Abstract

     This study offers a new perspective on how organisational factors influence migrant workers’ cultural intelligence (CQ) by examining a moderated mediation model of the mechanism underlying the relationship between perceived supervisor support and CQ. We tested our model using a survey on a sample of 462 migrants. We found that employees’ social exchange and subjective career success mediated the relationship between their perceptions of supervisor support and CQ. Furthermore, perceived organisational support moderated the social exchange–CQ relationship, and this relationship was stronger among workers with perceived high organisational support than for those with perceptions of low support. We also found that the indirect effect of employees’ perceived supervisor support on CQ via social exchange was stronger for those with perceived high organisational support than for those with perceptions of low support. This study contributes to a better understanding of factors that foster migrant workers’ abilities to navigate diverse workplaces.

Introduction

     Today’s global context is characterised by culturally diverse workplaces that require employees to have high levels of cultural competence if they are to successfully adjust to and survive in competitive work environments. Cultural competence (also referred to as cross-cultural competence or intercultural competence in the literature) is defined as “a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (Cross et al., 1989, pp. iv-v). This concept is used widely in the workforce diversity literature in multicultural countries such as the USA, Canada and Australia, due to its important role in dealing with the issues involving minorities in the workplace. Indeed, cultural competency is an umbrella term for capabilities that help facilitate intercultural effectiveness (Ang et al., 2015). Despite a large literature on cultural competence, the conceptualisations and definitions of this construct are often ambiguous. Cultural competence is conceptualised as personal characteristics related to traits, attitudes/worldviews, capabilities or a mix of the above (Leung et al., 2014). However, cultural competence is conceptually distinct from cultural intelligence (CQ) in that cultural competence is a combination of ability and personality traits, which are specific to the knowledge of a country, while CQ is based on contemporary theories of intelligence, not specific to a particular culture, and distinct from personality traits (Ang et al., 2007, 2015).

RESULTS

Preliminary analyses

     We performed CFA to test the measurement model. Table 1 shows that the 5-factor model fits the data well, with (χ۲[۳۱۴] = ۱۰۴۵٫۹۱, SRMR = 0.04, CFI = 0.91, RMSEA = 0.07). The 5-factor model is much better than the 1-factor model (χ۲[۳۲۴] = ۳۸۸۸٫۲۳, p < ۰٫۰۱, SRMR = 0.11, CFI = 0.57, RMSEA = 0.15) and the null model (χ۲[۳۵۱] = ۸۶۹۶٫۳۶, p < ۰٫۰۱). The CFA results indicate that the five variables in this study are distinct. Since the data were self-reported, common method variance (CMV) may have influenced the results. As suggested and used by prior researchers (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we tested the extent of CMV in the data. If CMV exists, the 5-factor model with a method factor should fit the data significantly better than the 5-factor model. After running the analysis, the CFA results show that the 5-factor model could slightly benefit from the addition of the common method factor; however, the gain in model fit was very small (SRMR change = 0.00, CFI change = 0.01 and RMSEA change = 0.00). These results suggested that CMV was not a critical issue in this study, although it is present.