Expatriate success: Cultural intelligence and personality as predictors for cross-cultural adjustment

Businesses are more marketable if they have a global presence. However, with global expansion comes a need to communicate with organizations having diverse cultural backgrounds. This causes issues when selecting expatriates for the job. Expatriates possessing particular characteristics may adjust better than others. Research supports both cultural intelligence (CQ) and personality as valid predictors of cross-cultural adjustment, but do those higher in CQ adapt better than those with culturally compatible personality factors? I hypothesized that cultural intelligence (CQ) accounts for more incremental validity of crosscultural adjustment than personality alone. The sample of approximately 111 foreign expatriates working in various countries completed measures of CQ (CQS; Earley & Ang, 2003), personality (50-item IPIP), and cultural adjustment components (Wilson & Ward, 2010). The results of a hierarchical multiple regression analysis supported the hypothesis indicating the need to consider CQ in the expatriate selection process.