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Abstract
Business schools can increase their competitiveness by offering students intercultural skills development opportunities integrated into the traditional curricula. This article makes a contribution by proposing an approach to developing students’ cultural intelligence that is based on the cultural intelligence (CQ) model, experiential learning theory, and contact theory. This study empirically tests the effectiveness of the proposed approach by developing and conducting a cost-efficient, easy-to-implement experiential learning activity where marketing students and advanced English as a Second Language students interview each other about consumer behavior differences. The activity led to a perceived increase in cultural knowledge, motivation, and confidence in the students’ ability to communicate with people from other cultures. Overall, students deemed the activity a valuable part of their education. Students’ CQ was positively correlated with the self-reported (perceived) prior experience-based and studies-based intercultural competence. Compared with domestic students, international students scored higher only on the Cognitive dimension of CQ.
Introduction
In today’s globalized world, marketing managers need to master cross-cultural skills as much as they need to master all other skills in the toolset of an effective business professional. Many organizations, supply chains, and distribution chains are multicultural, resulting in multiple dyadic relationships between people from different cultures in the process of performing their professional business functions (Gelfand, Erez, & Aycan, 2007; Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 2006). Likewise, when serving consumers from different cultures, marketers need to be aware of the difference in consumer behavior across cultures (De Mooij & Hofstede, 2011; Hofstede, 1980). In order to be successful in this global business environment, business professionals need to develop intercultural skills (Earley, Ang, & Tan, 2006; Eisenberg et al., 2013; Mor, Morris, & Joh, 2013). The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) endorses this view by naming the ability to work in diverse and multicultural work environments and developing the knowledge of economic, political, regulatory, legal, technological, and social contexts of organizations in a global society among the top learning outcomes in its new 2013 Standards for Accreditation (AACSB International, 2015).
The cultural intelligence (CQ) model (Earley & Ang, 2003) is a recent, but promising framework that can facilitate universities’ efforts in providing their business students with effective and efficient cross-cultural training during the years that they spend on campus. The CQ1 approach emphasizes comprehensive development of all aspects of an individual’s CQ, including its cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral components. While universities usually have effective processes in place for expanding students’ knowledge of other cultures through coursework, providing the opportunities for the students to apply that knowledge to actual communication and collaboration with people from other cultures can be more challenging. Of course, study abroad programs can be very effective in developing all of the aforementioned aspects of CQ. Unfortunately, high costs often render study abroad programs unaffordable to a broad range of students.
We propose that a range of on-campus experiential learning activities can become a viable and cost-effective alternative or a supplement to study abroad programs in developing students’ CQ. We show that these activities can be designed by combining the theoretical foundations of the CQ model (Earley & Ang, 2003), experiential learning theory (ELT; Kolb, 1984), and contact theory (Allport, 1954). We demonstrate how we implemented these theoretical perspectives in designing and testing the learning outcomes of a an experiential learning activity (a cross-cultural consumer behavior-focused interview) in collaboration between the Marketing Department and the English as a Second Language Center on the campus of a small private university in the Northwest of the United States. The postactivity assessment showed that, based on self-reports from the students, the activity has positively affected the level of confidence and motivation of participants’ ability to communicate across cultures as well as increased their knowledge about other cultures. Both American (further referred to as “domestic”) and international students felt that the activity was a valuable component of their education. A more detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis showed that this activity delivered a range of other positive learning outcomes.
Literature Review
Cultural Intelligence
Culture, famously defined by Hofstede (1980) as the “collective programming of the mind” (p. 15), represents a set of “standard operating procedures” (Triandis, 2001, p. 908) or, in other words, behavioral norms and cognitions that are shared by individuals in some distinct group of people but different from normative beliefs and behaviors shared within some other population. When people from different cultures interact either through direct contact or vicariously, such as through the process of marketing of products and services, the two sets of culture-specific beliefs, implicit assumptions, behavior norms, and shared cognitions of the two cultures have to be reconciled to develop good working relationships between business collaborators and to conduct research, design, manufacture, and distribute products in such manner that results in establishing sustainable relationships that benefit both a company and its consumers from other countries.
The CQ model is a relatively new theory that conceptualizes cross-cultural adaptation as a multidimensional process consisting of metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral components (Earley & Peterson, 2004). CQ is defined as the “capability of an individual to function effectively in situations characterized by cultural diversity” (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008, p. 3). In other words, CQ is conceptualized as a specific form of intelligence focused on an individual’s ability to handle intercultural situations. This makes CQ distinct from general intelligence, the latter being defined by Schmidt and Hunter (2000) as the “ability to grasp and reason correctly with abstractions (concepts) and solve problems” (p. 3). This view is consistent with the contemporary view of general intelligence as an ability that is comprised of domain-specific types of intelligence such as emotional intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2004), social intelligence (Thorndike & Stein, 1937), and practical intelligence (Sternberg et al., 2000).
The CQ model (Earley & Ang, 2003) distinguishes four factors of CQ: metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral. Metacognitive CQ refers to an individual’s “level of conscious cultural awareness during cross-cultural interactions” and encompasses mental processes that individuals use to acquire and understand cultural knowledge such as “planning, monitoring, and revising mental models of cultural norms for countries or groups of people” (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008, p. 5). Cognitive CQ refers to factual knowledge about cultures, including knowledge of cultural norms and conventions accepted in different societies (Earley et al., 2006). Motivational CQ reflects the ability and willingness to use knowledge about different cultures in order to achieve a culturally appropriate response (Earley & Peterson, 2004). A key component of motivational CQ is self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986), which, in application to the domain of CQ, amounts to the confidence of an individual in her ability to understand and successfully interact with the people from a culture that is new to her. A person with a high motivational CQ will persevere in her attempts to understand and interact with a novel culture even after experiencing setbacks and failures. Finally, behavioral CQ reflects “a person’s ability to acquire or adapt behaviors appropriate for a new culture” (Earley & Peterson, 2004, p. 108).
Despite the relatively short history of CQ research, the utility of this concept has been widely recognized by researchers and business professionals alike. The CQ model has been validated across different research domains in various geographies. For instance, it has been applied to education including managerial education (e.g., Earley & Peterson, 2004; Eisenberg et al., 2013; Li, Mobley, & Kelly, 2013; MacNab, 2012; Mor et al., 2013), corporate cross-cultural training and work performance of expatriate managers (Koo Moon, Kwon Choi, & Shik Jung, 2012; Ramalu, Rose, Uli, & Kumar, 2012; Wu & Ang, 2011), as well as to the study of a company’s export performance (Magnusson, Westjohn, Semenov, Randrianasolo, & Zdravkovic, 2013). CQ can be improved through cultural training (Earley & Peterson, 2004) as well as through multicultural and international experiences (Takeuchi, Tesluk, Yun, & Lepak, 2005). However, the CQ model (Earley & Ang, 2003) provides a distinctly different and advantageous approach to developing an individual’s intercultural competence.
Brislin and Yoshida (1994) identified five approaches to intercultural training: cognitive, attributional, experiential, self-awareness, and behavioral. The most commonly used methodologies are teaching country-specific knowledge (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004; Earley & Peterson, 2004; Kaufman, Englezou, & Garcia-Gallego, 2013) and making students aware of the differences in cultural norms and values based on the works of distinguished cross-cultural psychologists (Bhawuk & Brislin, 1992; Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 2001) through traditional forms of instruction such as lectures, video illustrations, assigned readings, and case discussions (Earley & Peterson, 2004). Even though it is undeniably beneficial for students to acquire country-specific knowledge and to become aware of cultural values, this approach has serious limitations. First of all, learning about the beliefs, norms, and values of one country or a sample of countries does not prepare a student to deal with every possible intercultural situation, nor does it prepare her to interact with representatives of all other cultures (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004; Earley & Peterson, 2004). Second, cultural values alone are not a strong predictor of human behavior (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980) and becoming aware of cultural norms is not sufficient in preparing for an actual intercultural contact (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004).
Earley and Peterson (2004) argue that the CQ approach has significant advantages: (a) it starts with self-assessment and tailors training to the unique set of strengths and weaknesses of an individual and (b) it develops intercultural competences and learning (metacognitive) strategies that will apply in any intercultural situation (i.e., a trainee will be equipped with motivations, strategies and a repertoire of behaviors that will be useful in adapting to any host country). The CQ model emphasizes the comprehensive development of all four factors of CQ: cognitive, metacognitive, motivational, and behavioral. A CQ-based intercultural training should, almost by definition, include an experiential learning component. Intercultural interaction is a necessary part of the CQ development process since few other methods of education have so much potential for positively impacting participants’ behavioral CQ or the level of motivation and confidence in dealing with other cultures.
The unique perspective of the CQ model is particularly valuable for those business schools that seek to tailor instruction to each student’s individual strengths and weaknesses. Integrating the CQ model into the process of marketing education allows for simultaneous content and process optimization of the courses being delivered. CQ theory allows educators and higher education administrators to set clear and measurable learning goals for the curricula of their courses, especially those that are meant to facilitate intercultural competence in business school students (Eisenberg et al., 2013; Kurpis, 2009; MacNab, 2012). The Cultural Intelligence Scale (Van Dyne, Ang, & Koh, 2008) was found to be valid and reliable across methods (self- and peer ratings) and consistent over time while using participants from more than one country. The availability of such a rigorously developed and validated measurement tool also represents an advantage of the CQ model as it allows for the objective measurement of the effectiveness of an intercultural education process.
A person who spends significant amount of time living within and interacting with a different culture(s) has a better chance to develop her CQ along all four of CQ dimensions. In fact, several studies showed that aspects of experience accumulated while living abroad, such as language acquisition and international work experience, are associated with higher levels of CQ (Li et al., 2013; Shannon & Begley, 2008). International students who travel to a foreign country in order to advance their knowledge of the language of the host country fit the description to the extent that they experience prolonged contact with a foreign culture and enhance their intercultural capabilities through the study of a foreign language and culture. Therefore, we expect that, compared with domestic students, international students studying in the United States will demonstrate higher levels of CQ.
Hypothesis 1: International students will exhibit higher cultural intelligence scores than domestic students.
We also expect that greater self-reported perceived intercultural knowledge accumulated through prior studies (classes with “global” content), will be correlated with higher CQ scores (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 2013; Kurpis, 2009). Likewise, we expect that prior exposure to intercultural situations through travel and/or work will be correlated with higher CQ scores (Li et al., 2013; Shannon & Begley, 2008; Takeuchi et al., 2005).
Hypothesis 2a: Greater self-reported perceived intercultural knowledge base accumulated through academic studies will be correlated with higher CQ scores.
Hypothesis 2b: Greater self-reported perceived cross-cultural experience accumulated due to travel and/or work experience will be correlated with higher CQ scores.
Integrating Experiential Learning Theory and Cultural Intelligence
When business educators are seeking a theoretical platform that will enable them to integrate the CQ model into their everyday efforts to prepare marketing students for managerial positions in the globalized environment, ELT (Kolb, 1984) quickly emerges as one of the most prominent choices.
ELT defines learning as a “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984, p. 41). According to Kolb and Kolb (2005), the theory is built on six core propositions: (a) learning is viewed as a process, not just as a set of learning outcomes; (b) learning is a process that integrates the students’ new experiences into their existing knowledge structures by facilitating reexamination, retesting, and recalibration of what they already know; (c) dialectical tension between different models of adaptation to the world (e.g., concrete experience against abstract conceptualization), as well as finding ways to resolve such tension, is an essential component of the learning process; (d) learning is viewed as a process that engages a total person: not just cognitive processes, but feeling, and acting; (e) assimilating new experiences into existing theories and concepts is the essence of learning; (f) “social knowledge is created and re-created in the personal knowledge of the learner” (Kolb & Kolb, 2005, p. 194).
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of ELT is that it proposes a four-stage process of learning that consists of two dialectically related modes of grasping experience (concrete experience and abstract conceptualization) and two dialectically related modes of transformative processes that translate experience into knowledge (reflective observation and active experimentation). Kolb and Kolb (2005) describe the ideal learning cycle as the one that “touches all bases,” where the learner experiences, reflects, thinks, and acts. ELT recognizes that individual learners have different learning styles that emphasize different stages and combinations of stages of the ELT learning cycle. Having noted the growing popularity and the many documented advantages of experiential learning approaches in marketing education, Frontczak (1998) proposes that the effectiveness of an experiential learning activity will be maximized if it is structured to engage the learner at all four stages of the ELT learning cycle.
In the field of intercultural competence training, a number of empirical studies have documented successful applications of experiential learning approaches (e.g., Erez et al., 2013; Neiva de Figueiredo & Mauri, 2012; Rosenbaum, Moraru, & Labrecque, 2012; Rosenblatt, Worthley, & MacNab, 2013). There is also a range of recent theoretical developments at the intersection of ELT and cross-cultural training (Yamazaki & Kayes, 2004), and of ELT and the CQ model (Li et al., 2013; MacNab, 2012; MacNab, Brislin, & Worthley, 2012; Ng, Van Dyne, & Ang, 2009).
Even though ELT places an emphasis on the very process of learning, application of the ELT principles does not eliminate the need for measuring the learning outcomes of experiential learning. From a practical perspective, marketing educators need a set of criteria that will allow them to assess the outcome of experiential learning. For instance, Kayes (2002) and Yamazaki and Kayes (2004) proposed an extensive inventory of intercultural managerial skills that can be developed as a result of experiential learning. Ng et al. (2009) set forth a series of propositions pertaining to the development of global leadership capabilities in business professionals during overseas job assignments. In particular, Ng et al. (2009) hypothesized that specific aspects of an individual’s CQ will facilitate cultural learning at corresponding stages of the experiential learning cycle. For instance, motivational CQ is hypothesized to increase the likelihood that expatriate managers will seek concrete cross-cultural experiences during their overseas assignments.
As a practical application of this framework, Ng et al. (2009) propose that the success of global leadership development can be assessed with the following four learning outcomes: (a) changes in global leadership self-efficacy, (b) changes in ethnorelative attitudes, (c) changes in the knowledge base, and (d) behavioral changes. Global leadership self-efficacy, a concept adapted from general self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1986), is defined as “perceived capabilities to perform specific leadership roles effectively in culturally diverse settings” (Ng et al., 2009, p. 518). Changes in ethnorelative attitudes means increased acceptance of the fact that beliefs, traditions, and behaviors vary across cultures and diminished influence of ethnocentric attitudes (Bennett, 1986; Ng et al., 2009). Changes in the knowledge base include developing more accurate knowledge of differences in implicit leadership models, cultural patterns of behavior, thinking, and expression of emotions across cultures (Ng et al., 2009). Finally, skill-based or behavioral learning outcomes include the development of a “flexible repertoire of behavioral responses so that they can respond effectively and differently based on specific situational demands, while maintaining their own integrity and credibility” (Ng et al., 2009, p. 519).
In summary, Ng et al. (2009) proposed a model where CQ interacts with overseas work experiences to influence the experiential learning process, which results in global leadership learning outcomes which can be measured on individual level. These outcomes, in turn, facilitate further the CQ growth of an expatriate manager. In our opinion, this model can be effectively adapted to the needs of college-level marketing education.
Unlike overseas job assignments which, by definition, consist of intercultural situations that are unstructured, unpredictable, and uncontrollable, the context of higher education learning provides an opportunity to expedite the development of students’ CQ by designing “better” (more efficient) experiential learning exercises. Where, for an expatriate marketing manager, the amount of learning depends of her preparedness for dealing with intercultural situations, marketing students can be offered the advantage of on-campus experiential “transformative interventions” that will speed up the development of their CQ by helping them to develop the right strategies for dealing with intercultural situations.
We view intercultural experiential learning as a dialectic process, where an individual’s CQ and experiential learning are interrelated and exert reciprocal influence on each other. In other words, not only do the individual levels of CQ influence the students’ ability to benefit from intercultural experiential learning opportunities but also experiential learning plays a crucial role in facilitating the development of CQ. The tension between the students’ preconceived abstract conceptualization of foreign cultures and the concrete experience of participating in an intercultural encounter challenges their existing knowledge structures and this dialectical tension leads to the creation of new knowledge and the advancement of the experiential learning cycle (Kolb, 1984).
The next step after identifying a relevant theoretical base for designing experiential course content aimed at developing students’ intercultural capabilities was to apply it to designing a cross-cultural experiential learning activity and test its effectiveness with a group of marketing students. Our intent was to design an activity that touches all “four bases” of the experiential learning process and allows the participants to experience cross-cultural interaction firsthand, reflect on it, incorporate the resulting cognitive changes into their strategies for dealing with intercultural situations, and to motivate them to put their new intercultural skills to use.
Matching students from two or more different cultures (either in person or via the Internet) is an approach that is widely used in experiential learning in higher education (e.g., Neiva de Figueiredo & Mauri, 2012; Rosenbaum et al., 2012; Rosenblatt et al., 2013). However, in order to be maximally effective, a cross-cultural communication event has to meet certain requirements. The contact theory (Allport, 1954) provides a theoretical perspective that explains which characteristics of a cross-cultural contact are essential for achieving positive outcomes. According to Allport (1954), intercultural interactions have to occur between people of similar social status (i.e., among peers), these people have to share some needs or goals that make cooperation between the participants necessary, interactions should include significant amount of personal contact, and, finally, the contact has to be endorsed by recognized authority figures. This explains why the mere presence of international students in a typical lecture-based classroom by itself does not guarantee that it will result in the CQ development of all participants. In most instances, the amount of interaction between the international and the domestic students is simply not sufficient for any meaningful CQ development to take place.
Based on the guidelines of the contact theory (Allport, 1954) described above, we designed our cross-cultural experiential activity to meet the following criteria: (a) it involves a direct contact of domestic students with their peers from other countries, (b) it is centered around a topic that is understandable and engaging for nonmarketing students and marketing students alike, (c) it is structured in a way that it necessitates a close collaboration between the domestic and international students, (d) it is endorsed by the faculty both in the form of their direct participation as moderators and facilitators and through making this activity a graded component of the course, (e) it consists of a concrete experience phase (cross-cultural interview about consumer behaviors) as well as of reflective observation (reflection paper writing assignment) and conceptualization (delayed postactivity in-class discussion) phases that also serve as a debriefing for the student participants.
In the activity that we designed to be a part of a regular elective undergraduate International Marketing class, marketing students (also referred to as “domestic students” in the subsequent sections of this article) were matched with advanced learners of English enrolled in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program (henceforth denoted as “international students”) to interview each other about consumer behaviors in their respective home countries. As is well known, consumer behavior patterns differ significantly across cultures (e.g., De Mooij & Hofstede, 2011; Hofstede, 1980). Therefore, we reasoned that this topic would be a good medium for an intercultural experiential activity. Besides, it is easy to incorporate it into the schedule of a typical International Marketing course (most International Marketing textbooks contain a chapter or chapters on cultural environments of international business). The subsequent sections of this article describe the activity in greater detail.
We expected that participation in this cross-cultural experiential learning activity would deliver positive results along all four global leadership outcomes outlined by Ng et al. (2009). However, we decided to set forth formal hypotheses pertaining only to two out of the four outcomes, namely to (a) perceived changes to motivation and self-efficacy and (b) perceived changes to the knowledge base about various cultures.
Hypothesis 3a: Participation in the intercultural experiential learning activity will lead to perceived positive changes in intercultural self-efficacy and motivation.
Hypothesis 3b: Participation in the intercultural experiential learning activity will lead to a perceived increase in students’ self-reported knowledge about other cultures.
Concern about the difficulty of achieving an objective and accurate self-assessment of the degree of change in the participants’ ethnorelative attitudes and in the repertoire of intercultural behaviors (Global Leadership Learning Outcomes #3 and #4) was the main reason why we chose not to set forth formal hypotheses pertaining to these learning outcomes.
Method
Designing an Experiential Cultural Intelligence Development Activity
To provide the students enrolled in an elective undergraduate international marketing course with an on-campus cross-cultural experiential learning opportunity, marketing faculty collaborated with faculty from the ESL Center.
The students (marketing class and ESL class) were notified 2 to 3 weeks in advance about the upcoming activity. The timing of the interview within the international marketing course was such that the participating marketing students had already started learning about the significance of cultural environment for planning and implementing marketing strategies for overseas markets. The “primer” on cultural environment of international marketing was delivered via traditional, cognitive-centered means (lecture, assigned readings, case discussions).
The theoretical component of the “primer” on culture covered a range of topics. Marketing students learned about the dimensions of culture (Hofstede, 1980), types of cultural environments (e.g., high-context vs. low-context culture), self-reference criterion, and ethnocentrism. They read about and discussed a few examples of the influence of cross-cultural influences on managerial tasks (e.g., discussed the role of cultural differences in the managerial mistakes made by Disney when designing and operating EuroDisney park, and read an article discussing the differences between managerial principles in China, Japan, and South Korea). The course readings for the marketing students consisted of a standard marketing textbook supplemented with topical case studies from The Wall Street Journal and similar periodicals. In contrast to this, international students did not receive an extensive “primer” on cross-cultural interaction. However, during the weeks leading to the cross-cultural consumer behavior interview the ESL faculty facilitated several in-class discussions of cultural stereotypes and biases and of ways of dealing with culture-based stereotyping.
By the time of writing this article, we have accumulated certain experience of conducting the cross-cultural interview at least once a year over the course of 8 years. The procedure of the interview has undergone multiple transformations, having been modified based on students’ feedback and on our own observations and experiences as facilitators. The following description of the activity is most certainly not meant to be prescriptive since we believe that the exercise can and probably should be modified by each educator to better suit the needs of a specific course or a specific cohort of students. Rather, we use the opportunity to share our accumulated experience of “what worked” with the colleagues who might be interested in including the cross-cultural interview into the courses they teach.
Marketing students were told that as a part of their international marketing course, they would interview one or two international students about the differences/similarities in consumer behavior between the United States and the home countries of these international students and then write a reflection paper based on this interview. They were also told that after completing the reflection paper they would have an opportunity to share their experiences during the in-class discussion.
On receiving the initial information about the upcoming cross-cultural experiential learning assignment, the students were given a handout with the instructions and a list of suggested “ice-breaking” questions for their interview. The students were instructed to focus on obtaining the answers to a few central themes. For instance, they were encouraged to ask their interviewees about popular brands, perception of global versus domestic brands, typical shopping behaviors (e.g., frequency of grocery shopping) in their respective home countries, and so on (see Appendix A). The handout and the verbal instructions urged the participants to explore any related topics that might emerge during the conversation with the international students. Since both groups (marketing and ESL students) were aware of the need to write a reflection paper about the interview, they were encouraged to take cursory notes during the exercise. The handout was created with this in mind and has designated fields to record the information exchanged during the interview. Their counterparts, the ESL students, received an identical handout and were encouraged to prepare their own questions for the interview. Even though this arrangement risked taking away some of the spontaneity at the early stages of the interview, students’ comments during the debriefing discussion proved that the preinterview stage was important for participants’ confidence-building.
On the day of the interview, ESL students joined the marketing students in the Business School building. The ESL and marketing faculty facilitated the process of the interview, which took a whole (75 minute) class period. Based on our experience, the most essential facilitating tasks during the interview phase include: helping the students to form the groups, monitoring (through observation) the dynamics of the interview, even occasionally joining the student groups, especially if the group seems to experience difficulties bringing the conversation “up to speed.” Usually, rapport is established within the first 10 to 15 minutes of the interview and the facilitators should expect to see a more relaxed body language, hear laughter and the lively exchange of information between the participants, and see smiles at this point. If none of these visible/audible signs of a smoothly flowing conversation are present, this might be a sign of a need for the facilitators to interfere.
For the duration of the interview, small groups consisting of 2 to 3 domestic students and 2 to 3 ESL students were formed. This way, neither category of students felt outnumbered or isolated during the interview. Facilitators should be prepared, however, to interfere, if needed, and use their own knowledge of cultural and religious traditions to adjust any of the proposed arrangements in order to facilitate the information exchange. For instance, during a recent run of the cross-cultural interview, the facilitators’ intervention was required when one of the groups, consisting of three American males and three very socially conservative Saudi females (all three ladies were wearing traditional clothing of their country including a full-face veil) exhibited visible difficulty communicating. At the request of the participants, the group was rearranged, by the faculty directing the students to join other groups. Once the Saudi ladies became a part of another group where the domestic students were represented by both males and females, they felt a lot more comfortable and started enthusiastically sharing their opinions.
Ideally, a reasonably large physical space (e.g., a few classrooms or, like in our case, a classroom and the student lounge area) should be made available to the participants in order to maintain sufficient separation between the groups so that the students are not distracted by the excessive noise of several conversations happening at once. “Round table” seating arrangements seem to work particularly well. Working in groups, students interviewed each other, starting with the handout questions and then proceeding to explore other topics of interest. On completion of the activity, the participants were asked to write a 2- to 3-page reflection paper about this cross-cultural interview as a home assignment.
This writing assignment did not limit the range of topics that could be covered in the reflection paper but provided a few questions to consider (see Appendix A). On the day when the reflection papers were due, a portion of the class period was allocated to a class-wide discussion. At this point, the instructors facilitated rather than guided the discussion, setting the priority on helping the students to “extract the meaning of” and “make sense of” their cross-cultural encounters (activities pertaining to the abstract conceptualization stage of the experiential learning cycle).
To assess the learning outcomes of the activity we created a brief online postactivity survey. Unlike the mandatory (graded) interview/reflection paper/discussion assignment (worth 2.5% of the final grade in this class), taking part in the survey was optional. The participants were assured that their responses to this survey would remain anonymous and the data would be analyzed only as an aggregate.
The purpose of the survey was (a) to collect quantifiable measures of students’ feedback on this experiential learning activity and (b) to get a snapshot of students’ CQ. To measure students’ CQ, we employed the 20-item version of the CQ scale (Van Dyne et al., 2008) consisting of the four subscales: Metacognitive, Cognitive, Motivational, and Behavioral. In addition to the Cultural Intelligence scale, the survey included several single-item measures (see Appendix B). In particular, two questions measured self-reported perceived changes in intercultural self-efficacy and motivation: the level of interest in foreign cultures (Q1) and changes to students’ confidence in their ability to interact with foreign cultures (Q2). Other questions measured the amount of factual information that the participants learned about other cultures (Q4), the information exchange related to the perceptions of the respondent’s own culture (Q3 and Q5), as well as the self-perception of the amount of prior exposure to intercultural situations (Q8 and Q9). Last, one survey question measured the students’ assessment of the educational value of this intercultural experiential learning activity (Q7). Minimal demographic information (age, gender, interest in working overseas at some point of their future professional career (Q6) was also collected at the end of the survey.
Although it is clear that the amount of knowledge about other cultures that could be gleaned from such an isolated and brief encounter is extremely limited, not to mention that an international student informant might happen to be a rather atypical representative of her culture (e.g., Triandis, 2001). In fact, our lack of expectations for the immediate improvement of CQ scores as a result of this activity led to the decision against a study design that would include the comparison of the preactivity and the postactivity CQ scores. The CQ model (Earley & Ang, 2003; Earley et al., 2006) conceptualizes the process of an individual’s CQ development as a continuous and cumulative impact of a series of transformative events ranging from knowledge accumulation to practicing a repertoire of behaviors that fit various intercultural situations. One transformative event, even as impactful as the cross-cultural interview was for our students, is unlikely to produce a lasting measurable increase in CQ scores (with the possible exception of Motivational CQ, which might temporarily rise immediately after the event). Presently we are not aware of any empirical studies that have attempted to measure a change in CQ scores as a result of a brief isolated cross-cultural encounter. Rather, especially in education research, pre- and post-CQ measurement study design is typically applied to reasonably long transformative events (e.g., courses, internships, etc.) that last from at least several weeks (Rosenblatt et al., 2013) to several months (Eisenberg et al., 2013; Kurpis, 2009). These considerations as well as the concerns about the potential contamination of the post-event CQ scores stemming from participants remembering their responses to specific CQS questions, led us to use a study design where CQ level is measured once, after an experiential activity. We would like to stress that measuring CQ after the activity does not imply that we expect CQ scores to be affected by this activity. The CQ scores in this study represent a snapshot of a participant’s CQ where the score is a product of all of her life experiences and learning opportunities up to date.
Sample
The sample of this study consisted of 34 international students from the on-campus ESL program and 35 American (domestic) students from a senior-level international marketing class at a small private university located in the Pacific Northwest. Approximately 72% of the undergraduate students are non-Hispanic Caucasian. The majority of marketing students in our sample were born and raised in the United States of America. The responses of the two marketing students who were not from the United States of America. were excluded from the subsequent analyses of the domestic sample. International students came from a variety of non-English speaking countries: Brazil, China, Colombia, Japan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Serbia. As described in the previous section, participation in the activity was an integral part of the course (International Marketing or Pre-College ESL class, respectively) in which each group was enrolled. The response rate to the survey was quite high: 96% in the international marketing class and 100% among the international students. The mean age of the international students was 23.2 years, and the mean age of domestic students was 21.0 years. Females comprised 30.4% of our sample. Domestic students’ responses to Q6 (see Appendix B; M = 6.2) did not differ significantly from that of international students, M = 7.76; F(1, 67) = 1.89, p = .17, indicating that both groups exhibited a fairly strong interest in overseas job assignments at some point in their future professional careers.
Quantitative Results
Reliabilities of all of the four CQ subscales reached acceptable levels in excess of Cronbach’s α .7 for both domestic and international student samples (see Table 1).
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Table 1. Reliabilities (Cronbach’s Alphas) and the Means of the Four Cultural Intelligence Subscales (n = 69).
Most of the correlations between the CQ subscales were significant (see Table 2). Notably, the Behavioral scale was significantly positively correlated to all of the other three scales. The Metacognitive scale was significantly positively correlated with the Motivational and the Behavioral scales.
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Table 2. Correlations Between the Four Cultural Intelligence Subscales (n = 69).
To test our proposition that, compared to domestic students, international students would exhibit higher levels of cultural intelligence (Hypothesis 1), we ran four ANOVAs comparing international and domestic students on each of the four dimensions of CQ captured by the four CQ subscales (Van Dyne et al., 2008). International students (M = 4.85 [SD = 1.09])2 significantly exceeded domestic students (M = 4.02 [SD = 1.01]) in our sample only along the Cognitive dimension (F[1, 67] = 10.70, p < .002). Contrary to our expectations, the differences along the Metacognitive (F[1, 67] = 0.038, p = .85, M = 5.51 [SD = 0.89] vs. M = 5.47 [SD = 0.96]), Motivational (F[1, 67] = 0.505, p = .48, M = 5.85 [SD = 0.82] vs. M = 5.97 [SD = 0.76]), and Behavioral (F[1, 67] = 1.78, p = .19, M = 5.41 [SD = 0.73] vs. M = 5.15 [SD = 0.87]) dimensions were not significant. Thus, Hypothesis 1 received only partial support.
We also hypothesized that CQ scores would be positively correlated with greater perceived Self-Reported Studies-Based Intercultural Competence (Hypothesis 2a), and with greater perceived Self-Reported Experience-Based Intercultural Competence (Hypothesis 2b). Hypotheses 2a and 2b were tested by calculating bivariate correlations between the perceived Self-Reported Studies-Based Intercultural Competence (SR-SBIC) and the perceived Self-Reported Experience-Based Intercultural Competence (SR-EBIC) operationalized as Q8 and Q9 (see Appendix B) and the four subscales of CQ. The statistics for testing Hypotheses 2a and 2b are presented in Table 3.
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Table 3. Correlations Between Self-Reported Intercultural Knowledge Accumulated Through Academic Studies (SR-SBIC), Intercultural Knowledge Accumulated Through Travel/Work Experience (SR-EBIC), and the Four CQ Subscales (n = 69)a.
It appears that SR-SBIC was significantly positively associated with all CQ sub-scales except the Metacognitive subscale. Thus, Hypothesis 2a was generally supported. SR-EBIC was significantly positively correlated with all four dimensions of CQ, thus fully supporting Hypothesis 2b. Apparently, the respondents who rated their cultural competence as “above average” for their peer group were fairly accurate in the self-assessment of their perceived position in relation to their peers’ academic and experience-based intercultural “toolbox.” These data also suggest that both academic studies and experiential learning might be effective in increasing an individual’s CQ. Of course, it is entirely possible that causation follows the opposite direction and that individuals with higher CQ levels tend to choose coursework with “global” content (SR-SBIC) or work/study abroad (SR-SBIC). Additionally, we found that the SR-SBIC and SR-EBIC were significantly positively correlated (r = .59, p < .01), possibly indicating that experience of interacting with other cultures and desire to understand them better through academic studies go hand-in-hand.
Hypotheses 3a and 3b pertained to the Global Leadership Learning Outcomes. Recall that Hypothesis 3a referred to the prediction that participation in the cross-cultural experiential learning activity would produce a positive perceived change in the participants’ intercultural self-efficacy and motivation. This outcome was assessed with the help of two questions asking the respondents to estimate the changes in their level of interest in learning about other cultures and in their level of confidence in their ability to deal with intercultural situations. Equal percentages (97%) of international and domestic students reported that they were more interested or significantly more interested in learning about other cultures (Q1 from Appendix B). Likewise, 94% of international students and 80% of domestic students felt that they were either more confident or significantly more confident in their ability to interact with people from other cultures (Q2 from Appendix B). A 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from Strongly Disagree to Strongly Agree was used to capture the responses to Questions 3 to 7 (see Appendix B). The percent of those respondents who either somewhat agreed, agreed, or strongly agreed (referred to as “agreed at least somewhat” further in this paragraph) was fairly high. The percentage that agreed at least somewhat that the cross-cultural exercise helped them to understand how their own culture is viewed by people from other cultures was 88% among international students and 97% among domestic students (Q3 from Appendix B). At least 94% of international students and 97% of domestic students agreed at least somewhat that they learned a lot of interesting facts about other cultures during the interview (Q4 from Appendix B). The percent of all “Agree” responses reached 97% for international students and 91% for domestic students in response to the statement suggesting that the participants were able to tell their listeners a lot about their own cultures (Q5 from Appendix B). Overall, 82% of international students and 89% of domestic students agreed at least somewhat that they would like to work overseas. Finally, 94% of international students and all 100% of domestic students agreed at least somewhat that the cross cultural interview was a valuable part of their coursework.
These results, indicating perceived growth of interest in/motivation to learn about other cultures (Q1 and Q2) provided support for Hypothesis 3a. Likewise, the pattern of responses to Questions 3 to 5 related to the perceived gain in knowledge base about cultures provided support for Hypothesis 3b.
To further test for Hypothesis 3a, the mean ratings in response to Q1 and Q2 (see Appendix B) about students’ interest in learning about other cultures and about their level of intercultural confidence were compared with the midpoint (3 on a 5-point scale) where the mid-point indicated no change in interest in other cultures. The means for both domestic (M = 4.49, t[34] = 15.64, p < .001) and international (M = 4.24, t[33] = 14.52, p < .001) students were significantly higher than the mid-point indicating that their perceived level of interest in learning about other cultures significantly increased following the cross-cultural interview. Likewise, ratings of changes in perceived confidence level were significantly higher than the “my level of confidence did not change” neutral midpoint (3 on a 5-point scale) on the response scale for both domestic (M = 3.97, t[34] = 9.30, p < .001) and international (M = 4.35, t[33] = 13.21, p < .001) students.
Notably, the self-reported perceived change in interest in learning about other cultures did not differ significantly between the domestic (M = 4.49) and international (M = 4.24, F[1, 67] = 3.84, p = .054) students. International students, however, appeared to benefit significantly more (M = 4.35) than marketing (domestic) students (M = 3.97, F[1, 67] = 6.80, p = .011) from the cross-cultural confidence boost provided by this experiential learning activity.
To further test for Hypothesis 3b (perceived growth of students’ cultural knowledge) the means for the Q3, Q4, and Q5 variables were compared with 4, the midpoint on the 7-point Likert-type scale (ranging from 1 = Strongly disagree to 7 = Strongly agree with the midpoint being 4 = Neither agree nor disagree). Means above the midpoint would indicate respondents’ reporting that a perceived gain in cultural knowledge happened as a result of the cross-cultural activity.
Both domestic (M = 6.17, t[34] = 16.36, p < .001) and international (M = 6.00, t[33] = 11.17, p < .001) students’ ratings were significantly higher than the “neutral” mid-point on the Likert-type scale in response to Q4, indicating that the participants felt that they learned a lot of interesting facts about other cultures. The mean students’ ratings of agreement with the statement “This activity helped me to understand how my culture is viewed . . .” (Q3) were significantly higher than the “neutral” mid-point for both domestic (M = 5.80, t[34] = 14.02, p < .001) and international (M = 5.79, t[33] = 10.08, p < .001) students. The same pattern was observed in response to the Q5 statement “ . . . I was able to tell . . . a lot about my own culture”: all mean agreement ratings were significantly higher than the mid-point (M = 5.60, t[34] = 7.62, p < .001, for domestic and M = 6.06, t[33] = 12.21, p < .001, for international students).
The pattern of the responses to Q7 about the educational value of the activity and the qualitative data from the reflection papers reveal that the majority of the participants felt that the cross-cultural experiential learning assignment was beneficial for them. The rating of agreement with the Q7 statement “ . . . This activity was a valuable part of the course that I am taking” on a scale from 1 = Strongly Disagree to 7 = Strongly Agree reached 6.46 for the domestic students and 5.97 for international students. The difference between these ratings was statistically significant (F[1, 67] = 4.29, p = .042) indicating that, compared with international students, domestic students put a higher value on the benefits provided by participating in the cross-cultural interview.
Qualitative Results
Additionally, the qualitative data collected from the students’ reflection papers were analyzed and coded thematically (Baptiste, 2001), and several themes emerged that directly or indirectly address the learning outcomes for the activity. Over a series of meetings, sufficient (more than 90%) agreement was achieved among the coders. In addition to the themes pertaining to the hypotheses of this study and reported below, a few additional themes were extracted to be used in future research. While we are cautious in interpreting self-reported statements as evidence of learning outcomes having been met, the following excerpts3 from the reflections are illustrative of the range of insights gained by participants.
Theme 1: Increased Confidence and Motivation
A recurrent theme in the participants’ reflections concerned the anticipated discomfort associated with interacting in culturally diverse settings. From the ESL students’ point of view, this was frequently expressed in terms of linguistic confidence:
Surprisingly, I noticed that I was speaking with more freedom and less fear of saying something wrong. Now, I fell more confident and fearless to speak English. (Female, Brazil)
It should be noted in passing that from the perspective of the ESL faculty, this realization is justification enough for running the cross-cultural interview, since opportunities for structured interactions of this nature with domestic students are actually quite rare on our campus and anxiety is consequently common. But the converse was also true, as domestic students also told us of instances of lack of confidence and anxiety that they were able to overcome by participating in this cross-cultural activity:
I was a bit nervous before the interview started, but I had to get out of my shell and found the interview to not be nerve racking at all. [Names of international students] were just as nervous as I was at the start but I saw then start to smile more and become more comfortable with the interview, which was great to see. (Male, USA)
Several participants extrapolated their newly gained intercultural confidence to future work-related situations:
This interview made me feel like I could work with foreign nations’ businesspersons. (Male, USA)
This [activity] is the perfect metaphor to demonstrate the obstacles as well as the potential opportunities that international business endeavors present. . . . We often become uncomfortable when interacting with people who differ from us because of the apparent barriers that separate us. . . . Once we develop strong relations based on respect in which we value the cultural differences that are present, the possibilities are endless. (Female, USA)
Again, there is a great variation here, from “I could work with” to “the possibilities are endless.” However, it should be remembered that participants approach the activity from very different places and different levels of willingness to interact with other cultures. Overall, we feel that the statements from Theme 1 provide evidence for increased self-efficacy and motivation to interact more with other cultures, thus providing additional support for Hypothesis 3a (also mapping onto Global Leadership Learning Outcome 1;4 per Ng et al., 2009).
Theme 2: Increase in Specific Knowledge of Another Culture
We were expecting most participants to learn a few specific facts about other cultures, since this was the ostensible purpose of the cross-cultural marketing interview. Some of these discoveries were confined to economic factors but gave the participants a personal connection to the issues:
[Mexican male] also shared something very unique in his country, which is that people are very afraid to use credit cards in Mexico. People are afraid that there personal information will be stolen and used for fraud. (Male, USA)
This opportunity to learn about other cultures felt like a significant opportunity to many of our participants, especially to those whose exposure to members of other cultures was limited, as was the case with about a quarter of our domestic participants:
Never have I sat down with someone from a foreign country and asked them questions about their home country, let alone discuss everyday things and their consumer behavior. (Male, USA)
Some of the learning that occurred during the interview was incomplete or even not entirely accurate:
We learned that in the Saudi Arabian culture, alcohol is not consumed because of religious reasons. [Saudi male], a young man in his twenties, did not know the taste of alcohol. This fact really struck me and made me realize the vast difference in our cultures—not many twenty something year old American men can say that they have never consumed even a sip of alcohol. (Female, USA)
This statement about alcohol consumption in Saudi Arabia is categorical (alcohol is illegal in Saudi Arabia but that does not mean it is never consumed) and it is interesting to note the lack of qualification in reference to Saudi culture (“alcohol is not consumed because of religious reasons”) contrasted with the qualification “not many” attached to American men of the same age. The writer here is simply not prepared to question the authority of her Saudi informant, or conceivably has generalized his viewpoint to the entire population, even while recognizing the limitations of her own experience/viewpoint. Educators who, due to the nature of their profession, strive to impart “perfect” (accurate, objective, comprehensive) knowledge to their students might find it difficult to accept the fact that this type of “imperfect” (incomplete, not entirely accurate, and most definitely not comprehensive) learning might be happening during experiential activities.
This potential objection to the proposed experiential learning activity can be disputed on the following grounds. Most significantly, the experiential learning activity is only one of the many components of a semester-long marketing course. A professor can actually build on the instances of “imperfect” learning that become known to her from the reflection papers by identifying the voids in students’ knowledge about other countries/cultures and tailoring her subsequent classes to eventually address most of those voids. Therefore, the “imperfect” learning has the potential to become a stepping-stone to eventually gaining the more accurate cultural knowledge.
As it turns out, the learning impact works not only through learning a few culture-specific facts but also through helping the students to map the boundaries of their existing cultural knowledge (and realize that often times it is very limited). The following quote is one example:
It was very interesting to explore these differences through casual conversation. This conversation made me more interested in learning about other countries and cultures because it helped me to realize how little I actually do know. (Female, USA)
Overall, the content of the reflection papers provides evidence of students’ gaining at least a few culture-specific facts during the interview, thus providing additional support for Hypothesis 3b and corresponding to Global Leadership Learning Outcome 3 (Ng et al., 2009).
Theme 3: Broadening of Intercultural Perspectives, Emergence of Ethnorelative Attitudes
As we anticipated, comments from some participants minimized cultural differences, while tacitly acknowledging a prior belief that no common ground would be found:
I find it extremely interesting that I was able to sit down with two other students from across the world and be able to have so much in common with them. (Male, USA)
Whether it is a mutual love for beer like [Mexican male], or a shared habit of watching the popular American television series “Breaking Bad” on Netflix like [Saudi male], this class has helped me develop the confidence to be able to share some type of mutual interest with virtually anyone around the world. (Male, USA)
Indeed, several participants were quite explicit about their lack of prior understanding of the relationship between culture and behavior:
[The activity] helped me understand how much human behavior patterns can differ depending on where you where you were born and which culture you were raised in. (Male, USA)
Others presented a more nuanced view of cultural differences, underscoring the relationship between knowledge and behavior:
This is where I noticed that the more I know about a culture, the easier and smoother communication gets. The world can be very small and easy to understand if we are able to recognize our similarities and embrace the differences. (Male, United Arab Emirates)
I feel . . . that the first step . . . is gaining this understanding (both by asking questions and simply observing) and being open to learning how they do things so we can best avoid self-reference criterion. (Female, USA)
Perhaps the main point to be made here is that the experiential activity, which placed minimal demands on the curriculum and on the time and energy of the participants, provided an opportunity for beneficial reflection on their ethnorelative attitudes (corresponding to Global Leadership Learning Outcome 2; Ng et al., 2009), and in some cases a greater acceptance of the beliefs, traditions, and behaviors of others.
Theme 4: Desire for Further Experiences of This Nature
Overall, however, there is little doubt that the experience was motivating for the participants, and that there is demand from both domestic and international students for more experiences of this kind:
This experience was very valuable to me. I wish there were more opportunities to interact with people from other cultures, as it will help me to become a better rounded individual and will help me in the future in international business. (Male, USA)
It was one of the best experiences that I have been living in the US and if we have more opportunities to do that more times, it would be excellent for helping us to develop our abilities. (Male, Colombia)
Several reflections pinpointed the value of the experience, juxtaposing it with other curricular activities:
Reading the textbook and going to lecture both help in understanding how to implement international marketing . . . but it doesn’t really sink in until you get to interact with someone from the country or region. I believe that this experience may be the most valuable that I have all semester at school . . . (Male, USA)
Some of the benefits that the students mentioned were specific to experiential learning, as opposed to the “standard” mode of course delivery. According to the students, the experience was valuable to them because it contained a strong emotional component (“one of my favorite in-class activities,” “this experience may be the most valuable that I have all semester at school,” “I feel like it filled a void that has been present in my [university name] career”), it delivered knowledge that could not be delivered or could not be delivered as effectively via any other teaching mode (“can learn aspects of different cultures that I can’t necessarily get from a textbook,” “. . . I probably gained more from this one experience than I did in an entire semester of some of my previous classes”), and they felt the experience was enriching in a humanistic way (“it made me a more well-rounded person”).
Overall, we feel that Hypothesis 1 received partial support (international students exceeded domestic students only along the dimension of Cognitive CQ), Hypothesis 2a was generally supported (perceived studies-based intercultural competence was positively related to most CQ components), Hypothesis 2b was fully supported (perceived experience-based intercultural competence was positively related to all CQ components), and Hypotheses 3a and 3b received strong support from the quantitative and qualitative data.
Conclusion
While many business schools are working on maintaining their competitiveness in the globalized world by advancing their intercultural competence training agenda, not all of them have adopted a theory-driven, systematic, and strategic approach to selecting and developing intercultural training opportunities for their students.
The main problem with this atheoretical approach is that it does not allow marketing educators to recognize and concentrate on the most viable opportunities for developing their students’ intercultural capabilities. In the absence of an established paradigm for intercultural training of business students, the options that schools choose to invest in are often selected in an opportunistic manner. In the absence of a theoretical basis, it is nearly impossible to measure and assess the progress (or the lack of it) in the development of students’ intercultural capabilities.
This article makes a contribution in demonstrating that the CQ model (Earley & Ang, 2003) along with the propositions of ELT (Kolb, 1984) and contact theory (Allport, 1954) can be used as a theoretical basis for designing course activities that fit into the “internal flow” of a traditional undergraduate marketing courses while effectively delivering measurable learning outcomes along the dimensions of global leadership (Ng et al., 2009). We also provide a detailed description of an example of an experiential learning activity (a cross-cultural consumer behavior interview) designed and implemented in accordance with the theoretical principles listed above. In particular, the cross-cultural experiential activity that we tested was designed to meet the criteria of an effective intercultural interaction (e.g., involves a direct contact of domestic and international students, is endorsed by an authority figure, etc.) outlined by the contact theory (Allport, 1954). Likewise, the activity was designed to consist of concrete experience as well as a reflective observation, following the propositions of Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning theory. This exercise is designed to be one of the transformative events that, over the course of the semester, will facilitate the development of students’ CQ (Earley & Ang, 2003). Judging by the self-reported measures of respondents’ gains in perceived intercultural knowledge and motivation, it appears that this theory-based approach was justified.
The results of this study may be limited in the sense that we utilized relatively small convenience samples of the populations of interest (international and domestic students). Although most of the tests that we utilized in hypotheses testing (t test, ANOVA) have been shown to be fairly robust even with relatively small samples sizes (Glass & Hopkins, 1996), it is possible that in some instances (e.g., testing the correlations) small sample sizes prevented the detection of some relationships between variables. For instance, the observed lack of correlation between SR-SBIC and Metacognitive CQ components could be attributed to the limiting nature of a small sample size.
Other limitations that could be addressed in future extensions of this study include the fact that we tested the exercise under conditions where domestic students were represented by American students and international students came from a small sample of cultures. Even though we strongly believe that the universal nature of psychological (Allport, 1954), managerial (Earley & Ang, 2003), and educational (Kolb, 1984; Kolb & Kolb, 2005) theoretical foundations of our cross-cultural experiential exercise makes it potentially applicable in virtually any culture on the planet, we feel that the value of this research can be enhanced by replicating this study in different countries.
As we pointed out earlier, we do not expect that a single exposure to a cross-cultural situation will produce a measurable effect on participants’ CQ scores (with the possible exception of a short-term effect on Motivational CQ). Rather, each instance of cross-cultural interaction that leads to a meaningful collaboration between the participants will produce an incremental impact, potentially changing respondents’ CQ over even a relatively short period (a semester or a term). To test this proposition, future studies might utilize a pre- posttest design where students’ CQ scores are measured at the beginning and at the end of an international marketing course. To test the impact of cross-cultural experiential activities, an experiential design should involve comparing CQ change (or lack of it) of comparable classes where one class completes coursework that includes cross-cultural experiential activities and another does not. For practical reasons (the small number of international marketing classes offered each year at the university that was the site of our study), we were unable to run such experiment at this time. Future studies might address this limitation.
Future research might also be warranted to establish the direction of the causation between the measures of self-reported perceived studies-based or experience-based intercultural competence (SR-SBIC and SR-EBIC) and CQ scores. As we pointed out earlier, this study found these variables to be significantly positively correlated. However, the direction of the causal relationship remains unknown.
According to ELT (Kolb, 1984; Kolb & Kolb, 2005), the effectiveness of experiential learning is amplified when it engages the learner at all stages of the learning cycle (experiencing–reflecting–thinking–acting). This study makes a contribution by proposing an easy-to-implement, inexpensive exercise that shows how Kolb’s learning cycle can be implemented in a regular marketing course with the purpose of facilitating students’ CQ development. Including the proposed exercise in relevant marketing courses (at the undergraduate as well as graduate level) might benefit business schools and marketing faculties by providing a way to help the students to learn a few facts about economic, social, and religious environments in other countries, increase motivation, and build confidence in dealing with intercultural situations. The use of a strong theoretical base (a combination of ELT, the contact theory, and the CQ model) will help educators to select (or create their own) activities and exercises for inclusion into course content because it provides a set of learning objectives, a set of selection criteria, and the guidelines for course development. According to the CQ model (Earley et al., 2006; Earley & Peterson, 2004), a series of transformative educational influences (including the experiential learning activities along with the traditional forms of content delivery such as lectures and discussions) has the potential to facilitate the development of students’ CQ, which, in turn, will help to prepare them to participate in the globalized business world of today.
In our study, the cross-cultural interview led to an increase in the students’ self-reported intercultural confidence and motivation. The activity also led to a perceived increase in factual knowledge about other cultures (most likely reflecting actual learning of a few relevant facts about the cultures of each respondent’s interviewees). Overall, the participants felt that the cross-cultural interview was a very valuable component of their education. Even though our experience of implementing this activity has been limited so far to one university campus in the United States, it is our belief that it can be successfully applied by marketing educators worldwide, as long as it fits with the educational goals of a marketing class and there is a “critical mass” of international students (students of pre-sessional language support programs are an ideal population), from a diversity of cultures, who seek meaningful interaction with domestic students.
The reliability of the CQ scale (Van Dyne et al., 2008) was confirmed in our sample. Other contributions of this study include the finding that the Self-Reported Studies-Based Intercultural Competence and the Self-Reported Experience-Based Intercultural Competence were fairly accurate predictors of the respondents’ CQ scores. This provides additional evidence in support of the viewpoint that CQ can be improved through both the increased intercultural contact (experience-based) and the cognitive routes (studies-based).
Contrary to our expectations, international students scored higher than domestic students only on the Cognitive subscale of the CQS. Plausible explanations to this finding include the possibility that many of the marketing (domestic) students accumulated significant intercultural experience and education through various means prior to the start of the course. It could also be an artifact of the specific make-up of our international student sample (the possibility that they might have had very limited exposure to other cultures). These possible explanations also need to be explored further in future research.
In our study, the beneficial effects of this activity extended to domestic and international students alike. Several reflection papers explicitly expressed a desire to participate in more cross-cultural communication opportunities in the future. It remains unclear, though, whether the increased motivation to interact with and learn more about other cultures was a lasting or a fleeting effect of our cross-cultural assignment. Replicating this study with a follow-up to the main measures at the end of the semester or during the subsequent semester might answer this question.
Analysis of the qualitative data from the reflection papers helps to understand the mechanism of this study’s impact. In their papers, some students offered their theories of “why it worked.” To summarize such responses, the students felt that belonging to the same generation helped them to quickly discover commonality of their interests and lifestyles with their peers from other countries. At the same time, as the assignment kept the participants focused on identifying the differences between their cultures and shopping behaviors, the conversations provided enough “discovery” material to keep them interested and engaged. The participants also felt that they worked toward common goal: after all, they needed each other to complete the interviews and get good grades for this assignment.
In sum, this study proposes that combining a set of well-established and recognized theoretical perspectives (the CQ model [Earley & Ang, 2003], ELT [Kolb, 1984], and Contact Theory [Allport, 1954]) provides a solid foundation for designing experiential learning activities aimed at developing marketing students’ CQ. Using the experiential learning approach to intercultural training permits engagement of the learner at a deeper level, leading to improved motivation, expanding the size of her intercultural knowledge base and, possibly, strengthening the humanistic component of business education by reducing ethnocentric attitudes and emphasizing the students’ sense of relatedness to people from other cultures.
Appendix A
Cross-Cultural Interview Handout5
In groups of two or three you will interview an ELC (English as a Second Language) student(s) about the differences/similarities in consumer behavior that these students were able to observe when comparing their country to the United States.
See if you can develop a better understanding of cultural influences on consumer behavior. Use the following questions as a starting point for your interview. Adapt them as you see fit to develop a conversation/discussion of lifestyles and buying behaviors. If there is something you are curious about, just ask your interviewee.
The interviewee will also ask you questions about your own shopping preferences, lifestyle, interests, and so on. Be prepared to answer such questions.
If you are able to identify an interesting and engaging topic, run with it!
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If you asked some questions in addition to the list of suggested questions, please list them here (Optional).
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What questions did your interviewees ask?
Reflection Paper Writing Assignment
Reflection is one of the most important parts of this activity. When you are ready to start working on your write-up, consider the following additional questions meant to stimulate your thoughts.
What was your biggest discovery(ies) during the interview?
Are you more interested or less interested in learning about other cultures as a result of this activity?
Imagine observing yourself during this interview. Did you speak/behave/think differently during this interview? Was there anything interesting that you noticed about your thinking and/or communication style?
Do you feel more confident or less confident in your ability to interact with the people from other cultures as a result of this interview?
Do you feel that this experience (a cross-cultural interview) was valuable for you? Why or why not?
Appendix B
Questions From the Postactivity Online Survey
Q1. Please tell us whether you are more interested or less interested in learning about other cultures as a result of this interview?
Q2. As a result of this interview, do you feel more confident or less confident in your ability to interact with the people from other cultures?
Q3. This activity helped me to understand how my culture is viewed by people from other countries.
Q4. During this interview I was able to learn a lot of interesting facts about other cultures.
Q5. During this activity I was able to tell my counterparts (=listeners) a lot about my own culture.
Q6. At some point during my future professional career, I would like to work abroad (outside my home country).
Q7. Overall, this activity was a valuable part of the course that I am taking at [Name] University.
Q8. Compared to my peers, I have a lot more of cross-cultural experience due to my travel and/or work history.
Q9. Compared to my peers, I know much more about different cultures due to my studies (e.g., classes that I took).
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1.
The abbreviation CQ (analogous to IQ) became an established term to denote cultural intelligence starting from the pioneering works in the field (e.g., Earley & Ang, 2003).
2.
Means of scale items and standard deviations are reported here in the same order: statistics for the international sample are followed by the statistics for the domestic sample.
3.
Original orthography is preserved in the quotes from the student reflection papers.
4.
See the list of Global Leadership Learning Outcomes on p. 4 of this paper.
5.
This appendix contains the excerpts from the version of the handout intended for the domestic students. The content of the handout for the international students was nearly identical, with the exception of the minimal necessary changes in wording (e.g., “you will interview business students” instead of the “you will interview ELC students”). All student participants received the handout a few days before the scheduled activity date.
6.
Global brands are brands whose positioning, advertising strategy, personality, look, and feel are in most respects the same from one country to another.
7.
Domestic: product manufactured within a country, not originating abroad.
8.
Social status: an alleged rank in society.
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