Cultural Intelligence: Extending the Nomological Network

Authors

Ena Sawhney, Florida International UniversityFollow

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Major/Program

Psychology

First Advisor's Name

Chockalingam Viswesvaran

First Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Chair

Second Advisor's Name

Valentina Bruk-Lee

Second Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Third Advisor's Name

Asia Eaton

Third Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Fourth Advisor's Name

Juan Sanchez

Fourth Advisor's Committee Title

Committee Member

Keywords

Industrial and Organizational Psychology

Date of Defense

11-12-2014

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three independent studies, which study the nomological network of cultural intelligence (CI)—a relatively new construct within the fields of cross-cultural psychology and organizational psychology. Since the introduction of this construct, CI now has a generally accepted model comprised of four codependent subfactors. In addition, the focus of preliminary research within the field is on understanding the new construct’s correlates and outcomes. Thus, the goals for this dissertation were (a) to provide an additional evaluation of the factor structure of CI and (b) to examine further the correlates and outcomes that should theoretically be included in its nomological network. Specifically the model tests involved a one-factor, three-factor, and four-factor structure. The examined correlates of CI included the Big Five personality traits, core self-evaluation, social self-efficacy, self-monitoring, emotional intelligence, and cross-cultural experience. The examined outcomes also included overall performance, contextual performance, and cultural adaption in relation to CI. Thus, this dissertation has a series of 20 proposed and statistically evaluated hypotheses. The first study in this dissertation contained the summary of the extant CI literature via meta-analytic techniques. The outcomes of focus were significantly relevant to CI, while the CI correlates had more inconclusive results. The second and third studies contained original data collected from a sample of students and adult workers, respectively. In general, the results between these two studies were parallel. The four-factor structure of CI emerged as the best fit to the data, and several correlates and outcomes indicated significant relation to CI. In addition, the tested incremental validity of CI showed significant results emerging in both studies. Lastly, several exploratory analyses indicated the role of CI as a mediator between relevant antecedent and the outcome of cultural adaption, while the data supported the mediator role of CI. The final chapter includes a thorough discussion of practical implications as well as limitation to the research design.

Identifier

FI14110761

Recommended Citation

Sawhney, Ena, "Cultural Intelligence: Extending the Nomological Network" (2014). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1661.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1661