Cultural Intelligence in Organizational Contexts and Human Resource Management

The Benefits of a Cross-Cultural Perspective in Organizations

A recent study carried out by the Economic Intelligence Unit of The Economist (2012) on a global sample of executives (N = 572) about how cultural and communication barriers affect organizations, found that there is a significant number of companies which recognize the benefits of overcoming cultural barriers that are present in its global context, but which are not doing enough to face that challenge. Some of the key findings of the report are as follow: (1) contrary to the expectations of many experts, the current economic downturn is spurring companies into becoming more international; (2) effective cross-border communication and collaboration are becoming critical to the financial success of companies with international aspirations; (3) most companies understand the cost of not improving the cross-border communication skills of their employees, yet many are not doing enough to address the challenge; (4) organizations with international ambitions increasingly expect prospective employees to be fluent in key foreign languages; and, (5) misunderstandings rooted in cultural differences present the greatest obstacle to productive cross-border collaboration. Analyzing this scenario, used as an example, we can assert that cultural intelligence has several practical implications for human resource professionals in organizational contexts. Decades of research suggest the benefits of practices that emphasize a cross-cultural perspective in organizations, in general, and cultural intelligence, in particular. And this should be increasingly important given the acceleration of globalization (Gelfand, Erez, & Aycan, 2007; Kim & Van Dyne, 2012).