The purpose of this study is to explore the viability of an international distance English-language program in the development of language and cultural proficiency. Students participated in tests at the beginning and at the end of the course to determine how well they developed both language and cultural proficiencies. The measures included (a) the computer-administered Oral Proficiency Interview (OPIc) from theAmerican Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), (b) ACTFL-aligned assessments of reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary skills, and (c) the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS). In addition, course activities surveys provided additional information about student perceptions of course activities. Participants in this study came from various countries as they prepared to attend a U.S. university in Hawaii.The distance learning program fostered language proficiency through various learning activities, with an emphasis on synchronous dialogue over video chat technologies. In addition to English-language proficiency, the program sought to help students learn to effectively communicate with students from other cultures. Cross-cultural proficiency was fostered through cross-cultural dialogue with tutors, teachers, and other students. Students showed improvement in speaking, listening, vocabulary, and grammar. However, on average, students did not show an improvement in reading proficiency. Students reported that dialogue with tutors and teachers was among the most helpful activities in learning English. Students showed some improvement in cultural proficiency. However, this improvement was not universal across all measures of cultural proficiency. Students reported that certain activities—particularly dialogue with tutors and other students—as helpful in developing cross-cultural proficiencies.This study also investigated the relationship between language proficiency and cultural proficiency. Results were mixed. With a few exceptions, cultural proficiency did not predict a student’s language proficiency at the beginning of the course, during the course, or at the end of the course.

The quest to comprehend how cultural differences can impact learning is one of those intriguing challenges that continue to beguile some scholars and educational leaders even at a time that is characterized as globalized. This dissertation is a qualitative case study about teaching to culturally diverse populations and is primarily based on the interviews of seven accountants designated as instructors and the direct observation of those instructors while teaching accounting principles to other accountants. The English language was used despite the fact that all participants, including the instructors, spoke English as a second or third language and came from diverse cultures around the world. It brings to light how an American company (American World Trade or AWT) felt they succeeded in teaching to the diverse population of students though not purposely providing accommodations for the diverse cultural differences in the classroom. During the year 2009, AWT took the materials USU developed around the world and presented conferences in regional offices of Bangkok, Budapest, Santo Domingo, Pretoria, and San Salvador. The pilot study interviews took place at the end of 2009. This study was based on the conference that took place in February 2010 in which 16 of the 70 countries were represented. This dissertation does several things: First, it looks at the cultural dimensions of students and instructors from 16 different countries, in an international setting, and examines if lack of knowledge about cultural dimensions and accommodating for them could interfere with learning. Second, it looks at the strategies and behaviors used by the instructors who were not knowledgeable of cultural dimensions to reveal if they were unconsciously adapting their teaching for the culturally diverse. Third, this study offers an in-depth look at several additional factors, including cultural intelligence (CQ), which could explain their ostensible teaching successes.

China is a highly attractive destination for foreign direct investment, especially to Australia with which it has a strong complementary commercial relationship. Although the need for cross-cultural leadership effectiveness presents a major challenge to Australian businesses operating in China, most extant studies emphasize cultural dimensions and cultural influences on expatriate leadership effectiveness. In contrast, this study investigates the importance and implementation of transformational leadership (TL), emotional intelligence (EQ) and cultural intelligence (CQ) as key components of cross-cultural leadership capabilities within the context of Australian-Chinese cultural differences. Specifically, it answers one overarching question: What key factors contribute significantly to cross-cultural leadership effectiveness in Australian businesses operating in China? Following an interpretivist research philosophy, this inductive study employed qualitative individual and focus group interviews with a final sample of 32 expatriate managers and 19 local Chinese managers working in 30 Australian organizations. The individual participants were top- and middle-level executives of Australian businesses operating in China in different industry sectors, including minerals and energy, manufacturing, consulting, building and construction, banking, legal services and education. Participants based their responses on their own experiences and observations. These perspectives were supplemented with equally important input from the focus group interviewees, who were Chinese local managers that work closely with the expatriates. Based upon the findings of the study, the researcher developed a holistic pragmatic heuristic model of cross-cultural leadership effectiveness for Australian businesses operating in China, which emphasizes the developmental process underlying the emergence of effective expatriate leadership. This model defined and categorized three sets of cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural characteristics of effective cross-cultural leaders: personal (intrapersonal) competencies, social (interpersonal) competencies and cross-cultural competencies. Because the model is pragmatic as well as heuristic, its framework provides practitioners (e.g. Western and especially Australian expatriate leaders) with an informed understanding of the complexity of cross-cultural leadership issues in China, the importance of having theoretical knowledge on this topic, and the need to be flexible and pragmatic in applying this knowledge in daily practice. Thus, the model offers Australian firms currently investing or intending to invest in China a specific strategy to assist expatriate selection and leadership development in that the competencies it contains can be used to recruit and develop suitable candidates and training criteria. Likewise, the model provides business coaches or business consultants serving Western organizations in China a comprehensive fundamental framework for developing competent global leaders. Hence, future research should concentrate on developing and validating cross-cultural leadership effectiveness in China model using diverse approaches.

This reserch aims to investigate the realtionship of expatriate's cross-cultural competence with his entrepreneurship. By building an integrative framework, we identify three constructs, big-five personality, cultural intellegance and cross-cultural adjustment, which were encompassed in cross-cultural competence to have associations with expatriate's entrepreneurship. Using SEM model to analyzed sample of 230 expatriates, our findings reveals that expatriate's personality has positive associations with expatriates' entrepreneurship. In addition, expatriate's personality will affect the ability to cross-cultural adjustment and cultural intelligence for entrepreneurship in their expatriate assignments to MNC's subsidiary. In short, this research proposes a cross-cultural framework to illustrate how expatriate's personality affects their cultural intelligence and cross-cultural adjustment, which act as mediators in the relationships between personality and entrepreneurship. Moreover, cultural difference is found to be an important moderator among all the relationships above entrepreneurial spirit for business performance at host.

Due to the recent phenomenon of globalization, the mobility of people has increased significantly. In a world where national and cultural borders are getting more blurred and undefinable, people from different parts of the world encounter individuals with different cultural backgrounds. Due to these different worldviews, perceptions and experiences, misunderstandings may arise when people engage in cross-cultural communication. This is true for recreational as well as professional cross-cultural communication. An individual who successfully interacts and communicates with people from other cultures possesses what has come to be known as cultural intelligence. In order to get a deeper understanding for how people perceive cross-cultural communication in the professional field, this study investigates how managers in the forestry based industry in Västerbotten have experienced communication with their international business partners. The investigation was conducted through personal interviews and a self-completion questionnaire was also distributed to make an attempt to measure the respondents’ cultural intelligence. The results point in the direction that cross-cultural communication is vital for organizations that operate on the global market. Both verbal communication and non-verbal communication do affect the collaboration, but there is no general answer to how. Every situation has to be dealt with in a unique way. This implies that the process of cultural learning and understanding is ongoing and dynamic.

This application is for the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research Program to secure funding for a market analysis to gauge the interest of Portland, Oregon parents for opening a two-way immersion (TWI) Romanian-American bilingual public charter school. Initial conversations with members of the Romanian community in the Portland area indicate that such interest may exist. A formal survey of that community has not yet been conducted to firmly establish the potential market for such a school. Moreover, there is evidence to document that such an educational option could increase the academic achievement of English Language Learners from Underrepresented Languages (ELL-UL). Some English Language Learners (ELL) face great academic challenges in today’s public educational system which may be masked within the larger ELL population. First generation Romanian children, as ELL students, are represented across the Portland metropolitan area. Although their presence is pervasive, they constitute only a small proportion of all students (2.4 percent of all students in one district). Because of the low incidence of Romanian students, and the fact they are enrolled in schools across a broad geographical area, practical barriers prohibit their participation in bilingual education programs compared to students from well-represented cultures and languages (e.g., Spanish). This project will conduct a market analysis to gauge the Portland Romanian community’s interest in opening a bilingual two-way immersion (TWI) public charter school, embracing both the Romanian culture and language. By documenting this interest, a clear direction and structure for such a school will be established, which should foster the academic success for children of Romanian heritage.

Cette thèse étudie la gestion des talents (TM) pour analyser l'impact du label « talent » sur la perception, l'humeur, les attitudes et le comportement des employés. Il explore les mécanismes par lesquels la perception de l'inclusion (ou non-inclusion) dans le bassin de talents d'une organisation affecte le bien-être professionnel des employés, les attitudes et la satisfaction professionnelle ainsi que leurs performances. Article I explore comment l'organisation étudiée communique son approche TM et comment une telle approche influe sur la satisfaction de ses employés. Il suggère que la perception des employés les amène à évaluer leurs perspectives de carrière au sein de l'organisation, ce qui influe sur leur satisfaction. Il explore également le rôle de l'orientation internationale dans la détermination de la satisfaction des employés. Article II explore si l'engagement favorise la relation positive entre la perception des talents et leur (a) satisfaction au travail et (b) performance. Les résultats suggèrent que, bien que l'engagement de travail apporte la relation hypothétique entre la perception du talent et la satisfaction au travail, il n'est pas intermédiaire dans la relation entre la perception du talent et la performance. Les résultats montrent également une relation très faible entre les autres variables de l'étude et la performance. Le document explore en outre les raisons de ces constatations et offre des explications alternatives. Il suggère également qu'il pourrait y avoir différents types de talents au sein du groupe de talents d'une organisation et souligne la nécessité de typologies qui classent ces talents. Article III propose un modèle théorique pour catégoriser les différents types de talents. Cette article s'appuie sur les conclusions des articles I et II, en particulier la conclusion dans 231 l’article II que la performance a une relation faible avec être appelé un talent et, la suggestion qu'il pourrait y avoir des sous-groupes de talents. L'idée derrière l’article III est de réévaluer certaines des idées existantes concernant la meilleure façon de gérer le talent d'une organisation. En tirant des idées de plusieurs sources de recherche, l’article III illustre l'hétérogénéité au sein du bassin de talents d'une organisation et suggère que les organisations obtiennent de meilleurs résultats en gérant différents types de talents en utilisant des stratégies de talents correspondantes. La partie quantitative est basée sur deux sources de données: (a) les données d'enquête obtenues grâce à un questionnaire d'enquête en ligne et (b) les données sur la performance fournies par le département des ressources humaines. Une caractéristique importante de notre organisation d'étude est qu'il a une approche fermée de gestion des talents, c'est-à-dire qu'elle identifie un groupe d'employés talentueux, mais ne révèle pas leur statut de talent, ni à eux ni pour au reste de l'organisation. Cette dissertation a trois contributions: d’abord, elle explore les antécédents des attitudes des employés dans le contexte d'organisations à approche TM fermée. Deuxièmement, il établit des liens entre la perception du talent, l'engagement au travail et la satisfaction. Il explore également le lien entre TM, les attentes des employés, l'engagement au travail, la satisfaction et la performance. Enfin, il présente une typologie pour catégoriser les différents types de talents et construit un modèle pour conceptualiser la TM comme une capacité dynamique. Ce faisant, il répond à l'appel à la nécessité d'un cadre théorique complet pour organiser et faire progresser la recherche sur la TM. / This dissertation investigates talent management (TM) approaches and practices to analyze the impact of the label talent on employee perception, moods, attitudes, and behavior. It explores the mechanisms through which perception of inclusion (or non-inclusion) in an organization’s talent pool impacts employees’ occupational well-being such as work engagement, attitudes such as job satisfaction and career satisfaction as well as their performance. Paper I explores how the study organization communicates its TM approach and how such an approach impacts their employees’ job satisfaction. It suggests that employees’ perception leads them to evaluate their career prospects within the organization which in turn impacts their job satisfaction. It also explores the role of international orientation in determining employees’ job satisfaction. Paper II utilizes two sources of data and explores whether work engagement mediates the positive relationship between talent perception – employees’ perception that their organization considers them as talented – and their (a) job satisfaction and (b) performance. Results suggest that while work engagement mediates the hypothesized relationship between talent perception and job satisfaction, it does not mediate the relationship between talent perception and performance. Results also show very weak relationship between other study variables and performance. The paper further explores the reasons for such findings and offers alternative explanations. It also suggests that there might be different types of talents within an organization’s talent pool and points out the need for typologies that categorize such talents. Paper III moves beyond data analysis and 228 proposes a theoretical model for categorizing different kinds of talents. This paper builds on the findings from Papers I and II, especially the finding in paper II that performance has weak relationship with being labeled a talent and the suggestion that there might be sub-groups of talents. The rationale behind Paper III is to re-evaluate some of the existing ideas regarding the best way to manage an organization’s talent. Drawing ideas from several research streams, paper III captures the heterogeneity within an organization’s talent pool and suggests that organizations might obtain better results by managing different types of talent using corresponding talent strategies. The quantitative part of the dissertation is based on data sources: (a) Survey data obtained through an online survey questionnaire. The respondents comprise of employees – both labeled talent and not labeled talent – working for subsidiaries of the study organization. (b) Performance data provided by the organization’s human resource (HR) department. One important feature of our study organization is that it has a closed TM approach, i.e., it identifies a group of talented employees but does not reveal their status as a talent either to them or to the rest of the organization. The contribution of this dissertation is threefold: firstly, it explores the antecedents of employees’ attitudes in the context of organizations with closed TM approach. Secondly, it establishes linkages between talent perception, work engagement, and job satisfaction. It also explores the link between TM practices, employee expectations, work engagement, job satisfaction, and performance. Finally, it presents a typology to categorize different types and talents and builds a model to 229 conceptualize TM as a dynamic capability. In doing so it answers the call for the need of a comprehensive theoretical framework to organize and advance TM research.

Background: As the globalization process advances, cross-cultural workplaces become prevalent among organizations. The culture diversity could be beneficial, but could also pose challenges for managers. Managers have to adopt effective conflict management style to handle conflicts in cross-cultural workplaces. Cultural intelligence (CQ), a relatively new model, has been studied in order to shed the light on conflict management styles by some researchers. Problem: Previous studies have shown that CQ could be an influential factor for individuals’ conflict management styles. However, existing studies were conducted in a few countries with quantitative data to demonstrate the relationship. The in-depth understanding of how managers actually in cross-cultural workplaces handle conflicts, through the instrumentality of CQ model, appears to be lacking in Scandinavian countries. Purpose: The thesis primarily aims to explore if and how CQ could facilitate managers construct effective conflict management style in cross-cultural workplaces in Sweden. Method: Via qualitative approach, the in-depth understanding between conflicts, conflict management styles and CQ were gained through eight semi-structured interviews with managers and following content analysis Conclusion: The primary conclusion is that CQ plays a role in influencing managers to adopt an effective conflict management style. Managers’ CQ can be reflected in a cross-cultural interaction through good communication and open-mind, which consecutively facilitates the integrating conflict management style (the effective style).

Este trabalho traz um exame dos guias classificados como culturais, e elaborados especificamente para a área de comércio internacional. Procura verificar a qualidade das informações neles contida a respeito da cultura em geral e da cultura árabe em particular, e também sua eficácia no processo de contato intercultural, verificando se de fato cumprem seu papel de guiar o leitor rumo ao conhecimento das características culturais do país alvo, com a intenção de possibilitar e facilitar o contato entre diferentes culturas. O exame desses guias é feito a luz da Inteligência Cultural, conceito relativamente novo que propõe o desenvolvimento de habilidades e de flexibilidade para aprender e assimilar aspectos de uma cultura. / This work brings an examination of the guides classified as cultural guides, elaborated specifically for the area of international commerce. Its aim is to verify the quality of the information contained in them about culture in general and, the Arab culture particularly; and so its efficiency in the process of intercultural contact, verifying whether in fact they fulfill the role of guiding the reader onto the path of knowledge of cultural characteristics about a particular country, with the intention of making contact possible and facilitating the contact between different cultures. The examination of these guides is made through the theory of Cultural Intelligence, a concept relatively new which is centered on the development of skills and flexibility to learn and assimilate aspects of a new culture.

Avec l’internationalisation croissante des entreprises québécoises, de plus en plus d’organisations cherchent à recruter et former des employés capables d’interagir efficacement avec des individus issus d’une diversité de contextes ethnoculturels. Or, aucun outil de mesure francophone, validé empiriquement au Québec, n’est disponible pour évaluer cette compétence. Cette étude avait pour objectif de traduire et de faire la validation transculturelle de l’Expanded Cultural Intelligence Scale, un outil de mesure de l’intelligence culturelle permettant d’identifier des individus efficaces dans leurs contacts interculturels. L’outil a été traduit grâce à la méthode de traduction inversée, méthode qui a permis l’élaboration d’une version expérimentale qui entretenait une bonne équivalence sémantique, expérientielle et conceptuelle avec l’outil original. La version expérimentale a tout d’abord été soumise, en même temps que la version originale, à un échantillon de 39 personnes bilingues. Des coefficients de corrélations élevés ont permis de confirmer la validité concomitante et de contenu de la version expérimentale. Par la suite, la version expérimentale a été soumise, à deux reprises, à un échantillon d’étudiants issus du CÉGEP de Victoriaville et de l’Université de Sherbrooke. 679 étudiants ont répondu au questionnaire lors de la première administration et 531 ont répondu à celui-ci lors de la deuxième administration. Les coefficients de corrélation test-retest confirment une stabilité temporelle acceptable de la version de l’E-CQS. Les alphas ainsi que la structure factorielle de l’outil ont été testés au Temps 1 et au Temps 2. Dans l’ensemble, les résultats suggèrent que la version francophone de l’E-CQS produit dans la présente recherche est un outil de mesure prometteur de la compétence interculturelle.