Cultural intelligence, cross-cultural adaptation and expatriate performance: a study with expatriates living in Brazil

Nunes, Inácia Maria; Felix, Bruno; Prates, Lorene Alexandre

doi:10.1016/j.rausp.2017.05.010

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Human Resources & Organizations • Rev. Adm. (São Paulo) 52 (3) • Jul-Sep 2017 • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rausp.2017.05.010 copy

Cultural intelligence, cross-cultural adaptation and expatriate performance: a study with expatriates living in Brazil

Inteligência cultural, adaptação transcultural e o desempenho de expatriados: um estudo comexpatriados residentes no Brasil

Inteligencia cultural, adaptación transcultural y desempeño de expatriados: un estudio conexpatriados residentes en Brasil

Authorship SCIMAGO INSTITUTIONS RANKINGS

Abstract

Developing a competitive workforce abroad is a relevant challenge to organizations with multinational activities. In view of this, added to the high costs associated with expatriation, it is necessary to identify the factors that facilitate a satisfactory performance of executives in international assignments. Thus, the purpose of this work is to investigate the relationship between cultural intelligence, cross-cultural adaptation and expatriates performance. Based on a sample of 217 expatriates from 26 countries living in Brazil, the research reveals a positive association between cultural intelligence and cross-cultural adaptation, and the latter with expatriates' performance. However, the direct relationship between cultural intelligence and expatriates performance was not significant. The results also revealed an indirect relationship between cultural intelligence and expatriates performance mediated by cross-cultural adaptation. Thus, we suggest that cultural intelligence converts itself into the ability of the expatriate to better adapt to the new culture, which then results in performance. Based on Allport's Contact Theory (Pettigrew, 1998Pettigrew, T. F. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual Reviews Psychology, 49, 65-85.), which has the assumption that increased interactions between members of different ethnic groups can lead to increased mutual understanding, reduce hostilities, prejudices and the formation of friendships between groups in different social contexts (Kim, 2012Kim, J. (2012). Exploring the experience of intergroup contact and the value of recreation activities in facilitating positive intergroup interactions of immigrants. Leisure Sciences, 34(1), 72-87.; Pettigrew & Tropp, 2006Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test of intergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90(5), 751-783.), we thus suggest that this transformation process is facilitated and powered by the increase of interactions between expatriates and the host country nationals. Suggestions for future research and for practice are presented.

Keywords:
Cross-cultural adjustment; Cultural intelligence; Expatriate performance

Continent	Country	No.	%
Europe	Belgium	1	0.5
	Denmark	2	0.9
	Finland	3	1.4
	Netherlands	3	1.4
	France	7	3.2
	Italy	7	3.2
	Portugal	17	7.8
	Spain	12	5.5
	England	10	4.6
	Ireland	8	1.8
	Sweden	8	1.8
	Germany	6	2.8
	Norway	6	2.8
North America	Canada	8	1.8
	Mexico	14	6.5
	United States	43	19.8
Latin America	Ecuador	1	0.5
	Uruguay	5	2.3
	Venezuela	7	3.2
	Argentina	19	8.8
	Colombia	8	3.7
	Peru	8	3.7
Asia	China	14	6.5
Asia	Japan	10	4.6
Oceania	Australia	1	0.5
Oceania	New Zealand	1	0.5

Profile of participants		No.	%
Gender	Male	193	89
Gender	Female	24	11
Age range	Up to 35 years	33	15
	Between 36 and 40 years	40	18
	Between 41 and 45 years	58	27
	Between 46 and 50 years	51	24
	From 51 onwards	35	16
Marital status	Married	143	66
Marital status	Living with their partner	74	34
Number of children	None	53	24
	1 child	82	38
	2 children	58	27
	3 children or more	24	11
Time in Brazil	Between 12 and 24 months	55	25
	Between 25 and 36 months	58	27
	Between 37 and 48 months	91	42
	From 49 months onwards	13	6
Hierarchical level	Management position	203	94
Hierarchical level	Non-managerial	14	6
Previous experience in expatriation	Yes	65	30
Previous experience in expatriation	No	152	70

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
1. General adaptation	0.78
2. Work adaptation	0.33	0.77
3. Cognitive CI	0.24	0.66	0.86
4. Behavioral CI	-0.04	0.05	0.05	0.93
5. Metacognitive CI	0.33	0.51	0.70	0.05	0.87
6. Motivational CI	0.09	0.12	0.14	0.46	0.09	0.88
7. Performance: management	0.63	0.39	0.29	0.00	0.31	0.2	0.80
8. Performance: reading the environment	0.70	0.50	0.34	0.01	0.31	0.09	0.63	0.75
9. Performance: production	0.72	0.51	0.33	-0.02	0.35	0.03	0.62	0.70	0.83

Mean	2.69	2.75	2.79	3.33	3.05	3.73	3.61	3.18	2.71
Median	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	3.00	4.00	4.00	3.00	3.00
Standard deviation	0.96	0.82	1.18	1.24	1.22	1.05	0.83	0.78	0.77

Average variance extracted	0.61	0.59	0.73	0.86	0.76	0.78	0.64	0.56	0.68
Compound reliability	0.88	0.81	0.94	0.97	0.91	0.95	0.78	0.79	0.81

Second order latent variables	1	2	3
1. Adaptation	0.81
2. Cultural intelligence	0.39	0.67
3. Performance	0.73	0.37	0.88

Mean	2.69	3.17	3.21
Median	3.00	3.00	3.00
Standard deviation	0.93	0.86	1.22

Average variance extracted	0.65	0.54	0.77
Composite reliability	0.78	0.75	0.88

	1	2	3	4	8	9	5	6	7
1. General adaptation
GA_1	0.73	0.27	0.18	0.04	0.52	0.51	0.26	0.09	0.48
GA_2	0.81	0.15	0.07	-0.09	0.57	0.56	0.1808	0.05	0.52
GA_3	0.85	0.19	0.12	-0.02	0.61	0.58	0.2255	0.03	0.48
GA_4	0.76	0.28	0.20	-0.06	0.53	0.55	0.2647	0.03	0.49
GA_5	0.72	0.39	0.35	-0.03	0.51	0.57	0.3502	0.12	0.52

2. Work adaptation
WA_1	0.27	0.82	0.56	0.02	0.39	0.41	0.47	0.11	0.29
WA_2	0.20	0.85	0.64	0.06	0.42	0.40	0.45	0.07	0.32
WA_3	0.32	0.61	0.27	0.03	0.36	0.38	0.20	0.09	0.28

3. Cognitive cultural intelligence
COG_1	0.28	0.53	0.82	0.04	0.32	0.31	0.62	0.14	0.27
COG_2	0.20	0.64	0.84	0.02	0.35	0.31	0.54	0.12	0.25
COG_3	0.21	0.55	0.90	0.03	0.29	0.30	0.61	0.08	0.27
COG_4	0.19	0.53	0.85	0.01	0.26	0.27	0.58	0.12	0.22
COG_5	0.16	0.59	0.85	0.09	0.28	0.25	0.60	0.12	0.21
COG_6	0.19	0.55	0.87	0.08	0.24	0.28	0.64	0.12	0.26

4. Behavioral cultural intelligence
BEHA_1	-0.02	0.09	0.07	0.94	0.02	0.01	0.06	0.50	0.02
BEHA_2	-0.03	0.06	0.06	0.92	0.02	-0.02	0.05	0.37	0.00
BEHA_3	-0.07	0.06	0.04	0.93	0.01	-0.01	0.03	0.42	-0.01
BEHA_4	-0.08	-0.01	0.01	0.93	-0.02	-0.10	-0.01	0.42	-0.03
BEHA_5	0.01	0.03	0.05	0.93	0.02	0.02	0.08	0.41	0.04

5. Metacognitive cultural intelligence
MCOG_1	0.31	0.48	0.62	0.04	0.31	0.34	0.90	0.07	0.29
MCOG_3	0.33	0.40	0.59	0.08	0.28	0.33	0.88	0.12	0.28
MCOG_4	0.24	0.44	0.63	-0.01	0.22	0.24	0.84	0.03	0.24

6. Motivational cultural intelligence
MOT_1	0.07	0.10	0.15	0.39	0.10	0.02	0.09	0.91	0.20
MOT_2	0.06	0.11	0.13	0.43	0.04	0.02	0.09	0.90	0.14
MOT_3	0.06	0.06	0.07	0.40	0.05	-0.02	0.04	0.85	0.14
MOT_4	0.12	0.10	0.10	0.42	0.07	0.06	0.06	0.87	0.20
MOT_5	0.06	0.14	0.15	0.37	0.12	0.05	0.09	0.88	0.17

7. Performance: management
PM_1	0.49	0.32	0.23	0.03	0.50	0.42	0.22	0.21	0.78
PM_3	0.52	0.30	0.24	-0.02	0.51	0.57	0.28	0.11	0.82

8. Performance: reading the environment
PRE_1	0.50	0.41	0.31	0.12	0.79	0.51	0.24	0.10	0.49
PRE_3	0.56	0.34	0.25	-0.05	0.74	0.53	0.22	0.06	0.49
PRE_4	0.52	0.39	0.21	-0.04	0.72	0.53	0.24	0.04	0.43

9. Performance: production
PP_1	0.59	0.47	0.28	0.01	0.55	0.82	0.26	0.02	0.45
PP_3	0.59	0.37	0.27	-0.05	0.61	0.84	0.32	0.03	0.57

	Structural coefficient	Standard error	t-value	p-value	VIF	R ²	R² adjusted
Model 1 (controls)
Previous_experience → performance	0.049	0.065	0.749	0.454	1.1
Female gender → performance	0.046	0.071	0.646	0.518	1.0	0.6%	0.0%
Time in Brazil → performance	-0.032	0.067	0.469	0.639	1.0

Model 2 (complete)
Previous_experience → performance	0.009	0.039	0.235	0.815	1.02
Female gender → performance	0.060	0.040	1507	0.132	1.01
Time in Brazil → performance	-0.054	0.039	1370	0.171	1.01	69.8%	69.1%
Inteligência cultural → performance	-0.003	0.044	0.058	0.954	1.27
Cross-cultural adaptation → performance	0.834	0.033	25,516	0.000	1.26
Cultural intelligence → cross-cultural adaptation	0.448	0.070	6435	0.000	1.00	20.1%	19.7%

Departamento de Administração da Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo Avenida Professor Luciano Gualberto, 908, sala F184, 05508-900 São Paulo / SP Brasil, Tel./Fax 55 11 3818-4002 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: rausp@usp.br

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[1] * Corresponding author at: Avenida Fernando Ferrari, 1358, CEP 29075-505, Vitória, ES, Brazil. E-mail:inaciamn@gmail.com