assignment 1: Cross-cultural Management and Communication
Course coordinator: Dr. JJLE Bücker
Date: 07/05/2020
Phuong Anh Nguyen
S1040374
PhuongAnh.NguyenPhuongAnh@student.ru.nl
Business Administration, Radboud University
Section A. Theoretical - 1486 Words
Section B. Individual Reflection
B.1. 554 words
B.2. 495 words
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A. Theoretical
1.a. Introduction - Cross-cultural competencies
Over the past decade, cross-cultural competencies has become an increasingly important
concept among researchers and practitioners in the business sector. Globalization has led to an
ever-increasing number of multinational corporations and firms operating across borders. This
poses a challenge for international human resource management as effective cross-cultural
communication, cooperation and interaction in such firm context are far from easily obtained.
Specifically, intercultural contact might run a high risk of becoming an unpleasant experience
for the involved actors (Spijkerman, Benschop, and Bücker, 2018) and in many firms,
managers are not prepared enough for the international business environment (Bücker and
Poutsma, 2010). This highlights the need to develop cross-cultural competencies among staff,
managers, and students working in an international environment.
With that being said, there has been a discrepancy among existing literature on the constructs
of cross-cultural competencies. On top of that, an elaborated theoretical framework on how and
to what extent these competencies can be integrated and developed in firms is missing. This
paper aims to address the above-mentioned gap by answering the following research question:
“How and to what extent global management competencies can be developed by employees,
managers, and students?”
Answering this question is socially relevant as it provides practitioners with a universally
applicable guideline for international human resource management. Concerning academic
relevance, this paper contributes to existing knowledge by providing a consolidated theoretical
framework of cross-cultural competencies with insights into its constructs for future research.
The subsequent sections of this paper will start with a literature review of several relevant
concepts, including constructive intercultural contact, intercultural sensitivity, global mindset,
and cultural intelligence (Bücker and Poutsma, 2010; Spijkerman et al., 2018). This part will
be followed by a theoretical elaboration section, which mainly focuses on the development of
such skills in practice. Last but not least, personal reflections on the concepts discussed in the
first section, especially “constructive intercultural contact”, will be addressed to answer the
research question.
1.b. Literature Review
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In this paragraph, we compare and review 4 main dimensions of global management
competencies developed in previous studies, namely cultural sensitivity, global mindset,
cultural intelligence (CQ), and constructive intercultural contact. The first three dimensions
were established in a study by Bücker and Poutsma (2010), in which global management
competencies were referred to as “the capabilities to perform effectively (in a cross-cultural
situations a transnational manager), which consist of knowledge, skills, abilities, personality,
and behavioral repertoires” (p. 4). Constructive intercultural contact (CIC), which was recently
coined by Spijkerman et al. (2018), is one of the central concepts in this literature stream as it
enhances the efficiency of intercultural contacts as well as facilitates team functioning (Gallego
and Pardos-Prado, 2014; Strauss and Connerley, 2003; Yoo et al., 2006; Homan et al., 2008 as
cited in Spijkerman et al., 2018).
Cultural Intelligence Literature (CQ)
Cultural Intelligence was initially introduced by Earley (2002) as one’s capacities to interact
effectively with people coming from other cultural contexts and backgrounds. In this paper, 3
constructs of cultural intelligence, namely Cognitive, Motivational, and Behavioral, were
identified and explained. This three-dimensional model was later refined by Earley & Ang
(2003), in which Metacognition was added as a separate dimension. In general, metacognition,
cognition, and motivation are often classified as mental capabilities while behavioral
capabilities is demonstrated as“overt actions'' required to adapt to another culture (Earley &
Ang, 2003). Although the original conceptualization of cultural intelligence as a measurable
intelligence perspective (Earley & Ang, 2003) has been dominating this literature stream, the
conceptualization of CQ as a multi-faceted concept also gains considerable attention recently
(Thomas et al., 2015).
Global Mindset
Global Mindset can be defined as a complex cognitive structure characterized by an openness
to and articulation of various intercultural and strategic dynamics, and the cognitive ability to
mediate and integrate across this diversity (Levy et al., 2007). Levy et al. (2007) provided an
information-processing model of global mindset which emphasizes the role of cognitive
complexity and cosmopolitanism in transforming understanding of multiple cultural &
strategic dynamics to individual action. However, the long-term impacts of transnational
mindset on organizational performance remains understudied in this stream of literature.
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Intercultural Sensitivity
Academics generally refers to intercultural sensitivity as the sensitivity to the importance of
cultural differences and to the perspective of people coming from a different cultural
background (Bhawuk & Brislin, 1992). The model of Intercultural sensitivity introduced by
(Bennett, 1986) indicates 6 steps of development from ethnocentric to ethnorelative stages,
including denial, defense, minimization, acceptance, adaptation, integration. With that being
said, existing literature on this topic is criticized to be lacking in empirical support as well as
being generally intuitive (Shapiro et al., 2008).
Constructive Cross-cultural Contact (CIC)
The final construct to be addressed is Constructive cross-cultural contact (CIC), which can be
described as a positive and rewarding intercultural interaction for both participants since both
can feel comfortable and perceive themselves as successful during the contact (Spijkerman et
al., 2018). A research by Spijkerman et al. (2018) has explored this construct via a specification
model, in which the following dimensions of CIC were identified: responsibility, deliberate
choice to postpone judgment, relative importance of cultural differences, perspective taking,
and respect. These actions play a role in facilitating initially difficult intercultural contact and
enhancing the efficiency of team functioning. On top of that, the article also examined the
implication of majority-minority accents and hierarchical accents for constructive intercultural
contact at the organizational level. With that being said, the lack of empirical support in this
stream of literature suggests that more comparative empirical studies on the validation of CIC
constructs should be carried out.
2. Developing Cultural Intelligence
The aim of this section is to discuss how and to what extent can the cross-cultural competencies
be developed by the employees, managers and students. Due to the restriction related to the
word count limit, the main focus is placed on cultural intelligence. Defined as “a person’s
capability to adapt effectively to a new cultural context” (Ealy, as cited by Thomas et al., 2015,
p. 1100), CQ has positive influence on cross-cultural leadership effectiveness, intercultural
cooperation, negotiation and creative collaboration (Ott & Michailova, 2016, p. 109). The two
manners of developing CQ described in this paper are engaging in cross-cultural trigger events
(Reichard et al., 2015) and cross-cultural training (Bücker & Korzilius, 2015; Presbitero &
Toledano, 2018)
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Engaging in cross-cultural trigger events
Trigger events, defined as “sometimes (internal and external) subtle changes in the individual’s
circumstances that facilitate personal growth and development” (Gardner et al., as cited by
Reichard et al., 2015, p. 463) in cross-cultural environment, such as culture shock reflect on an
individual’s worldview and allow to rethink their previous actions and behaviors. Engaging in
cross-cultural trigger events accounts for the development of cross cultural competences,
among which cultural intelligence and decreases in ethnocentrism can be enlisted (Reichard et
al., 2015). One manner to engage in cross-cultural trigger events is to participate in a living
abroad experience, such as student exchange. Fully immersed in an unknown environment,
students constantly have the opportunities to observe the local culture and interact with it,
which leads to increasing their cultural competences. Furthermore, cross-cultural trigger events
can be replicated in a form of instructional videos and utilized by companies to improve their
employees’ competences (Reichard et al., 2015).
Cross-cultural training
Cross-cultural training, defined as a “planned intervention designed to develop an individual’s
ability to manage cultural differences and appropriately modify their behavior across culturally
diverse contexts” (Presbitero & Toledano, 2017, p. 2191) facilitates adjusting to the new crosscultural environment that one is surrounded by (Presbitero & Toledano, 2017). Bücker &
Korzilius (2015) have presented Ecotonos cultural simulation as a method of cross-cultural
training. The training enables us to create life-like social situations based on the set of culture
cards. Ecotonos trainees’ task is to immerse in a created culture, explain how the created culture
has arisen and work on related to that culture problem. Bücker and Korzilius (2015, p. 2006)
have concluded that Ecotonos develops CQ and helps increase the confidence in cross-cultural
encounters and carrying out the game could be useful in international business education and
preparing individuals for student exchange.
3. Conclusion
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The aim of this paper was to answer the RQ “How and to what extent global management
competencies can be developed by employees, managers, and students?”. To answer it,
literature on the topic of cross-cultural competencies has been reviewed. Furthermore, methods
to develop cultural intelligence, that is engaging in cross-cultural trigger events and crosscultural training have been described. Developing cross-cultural competencies is helpful to
employees of cross-cultural companies, but also to students who are exposed to cross-cultural
environments. Nonetheless, the paper has its limitations as it is based on the limited amount of
the literature and it contains a word count limit, solely methods to develop one of the crosscultural competences have been researched. We believe further studies on that topic should be
continued in order to thoroughly research the cross-cultural competencies.
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