CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE IN THE WORKPLACE: A STUDY AMONG ECUADORIAN LINE-LEVEL EMPLOYEES

: Cultural intelligence (CQ) is the capability to function effectively in intercultural and global environments. This paper reports on a study conducted to assess CQ levels among line-level employees in various types of industries and organizations in Ecuador. A first in its focus on line-level employees in Ecuador, the study found that levels of CQ varied among workers, both overall and in the various subsets of CQ


INTRODUCTION
The world is getting back to business after the pandemic.Despite the fact that supply chain disruptions, inflation and growing energy costs continue to disrupt growth, organizations all over the world are ramping up their activities in response to a growth in the demand for their goods and services.
However, the most pressing problem that organizations are facing in their efforts to get back to pre-pandemic output levels is not inflation or energy costs, it is a lack of qualified workers.During what has been called "the great resignation," workers quit their jobs and have not come back.The reasons for the emergence of this "quitting culture" are numerous: it could be that there are still some personal savings left because of government support during the pandemic, or because personal expenses, in particular with regard to travel and tourism, have been relatively low over the past few years.There could also be a lingering fear of COVID that keeps people from returning to in-person work environments.There might be a reliance on a job market that enables workers to wait for a better offer and be selective.And perhaps, new workers from the Gen Y or Gen Z generations look at employment differently than workers from other generations and no longer choose to participate in the workforce in the traditional format.Regardless of the reason, this shortage of qualified labor is challenging and will not go away any time soon.One of the ways in which organizations, in particular in the services industries, have addressed the labor shortage is by pivoting to online work environments and by offering flexible work arrangements.Yet, online work cannot build a car or bake a loaf of bread.For that, workers still need to be on the production line or be physically present in an office, and if qualified local workers can no longer be found or be retained, they have to come from somewhere else, from a different region in the country or even from outside its borders, and they have to be integrated into the local, domestic workforce.Therefore, it has become imperative that in times of labor shortages, developing a sensitivity to the needs and perspectives of newcomers is essential, not only in attracting workers but also in retaining them.
The integration of people from various cultures and nationalities into an organization and a culture that is different from their own is challenging, and the level of employees' Cultural Intelligence (CQ) has been identified as conducive to this integration process.Cultural Intelligence has gained prominence in both theory and practice in recent years.It has been defined in various ways, yet most definitions tend to center around the same idea: it is a person's "ability to function effectively in intercultural contexts" (Early and Ang, 2003).
Many studies into the construct of CQ have looked at CQ in educational settings and have assessed students' CQ levels, in order to find ways in which their CQ can be enhanced as they get ready to enter the workforce (see e.g., MacNab, 2012).They found that students with greater CQ are not only more marketable as future hires but also stand out as better suited to help build the multi-cultural organizations of the future.
The study described here took a novel approach: rather than focusing on educational settings, it assessed the state of cultural intelligence among line-level employees in various industries in Ecuador, a country rarely studied in the South American environment.It purposely did not focus on management but chose to look at those "on the floor" and was designed to answer two basic questions: "What are CQ levels among Ecuadorian line-level employees?"and "Are there any differences in CQ levels based on demographic characteristics?"Based on the answers to those questions, we then will provide some suggestions as to what can be done to enhance CQ among line-level workers.This paper will take a look at the literature on the topic first.It will focus on what Cultural Intelligence (CQ) is, look at its four components, and discuss what earlier research has said about is value and applicability in organizational settings.After that, we will describe the study, share its results, and present our conclusions and recommendations.

What is cultural intelligence (CQ)?
As stated earlier, Cultural intelligence (CQ) is the ability to function effectively in intercultural contexts (Earley & Ang, 2003) and a measure of a person's intercultural competence (Ang & Van Dyne, 2015;Leung, Ang, & Tan, 2014;Matsumoto & Hwang, 2013;Yari, Lankut, Alon, & Richter, 2020).It is often linked to the betterknown concepts of IQ and EQ.Whereas IQ is a measure of a person's mental ability and has a knowledge focus, people with Emotional Intelligence (EQ) have the ability to understand and react to the emotions and needs of others.Culturally intelligent people not only have IQ and EQ, but are also in tune with the beliefs, the values, the communication preferences, the customs and the traditions of people from other cultures.In that sense one could say that CQ=IQ+EQ.
Early and Mosakowski (2004), in their seminal article in the Harvard Business Review, describe the sources of CQ as the Cognitive CQ, the Physical CQ and the Emotional or Motivational CQ.A person with a high Cognitive CQ "notices clues to a culture's shared understandings" (p.141).The Physical CQ is described as "an ability to mirror the customs and gestures of the people around you" that shows "you esteem then well enough to want to be like them" (p.141).A person high on Motivational CQ reacts to the inevitable obstacles and setbacks of interaction in a new culture in a positive way and will "reengage with greater vigor" (p.142).
When CQ was introduced, it represented a marked research shift away from focusing on cultural differences, to focusing on how cultural differences could be overcome, and on how to function effectively in situations characterized by cultural differences (Van Dyne, Ang, & Tan, 2019).Hence, CQ refers not only to the ability to understand cultural differences, but also to the ability to bridge them (Rockstuhl, et al. 2010).
While still emerging, research on CQ has shown the conceptual distinctiveness of CQ as compared to other interpersonal and intercultural competencies, such as emotional intelligence and has demonstrated that CQ is uniquely relevant in intercultural contexts, more so than in monocultural contexts.It has highlighted the positive consequences of CQ for individuals, teams, and firms and has differentiated CQ from its antecedents, such as personality traits and multicultural experiences.

The four components of CQ
As discussed earlier, as a construct CQ is multidimensional (Taras, 2020) and the most popular CQ model was developed by Ang, Van Dyne, & Koh (2006).This model presents CQ as consisting of four dimensions: motivational CQ, cognitive CQ, behavioral CQ, and metacognitive CQ (2006), and the study reported here adopted and followed this model in its analysis.
Motivational CQ refers to an individual's interest and confidence in functioning effectively in intercultural contexts.Behavioral CQ is the ability to adjust one's behavior when one is engaged in intercultural interactions.Cognitive CQ represents knowledge about other cultures, an awareness of their similarities and differences, and Metacognitive CQ is the mental ability to acquire and understand cultural knowledge (Van Dyne, Ang, & Tan, 2019).

The impact of CQ
Recent literature reviews (Fang, Schei, & Selart, 2018;Ott & Michailova, 2016) and a metaanalysis by Rockstuhl & Van Dyne (2018) present research that has been done on the effects of CQ on work-related outcomes.At the individual level, CQ was shown to have incremental predictive validity for higher psychological wellbeing (Ang et al. 2007;Peng, Van Dyne & Oh, 2015), lower burnout of short-term business travelers (Tay, Westman & Chia, 2008), and better cultural adaptation of international students, expatriates, and other global professionals (Ang, et al. 2007;Huff, Song & Gresch 2014;Templer 2006;Wu & Ang 2011).Rockstuhl, et al. (2015) found that individuals with higher CQ perform more effectively in multicultural work teams, and the four CQ dimensions were also shown to have differential effects for different performance outcomes, including task performance, citizenship performance, adaptive performance, and leadership performance (Rockstuhl & Van Dyne 2018).
The role that CQ can play in an individual's ability to adjust, develop and fit into a changing work environment has been a topic of interest in more recent research as well.Tu, Zhang and Chiu (2020) demonstrated that three dimensions of CQ (motivational, metacognitive, and behavioral CQ) had a significant impact on students' sustainable career advantages.In another study, career adaptability was found to be positively and significantly related to overseas career intentions.In addition, cultural intelligence was found to moderate this relationship (Presbitero & Quita, 2017).Research by Remhof, Gunkel and Schlägel (2013) showed that cultural intelligence fully mediated the relationship between language skills and international experience and the intention to work abroad.Additional studies (see e.g., Fang, Schei & Selart, 2018) called for further research on the role cultural intelligence plays as a predictor of individual and group performance.
Particularly relevant to the current study context, a growing body of research has demonstrated the predictive validity of CQ for performance-related intercultural effectiveness outcomes.Ang, et al. (2007) provided the earliest predictive validity evidence of CQ for performance outcomes of global professionals.Mor, Morris and Johl. (2013) found that metacognitive CQ predicts perspective taking and leads to more effective cooperative working relationships.Chua, Morris and Mor(2012) reported that those with high metacognitive CQ share more ideas with, and have greater affectbased trust toward, their intercultural ties, leading to more successful creative collaborations.Groves, Feyerherm and Gu (2015) demonstrated that those with high CQ displayed more interestbased negotiation behaviors, which in turn, resulted in better negotiation performance.Other behaviors demonstrated by high CQ individuals include faster learning of cultural norms (Morris, Savani and Fincher, 2019).However, "too much" CQ may not always lead to positive outcomes- Chua and Ng (2017) found that people with high levels of cognitive CQ demonstrated poorer creativity in resolving cross-cultural dilemmas, unless they also had high levels of metacognitive CQ.
CQ has also been studied with the practitioners' perspective in mind, focusing more on the application of the construct.Earley, Ang and Tan(2006)  The study reported here investigated the current state of CQ among line-level employees in Ecuador.Different from existing CQ country comparison studies (e.g., Schlägel & Sarstedt, 2016;Bücker, Furrer & Weem, 2016;Brancu, Şahin, Guðmundsdóttir & Çetin, 2022), it did not rely on a student sample, but rather focused on line-level employees.Its focus therefore was not on future employees, but on existing members of the workforce and not on management but on linelevel employees.
In its assessment of the state of CQ among linelevel employees, the study aimed to add a more work-related perspective to the growing literature on CQ in order to grow awareness of CQ as an added, and increasingly important, value in a professional world where organizations are increasingly multi-cultural.

METHODOLOGY
Before suggestions can be made about enhancing CQ in the workplace, a first step in the process needs to be an assessment of present levels of CQ among, in this case, Ecuadorian line-level employees which would give us a base-line observation.
Three teams of researchers in the United States, The Netherlands and Ecuador participated in this project.Researchers from Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in Maastricht, the Netherlands and Penn State University in the United States designed the project, selected the survey instrument, created the text-coding book needed for data input, and set a targeted sample size of 400 responses that would be large enough to allow for incomplete and incorrect data to be rejected and for statistical significance to be assigned.Researchers from the Universidad Central del Ecuador in Quito, Ecuador were in charge of converting the research instrument into Spanish and adapting it to the local context, and of data collection.The ensuing data analysis was carried out by researchers at Penn State University.

Sample and data collection
After initial translation of the survey document from English into Spanish by two Englishspeaking researchers in Ecuador, it was then translated back into English by a third researcher who also spoke English in order to verify the accuracy of the Spanish-language instrument.The survey was tested in a pilot study in the first week of June 2022 among fifteen people who reflected the target population (they were line-level employees in service and manufacturing industries) in two provinces in Ecuador.
After incorporation of feedback from the pilot study, the Ecuadorian researchers began the data collection process by identifying and then contacting the largest companies and organizations in terms of number of employees in the country.Three to four communications were needed in order to get a response at times, yet most of the larger companies and organizations did not reply at all.
The private and public organizations that were open to participating in the study were sent an online survey via Google Forms with a distinct request to have it completed by only line-level workers and employees.Data received was registered automatically, checked, and then tabulated in spreadsheets by interns from the Tourism Program of the Universidad Central del Ecuador following the text-coding book created in the design phase of the study.As further verification of the accuracy of the data, each of the Ecuadorian researchers worked with an intern to contact each of the respondents to verify their profiles and to make sure they worked in linelevel (non-management) positions.By July 2022, a review of the data processed showed low participation, with fewer than 100 surveys completed.
This low response rate required a secondary data collection strategy.The Ecuadorian researchers widened the search for participants through snowball sampling by resorting to the assistance of students of the Universidad Central del Ecuador.Students from the Administration and Agronomy programs who were open to participation provided contact information of five relatives and acquaintances in Ecuador who worked in front-line positions in enterprises and institutions in services, hospitality and tourism, manufacturing, government, and education.The original interns who had worked with the researchers in the initial phase of the data collection process coordinated small team networks in WhatsApp to send out the surveys.Additional in-person visits to organizations and connections obtained through university partners helped to reach the number of the targeted number of completed surveys.By the first week of August 2022, 482 complete surveys were obtained.After final revision during the third week of August, which lead to 24 surveys being rejected for missing, incomplete or erroneous information, data from 468 completed surveys was sent for analysis to the United States.
It needs mentioning here that the data collection process as described above was hampered greatly by a national demonstration that started on June 13, 2022, and that paralyzed all types of activity and communication in Ecuador for three weeks.The convenience sampling methods that were used primarily in the main cities of Quito, Guayaquil, Cuenca and Manta greatly benefited from the availability of the social connections that each researcher had and of his/her professional experience in the service sector.

Instrument
The study measured CQ with the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) developed in Ang et al. (2007).This survey instrument contains 24 items and measures CQ on the four sub-components identified earlier: metacognitive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioral as well as overall CQ levels among respondents.
In the cognitive section of the survey (Cronbach's α of .80), a sample statement is "I know the legal and economic systems of other countries." The metacognitive section (Cronbach's α of .74)contains statements such as "I am aware of the cultural knowledge I use when interacting with people with different cultural backgrounds." The behavioral section (Cronbach's α of .67)includes statements such as "I change my verbal behavior (e.g.accent, tone) when it is required in a meeting with people with a different cultural background."Finally, a sample statement in the motivational section (Cronbach's α of .72)was "I enjoy interacting with people from different cultures." Responses were collected using a seven-point Likert-scale, ranging from "1 = strongly disagree" to "7 = strongly agree."Higher scores implied that respondents perceived themselves as being more culturally intelligent.

Demographics
As table 1 shows, a majority of the respondents (66.50%) were between 18 and 35 years of age.A small majority (56.80%) was female, and almost all of them (97.00%)identified as Ecuadorian.Education levels varied, with 34.20% stating they had completed primary and secondary education and 66.80% indicating they had completed some form of higher education.Most respondents (67.50%) worked in the service industries, with 17.90 % working in education, 9.60% working in manufacturing, and 4.70% working in government positions.The organizations they worked for varied in size from less than 100 employees (70.50%), between 101 and 1,000 employees (16.30%) to anywhere between 1,000 and 10,000 employees (8.40%) (See Table 1).

Analysis of Results
In the analysis of the data, items captured under the main construct of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) were divided into four categories: Meta Cognition (MC), Cognition (COG), Motivation (MOT), and Behavior (BEH).
First, results of multiple paired-samples t tests suggested that overall, average line-level employees in Ecuador felt they had a relatively high degree of cultural intelligence (MCQ = 4.90, above the mid-point).Participants ranked themselves highest in terms of Meta Cognition (MMC = 5.20), followed by Motivation (MMOT = 5.12), Behavior (MBEH = 4.90) and Cognition (MCOG = 4.74, all ps < .05)(See Appendix 1: Table 2) After that, we explored whether the participants' demographic characteristics were associated with their expressed levels of cultural intelligence.The study specifically looked at the impact of age, gender, education levels, the nature and size of the organization they worked for and the participants' national background.
A closer look at the impact of the participants' gender on their cultural intelligence did not find any significance (See Appendix 3: Table 4).
We then looked at the impact of education and divided the participants into two levels: Level 1 included those with the education levels of primary school, secondary school, and secondary schools/further education institutions.Level 2 included participants who had attended higher/further education institutions for two years to four years, who had a master's degree or an equivalent level of education, or a post-academic experience.Results suggested that education was strongly associated with the participants' metacognition (ML1 = 5.04 vs. ML2 = 5.29, p = .080)levels as participants with higher education levels tended to have significantly higher scores for Meta Cognition (See Appendix 4: Table 5).
The study did not find a relationship between the participants' cultural intelligence and the public or private nature of the organization they worked in (See Appendix 5: See Table 6).
Similarly, the study did not find a relationship between participants' organization size and their levels of cultural intelligence (See Appendix 6: Table 7).
Finally, there was no significant relationship between the participants' cultural intelligence and whether they had worked/lived in different countries (See Appendix 7: Table 8).

CONCLUSIONS
The study reported here was a first in its focus on Cultural Intelligence levels among line-level employees in Ecuador.It was intended solely as a first step in establishing a base line of the state of CQ among Ecuadorian workers and as a start of the discussion on CQ in the Latin-American context.
The study found that overall CQ levels among line-level employees were above average, and that age had a marginal impact on CQ levels: younger workers tended to have higher levels of CQ than older workers.Only education had a significant impact on reported CQ levels.This was not surprising, given that earlier studies have highlighted the importance of education in enhancing people's CQ levels.However, it also implies that if organizations would like to enhance their employees' Cultural Intelligence in order to create a more welcoming intercultural work environment, their focus should be on training and educating both existing and new employees.
This study is only the starting point of a continued discussion on Cultural Intelligence in Ecuador and other Latin-American countries.Its cross-sectional nature makes it limited in terms of application, and only suggests that education might play a role in enhancing people's Cultural Intelligence.Additional limitations of the study are the self-reporting nature of the responses, which could lead to inflated perceptions of Cultural Intelligence.Furthermore, data collection and sampling techniques could not exclude intervening influences.This was not only due to the initial lack of interest and participation among the larger Ecuadorian organizations, but also because of the economic that crippled the country in the summer of 2022.
A high level of Cultural Intelligence can lead to higher psychological well-being, better cultural adaptation, better performance in intercultural teams, better task performance and better managing of cultural differences.Added to these, an enhanced level of Cultural Intelligence among employees can also greatly help in attracting new workers and in retaining existing ones.Given that many organizations around the world are struggling to attract high-quality workers, they need to be open to attracting workers from other cultures and to creating a workplace atmosphere that is both welcoming and productive.The study reported here only presents a snap-shot of CQ levels in Ecuador and future studies must not only duplicate its efforts but also find ways in which CQ can be enhanced, both in educational settings and on the work floor.It is too important a construct to be ignored.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors of this research declare that they have no conflict of interest that may influence the objectivity, integrity and/or credibility of the results of this study.