Understanding Cultural Competence: Traits, Attitudes, And Capabilities

Cultural competence has become a central concept in interaction between cultures globally. Define cultural competence outlining three(3)theories of cultural competence. 

Then for the core of the essay focus on the Cultural Intelligence (CQ )theory of cultural competence. Outline the theory, critically analyzing the background to the theory including its relationship to Emotional and Social Intelligence. Discuss the CQ assessment mode including any limitations and research evidence relating to what areas of behaviour and performance that CQ might predict.

Intercultural Traits

Cultural competence is the ability to communicate and interact effectively with the people belong from different cultures and it helps to ensure to meet the needs of all organisational and community members. As stated by Jeffreys (2015), the concept ‘culture’ is not just the term meant for the ethnicity and race; however, it refers to the characteristics of gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, income level, religion, geographical location and education. Cultural competence refers to be responsive and respectful to believes and practices of work, linguistic and cultural needs of the people to the diverse population of the workgroup. Cultural competency means a person’s ability to work effectively in different cultures and it is the ability to act intercultural appropriate way. Soto et al., (2018) stated that cultural competence is the ability to do the work in a different way in order to achieve desired objectives. Cultural competence includes two significant perspectives; personal attributes and specific skills of the people. Within a multinational organisation, cultural competence in the workforce is needed for the positive change and the staffs may also have the skills and willingness to work in the context.

In the community or in an organisation, practising cultural competence can ensure the best-practices for intercultural communication. As pointed out by Gill (2017), culturally competent organisations always assess organisational diversity as the members of the organisation need to experience working with focus population and diverse communities. The management of the organisation regularly assesses the range of beliefs, values, experience and knowledge which help the organisation to focus on the large numbers of employees. Culturally competent organisations invest to build the cultural competency and capacity so that it can strengthen the relationship among the employees within the organisation. In a community, the community members implement prevention plans using the diversity and culture as resource and they practice strategic planning in order to incorporate the community diversity and culture.

Intercultural traits: Intercultural trait focuses on the personal characteristics which may determine the stable pattern of the individuals' behaviour in intercultural contexts. Intercultural traits are associated with the tolerance of ambiguity, open-mindedness, flexibility, dissimilarity openness and emotional reliance of the people (Leung, Ang & Tan, 2014). Intercultural traits of people can predict the behaviour of the individuals from different cultures. Dr Karen I. Van Der Zee and Jan Pieter developed the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire: MPQ and this an online personality assessment determine mainly the behaviour when the individuals interact with people from various cultures. MQ assessment has five personality elements, open-mindedness, emotional stability, social initiative, flexibility and cultural empathy (Van Der Zee & Van Oudenhoven, 2000).

Intercultural Attitudes and Worldviews

Intercultural attitudes and worldviews: This theoretical framework focuses on how people focus on other cultures from different cultural perspectives. Worldviews of the people are depended on the ethnocentric or ethnorelative and it may depend on simplistic or complex view. Developmental model of intercultural sensitivity describes people's feeling in each stage of cultural awareness. Experience of difference starts from ethnocentricism and in this part, denial, defence and minimisation are the stages, whereas, ethnorelativism part is associated with the stages of acceptance, adaptation and integration (Hammer, Bennett & Wiseman, 2003). Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) is a theory-based assessment of people’s intercultural competence. IDI allows people to observe peoples’ progression continuum with cross-cultural competence. IDI can provide the in-depth insight into the peoples' intercultural competence in day-to-day interaction.

Intercultural capabilities focus on intelligence models: This theoretical framework focuses on the person’s effectiveness on the intercultural interaction. The elements of intercultural capabilities are related to the meta-cognitive approach, knowledge, motivational aspects and behavioural approaches. Intercultural capabilities are associated with the linguistic skills, communication adaptability and overall flexibility of the people (Ang & Inkpen, 2008). In the global scenario, the cultural diversity of the people is different and it is difficult to define the culture of a person that recognises the priorities of the people. In Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS), there are 20 items and four factors are present to show the capabilities. This theoretical framework encompasses the ability to showcase the behaviour and it can be flexible towards the interaction among the employees.

Therefore, it can be deduced that intercultural traits provide intercultural attitudes or worldviews and intercultural capabilities. Intercultural capabilities give the intercultural effectiveness or the cultural competence.     

Cultural intelligence (CQ) is the capability to work and relate efficiently across culture. Soon Ang and Linn Van Dyne developed the idea of cultural intelligence and they both followed the research-based way in order to measure as well as predict intercultural performance. As stated by Early & Ang (2013), cultural intelligence is about an individual's capability to adapt to the interaction with others from various cultural regions. Cultural intelligence has mainly motivational, behavioural and meta-cognitive aspects. Cultural intelligence is about an outsider's natural ability that explains someone's ambiguous gesture. CQ can be measured through a scale like other intelligence quotient and those who have higher cultural intelligence; these people can blend easily with any environment. There are four elements associated with the CQ capabilities. As stated by Hermann et al., (2017), cultural intelligence cannot be specific for particular culture as it mainly focuses on capability to function effectively in diverse situations. Each of the cultural intelligence factors can be related to the knowledge, strategy, drive and actions. Cultural intelligence is helpful for interacting with diverse culture as it can be ethnic, generational and national and culture and the concept of the cultural intelligence can be applied in the organisational segment like academic, public and corporate (Livermore & Soon, 2015).

Intercultural Capabilities Focus on Intelligence Models

Four factors of cultural intelligence are strategy, knowledge, motivation and behaviour. Cultural intelligence strategy is about person's sense of inter-culture experience and it mainly reflects the individual's process to make out the cultural knowledge (Ang, Van Dyne & Koh, 2006). Cultural intelligence knowledge is about person’s understanding regarding the cultures’ similarity and difference. Cultural knowledge provides individual about mental map and structure of the particular culture (Ang, Van Dyne & Koh, 2006). Cultural intelligence motivation is about an individual's motivation regarding the experience of culture when interacting with the common people from various ethnic backgrounds. Cultural intelligence motivation is stated about people's various intrinsic value regarding the cultural diversity and confidence (Triandis, 2016). Finally, cultural intelligence behaviour provides the capability to make sense of verbal and nonverbal behaviour and these behaviours must be appropriate in different cultures. Behavioural responses of the people must be original and appropriate depending on situations and they can modify the verbal as well as nonverbal behaviour (Rockstuhl et al., 2011).

Cultural intelligence can be used in the organisational psychology and management as it provides an understanding of the influence of people's cultural background on the behaviour which is necessary for business and finding out the people's ability to engage successfully in any social or environmental setting. Thomas et al., (2015) further stated that cultural intelligence has its acceptance in business organisations as cultural intelligence teaches the system or strategy to develop the cultural perception to distinguish the behaviours of the people which help the people to drive the behaviour. Cultural intelligence assists the people to mend the culture from specific to individual suggesting allowing the appreciation and knowledge which may the outcome of responses in good business practice (Imai & Gelfand, 2016). In the business community, cognitive intelligence teaches about the culture and cultural diversity of the organisation and physical intelligence is about the senses and body language of the people belong from a different culture. In addition, motivation of the employees from different cultures comes from emotions and the emotion may help in gaining the rewards and acceptance of the strength and success (Van Deursen et al., 2015).

Moreover, cultural intelligence is associated with the concept of emotional intelligence as the individuals with higher emotional intelligence will be able to pick up the wants, emotions and needs of the other people (Elphinstone, 2018). The individuals with high cultural intelligence may be able to attune to the attitudes, beliefs and values along with body language with the people from various ethnic backgrounds (Gilbert et al., 2017). Culturally aware people use understanding and empathy while talking to the people belongs to different cultures. It is obvious that the culturally intelligent people are not expert in a different culture; however the people use definite observation, intelligence and empathy to understand the situation and people to establish informed decisions about their choices. As stated by Goleman (2006), emotional intelligence is the ability to review and monitor own along with others' feeling and emotion. This ability helps the people to take the information to make themselves guide to act and think accordingly. The people with higher emotional intelligence can be able to perceive rightly to understand and appraise emotion of other to respond in a perfect way to change the circumstances and build the environment with supportive network (Joseph et al., 2015). Cognitive intelligence can assist in business to be successful and people with higher emotional intelligence majorly have four characteristics. The people with higher emotional intelligence have a good understanding of the own emotions, good at controlling other emotions, empathetic to the emotional drives of other individuals and they are good at handling the emotion of the others (Van Deursen et al., 2015).

Cultural Intelligence

Lofin & Barry (2016) social intelligence is more important than the quantitative intelligence of the people as this intelligence is helpful to understand and control the male and female to act rightly in human relations. The author further found out that people may have the ability to relate with others; however, the people do not have the cognitive ability. In addition, cognitive ability does not provide the social ability or the skills. Social intelligence has its relationship with the verbal fluency and it makes the people with good knowledge of social rules and scripts. Social intelligence puts forward a good understanding of people's feeling and role-playing in social efficacy. As opined by Landy (2014), emotional and social intelligence are linked to create the self-management and self-awareness that can enable individuals to understand and control the emotions of others and own in a global context while interacting with different cultural people. In the business community, the leaders who have the competencies of emotional and social intelligence make the difference and others are just deemed average.

Globalisation has created the economy robust with increased numbers of foreign companies and the employees of the organisations must have the knowledge regarding the cultural intelligence. The global companies need to consider the workplace to be multicultural as it would be beneficial for the employees to cope up with diverse cultural landscape. In the business organisations, leaders train the employees to be culturally aware; on the other side, the employees may hold complete different mentality. It is the limitation of the research to focus only on the managerial perspective when research has been done the cultural intelligence in business community; however, staffs mainly face the appropriate problem (Liaw et al., 2015). In global community, the validity of the business organisation's findings on cultural intelligence may not be matched. The limitation of the definition of the cultural intelligence is that it is oversimplified as it is the mind of the people from different background is categorised. In Australian landscape, cultural intelligence is the ability to manage the cultural diversity with a set of skills, knowledge and abilities to understand and identify the cultural difference of the people.

As stated by Van Dyne, Ang & Livermore (2010), in diverse setting, cultural intelligence is incremental which describes the intercultural effectiveness on the emotional intelligence of the people with demographic characteristics, international experience and language fluency. In order to perform well in the business community, the workforce needs to understand that cultural intelligence is dynamic and it can capture the opportunities of the business. Early & Ang (2013) stated that without the cultural intelligence, an organisation can become myopic. Cultural intelligence is also important in the business community and in the global arena where the attitudes and behaviours of the people are changing with time which can be influenced by culture. Local culture always drives the performance of the culture and it improved the cultural diversity as well.

Relationship between Cultural Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence

Reference List

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