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The service sector is experiencing an increasingly rapid growth, due to multiple factors
such as the increasing income of customers, changes in demographics and lifestyles, the
introduction of new technologies, or the low entry barriers in the service field (Koc, 2013)​. All of
these changes are occurring in a context of globalisation, setting new challenges for the
hospitality field. One of the most difficult tasks to perform in the hospitality sector, currently, is
being able to cope with multiculturalism. Lots of firms and organisations have grown,
internationally speaking, and are now present on 5 continents, such as Intercontinental Hotel
Group. But, the main reason for their success is not luck or financial resources. They are
performers because they know how to interact with diverse cultures.
Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is one of the key managerial skills required in hospitality for
effectively conducting business across cultures (Arora and Rohmetra, 2010). This essay will
evaluate the importance of developing CQ in the international hospitality sector, according to the
different points of views expressed by managers, employees and customers. At the same time, an
analysis of, how improving my personal CQ could help me in my future career or how it helped
me during my previous experience abroad, will be conducted.
Firstly, the global environment is changing, impacting among others, on the hospitality sector.
Three main evolutions can be pointed out: evolution from periodic to continuous change, from
isolation to interconnectedness and from biculturalism to multiculturalism (Steers et al., 2013).
In other words, the phenomenon of globalisation is leading hospitality organisations to be more
aware of the different cultures they are choosing to work with. A simple awareness however, is
not enough to be successful when doing business with people from different cultures. And, as
Hofstede et al. (2005) argue, if an organisation wants to understand the management style of
different cultures, it has, first, to understand their society. According to Arora and Rohmetra
(2010), managers are not open enough, culturally speaking. Steers et al. (2013) underline the fact
that, in addition to managerial competencies, managers should work on their multicultural
competencies. They currently have to know how to work without borders. For this reason, it has
become essential for hospitality managers to focus on the development and enhancement of
cultural intelligence.
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Secondly, although general intelligence and emotional intelligence are effective in the domestic
context, in order to be successful in cross-border contexts, there is a need to develop CQ
(Rockstuhl et al., 2011). Cultural Intelligence can be seen as a key competence which enables
people, who can develop it, to effectively interact with individuals from diverse cultural
backgrounds (Butcher, 2008). Arora and Rohmetra (2010, p.217) argue that CQ is:
“... a new insight of the social skills and development of mental frameworks that helps in
bridging cultural differences”.
Developing CQ could be seen as key for hospitality managers seeking to be successful
cross-culturally. But, it is not so simple, as it is composed of 3 or 4 distinct dimensions.
Consequently, to be totally efficient, CQ should be developed in depth, focusing on each of its
components. This would result in reaching the chameleon profile, with a high level of all 3 CQ
components. Earley and Mosakowski (2004, p.3) argue that: “CQ resides in the body and the
heart as well as the head”. The body stands for the gesture and behaviour; the heart for
motivation and the head for understanding and learning.
This theory resonates with Thomas (2006) who considers that CQ is composed of 3 aspects:
knowledge, mindfulness and behavioural abilities. And, for him, “these three components
combine to produce the ability to interact effectively across cultures” (Thomas, 2006, p.81).
Firstly, the knowledge is the basis of the comprehension (Thomas, 2006). It can be defined as the
recognition of differences between two cultures, the identification of these differences, such as
cultural identities or values, and, finally, awareness of the process through which culture affects
behaviours. In other words, enhancing one’s knowledge about a culture would enable a manager
in the hospitality sector to understand faster, and better, the differences between their culture and
that of their collaborators and how it impacts on their ways of doing business.
Considering the iceberg concept of culture (Peterson, 2004), developing knowledge would be
equivalent to identifying and understanding the lower part of the iceberg, known as the unspoken
and unconscious rules. It is not enough to consider the upper part of the iceberg. A manager will
have to dig deeper to know how to interpret this basic knowledge.
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For example, to do business with another country, it is paramount to understand the culture and
the society as stated above. When the fast-food chain, McDonalds, tried to conquer France, in
1972, it did not succeed as expected. French customers were not ready to eat junk food
(American imported products, beef treated with hormones) with their hands. They had to conduct
research to enhance their knowledge about French customers’ expectations and habits. Finally,
they made a strong comeback in 1979 and conquered the French market.
As a future manager in the hospitality sector, developing knowledge about a specific culture
would be useful for me, in terms of cross-cultural communication (Stark et al., 2005). It would
enable me to communicate easily, and effectively, with collaborators and employees. I would be
more interested in working in Sri Lanka, or in countries in Asia. Knowing how to communicate
with this new culture, totally different from my own would be a key aspect for me. For example,
strong values in Sri Lankan culture are cooperation, mutual help and family. As a manager, I
have to understand how these values could impact on people’s behaviours at work. Considering
Hofstede’s (1984) five cultural dimensions, Sri Lankan culture has a high collectivism and
power distance level. In other words, every one in the organisation has their role and the
collaboration of each employee is really important, but it can be effective only with monitoring
and help from superiors. Consequently, giving employees empowerment would free them and
lead to worse performances. Thanks to knowledge about culture, I would be able to prevent
mistakes and, in this case, to understand that culture affects performance (Gelfand et al., 2007).
Knowledge is the first thing that can be developed. But it is not enough for effective
cross-cultural communication, that is why there is a need to develop mindfulness (Thomas,
2006).
Secondly, mindfulness is the link between knowledge and action. It requires a high level of
awareness, based on experience and analysing reality. It involves new perspectives to the
knowledge extent of CQ and stresses the importance of using the five senses and developing
empathy (Thomas, 2006). In other words, enhancing one’s mindfulness would enable a manager
in the hospitality sector to have a deeper understanding of cultures. But, it cannot be developed
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apart from the simultaneous progression of emotional and social intelligence. According to
Crowne (2013), emotional and social intelligence are linked to the development of a global
mindset. Emotional intelligence is defined as “an ability which focuses on the perception and
expression of emotion accurately and adaptively” (Crowne, 2013 p.6). This means, during
cross-cultural communication, that the manager would be able not only to interact with people
but also to control, and be conscious of this interaction, by focusing attention on the whole
context of the situation, for example, the 5 senses, gestures, eye contact and tone of voice.
In the hospitality context, mindfulness is a key to communicating cross-culturally. It is a
non-negotiable asset for any organisation in the hospitality sector, especially when doing
mergers or acquisitions. For example, on January 2015, Jin Jiang International (Chinese Hotel
Chain) acquired Louvre Hotels Group, belonging to Starwood Capital, an American investment
fund. Hall (1976) emphasises the fact that culture influences communication. Hall (1976)
identifies the difference between high and low context cultures. High context culture places
importance on non verbal signals (body language) in communication with shared codes and
mostly verbal agreements. Jin Jiang International is identified as having a high context culture
(Hall, 1976). On the contrary, a low context culture is based on verbal signals with short and
explicit messages and most of the time written agreements. Hall (1976) identifies Americans as
having a low-context culture. To succeed in this acquisition, they had to understand each-other’s
ways of thinking, meanings and interpretations of things. Mindfulness could have been
developed by certain members of both organisations to communicate smoothly.
Furthermore, as Schneider (2003) argues, dogmatic thinking is condemned in managing across
cultures. As a future manager, developing mindfulness could help me to broaden my vision
because it will enable me to view cross-cultural situations under different perspectives (Thomas
and Inkson, 2004). For example, during an internship in Sri Lanka, I was working at the
reception and my colleagues were constantly taking breaks. I thought they were lazy, but I
understood later that they were meeting each other to have tea and speak about their lives and
families. For them, social relationships are important, even at work, and personal life comes
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before all else (Solomon et al., 2009). If I go back there to work as a manager, I will not have an
ethnocentric approach (Yu et al., 2014) but I will be able, thanks to mindfulness and empathy, to
understand my employee’s vision of work and motivations.
Finally, developing behavioural ability is the last stage of enhancing one’s own level of CQ. But,
as it is based on knowledge and mindfulness, it cannot be developed apart from it. Progression of
CQ is follows an iterative process, represented by an S curve, where each aspect of CQ calls on
another and supports the other aspect to create the third one (Kohlberg, 1984, and Piaget, 1985).
Enhancing one’s behavioural ability involves having the capacity to adapt one’s behaviour to a
specific cross-cultural situation (Thomas, 2006). It not only involves finding the right behaviour
at the right time, but also with the right individual, according to what he/she expects. This
understanding of how individuals expect someone to behave, in a particular way, is possible
thanks to mindfulness. As a result, improving one’s own behavioural ability would lead to a
smooth adjustment in different multicultural contexts, with the aim of developing an intuitive
behaviour for each culture (Kohlberg, 1984 and Piaget, 1985).
In the hospitality sector, knowing which gesture to adopt, depending on the culture of the
collaborator, is paramount. For example, in Sri Lanka, every business meeting is preceded by a
meal between the collaborators. I attended a lunch with Jerôme Auvity (French director of
operations in Negombo, Sri Lanka) and a Sri Lankan hotel manager. During the meal, the Sri
Lankan was eating with its hand but Jérôme used cutlery. It shows a high level of behavioural
ability from the French manager because he was not expected to behave as a local and he did not.
In certain situation, such as this one, adopting the mimic profile of CQ can be seen as mocking
(Earley and Mosakowski, 2004). Sometimes, the best way of showing one’s understanding of the
other culture is not to adapt (Thomas, 2006).
To conclude this first part, enhancing one’s level of CQ is fundamental in the hospitality sector
as it constantly involves communication between people from different cultural backgrounds.
Consequently, being able to reach a high level of CQ will represent a considerable asset for me
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as I want to work in this field later on. My final goal is not to be a successful expatriate but an
efficient global manager, defined by Schneider (2003, p.199) as an individual that “... can work
effectively across organizational, functional and cross-cultural boundaries”. In order to do so, I
have to understand the importance of CQ for a global workforce and global customers.
Other theories of CQ are based on the three components mentioned earlier, but add a fourth
element. Overall, CQ would be composed of four facets. The meta-cognitive facet, or CQ
knowledge, represents the understanding of cultural knowledge. The cognitive facet, or CQ
strategy, relates to the knowledge acquired through education and experience. The motivational
facet, or CQ drive, expresses the level of interest or curiosity. And, finally the behavioural
dimension, or CQ action, represents the capacity to adapt to a specific multi-cultural situation
(Crowne, 2008 ; Earley and Ang, 2003 ; Livermore, 2009).
Firstly, CQ is important in the hospitality sector because most organisations are dealing with
diverse workforces. It is currently rare to see staff members of a hotel or a restaurant belonging
to a single culture. Teams are diversified and hotels are proud of showing their involvement in
this new global context. The Marriott hotel group, for instance, has a diversified staff with
employees from multiple cultural backgrounds. Employees working in hospitality need to
improve their CQ level because they will constantly have to use cross-cultural communication.
In terms of understanding cultural issues, employees would be more efficient in interacting with
each other because they will have a higher degree of awareness (metacognitive level of CQ)
(Arora, 2010). In addition, with knowledge about the other culture, individuals can identify
easily the cultural norms and values and apply these when interacting (cognitive level of CQ)
(Arora, 2010). As a result, employees from different cultures, developing both metacognitive and
cognitive levels of CQ, would be more efficient when working together. For example, it has been
seen before that culture influences ways of working. And, considering Hall’s (1983) concept of
time orientation, it can be argued that, according to the culture, individuals are not managing
time in the same ways. As a former employee of a Sri Lankan hotel, I experienced this situation.
Sri Lankan culture can be seen as a polychronic culture (Hall, 1983) with many tasks achieved
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concurrently, flexible hours and non-dissociable work and personal time. On the contrary, I feel
that I belong to a fairly monochronic culture, performing one task at a time, with rigid schedules
and dissociated work and personal life. For me, it was very difficult to begin something and to do
something else even if the first thing was not finished. I understand now why having a higher
level of CQ could help me to be more efficient during teamwork. Indeed, the fact that teams are
multicultural can be a success factor because of the heterogeneity, the variety of ideas and points
of views (Gelfand et al., 2007).
Having a multi-cultural team, with a high level of CQ, can help during conflict resolution
(Gelfand et al., 2007) because culture affects conflicts and negotiation processes. Sri Lanka has a
collectivist culture (Hofstede et al., 2005) which tries to avoid conflicts (Kozan, 1997). Sri
Lankan prefer the “Harmony model” of conflict resolution. Consequently, employees with
higher CQ level could easily understand behaviours of other workers, and maybe try to prevent
conflicts.
Furthermore, developing one’s motivational CQ can be useful when working among a diverse
workforce. Showing self-confidence, curiosity and willingness to learn new things can only be
positive and ameliorate one’s efficacy (Arora and Rohmetra, 2010). Actually, showing
motivation to understand and adapt to new cultures increases and secures professional
opportunities. Maddux et al.(2014, p.614) argue that
“multicultural engagement in general multicultural environment can lead to positive, tangible
effects on professional opportunities”.
This theory strongly resonates with Crossman and Clarke (2009) who argue that international
experience is related to the development of CQ and, as a result, encourages employability. In
other words, multiple international experiences could be a good way to enhance my CQ and,
consequently, my employability.
Nevertheless, CQ is not the only skill required to be employable in the hospitality sector and
international experiences do not develop only CQ. Causin et al. (2011) liste some important
skills required in international hospitality including stress management, functional and technical
skills and, most importantly, self-awareness. Self-awareness means to be conscious of one’s own
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values, capacities and emotions, in order to anticipate one’s reactions and behaviours (Steers et
al., 2013). For example, self-awareness coupled with CQ can help prevent culture shock during
the process of acculturation. Culture shock can be defined as:
“... stress induced by all the behavioural expectation differences and the accompanying
uncertainty with which the individual must cope”(Black and Gregersen, 1991, p.462).
During my internship in Sri Lanka, I experienced culture shock initially through emotions, I was
at first excited to discover a new country but then all the differences came out. Then, through
identity, I was lost and did not know where I belonged anymore. But concerning the thinking
aspect, I think that, from the start, I tried not to have a stereotyped vision (Marx, 1999). With
higher levels of CQ and self-awareness, I think I would have been able to prevent this from
happening.
CQ can be developed by other things than international employment (Crowne, 2008). Indeed,
cultural exposure can also be experienced through education and holidays abroad. For example,
based on my own cultural exposures, I have spent most of my vacations abroad (Europe,
Maghreb), I am experiencing education in another country by doing this Master degree and I
have had one experience of employment abroad. I do not however feel totally confident about
my ability to be effective across cultures and I feel like I need much more in depth and breadth
exposures (Crowne, 2013).
Finally, to complete one’s development of CQ, the global workforce needs to apply the 3
previous aspects of CQ to their behaviour so they can adapt to any situation involving several
cultures, especially when dealing with global customers (Earley and Ang, 2003). The hospitality
sector is a service industry and, consequently, interpersonal relationships are vital. Developing
CQ could help hospitality staff to better understand the needs and expectations of customers
from different cultures because cultural background influences consumer behaviours (Mohsin,
2006). For example, staff could adapt their verbal and nonverbal communication in order to
create a positive impact on guests (Arora and Rohmetra, 2010). For example, when I was
working as a guest relation in Sri Lanka, I was able to sell more excursions to guests than my
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colleagues because I knew exactly what they were expecting, as Europeans (empathy), and they
trusted me. Consequently, having a cross-cultural team with a high level of CQ is likely to create
positive outcome for customers, such as satisfaction, loyalty and value (Arora and Rohmetra,
2010).
As a result, a global workforce can generate advantages for a hospitality organisation.
“Developing a diverse workforce… provides firms a competitive advantage” (Slater et al., 2008,
p.208). In other words, employees with intercultural skills are an advantage for the organisation
(Booz et al., 2013) because it enables the organisation to differentiate from competitors as they
know how to reduce the gap between their performance and customer expectations (Strauss and
Mang, 1999). Positive impacts would be on profitability, image and revenues (Arora and
Rohmetra, 2010).
To conclude, CQ has been identified as a vital skill, required in the hospitality sector, for both
managers and employees in order to match as accurately as possible, the expectations of the most
important actor in the service industry: the customer. The difficulty encountered, nowadays,
relates to the global environment and its fast evolution, obliging professionals need to adapt
rapidly by choosing the most effective collaborators, that is people with intercultural skills. As a
future manager, I have to be conscious that is a big part of “on-the-job” learning relates to the
process of development of CQ (Steers et al., 2013). Consequently, I think that the best way to
enhance my CQ level would be by working abroad for a long period of time. However, I have to
be conscious that cultural level analysis reveals tendencies but does not predict individual
behaviours (Dahl, 2004). That is why, emotional and social intelligence will be skills I have to
work on as well.
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