Essays on Cultural Intelligence

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three essays/papers on cultural intelligence. The first essay/paper is a systematic review using bibliometric methods that explored the CQ literature in international business, including the two concepts cross-cultural competencies (CC) and global mindset (GM). The paper complements past reviews by broadening the focus and offers an objective and reproducible approach to assessing the current state of the literature, provides improved understanding of the intellectual structure of research on the three constructs, and their effects on different outcomes through presenting its findings and recommending guidelines for future research. The second essay/paper investigates whether EQ and CQ are direct predictors of leadership emergence in global virtual teams (GVT). The paper created a leadership emergence model based on socioanalytic theory to theorize the mechanisms which EQ and CQ motivate the individual to emerge as a leader. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the results indicated some determinants do matter for leadership emergence in GVT, with the explanatory power of the model being low. Control variables of surface-level skills and factors, such as English proficiency, demonstrated more relevance. The third essay/paper conducts more investigation into the role of EQ and CQ on leadership emergence by considering EQ and CQ as must-have and not should-have factors. The paper employs necessity logic as a possible explanation for why CQ and EQ do not significantly matter to leadership emergence. Using necessary condition analysis (NCA), the results found EQ or CQ to not qualify as necessary condition for leadership emergence, but English proficiency qualified. The contradiction suggests a call for further investigation of the different “paths to leaders hip” that occur in settings of emergent leadership.