Cultural Intelligence

Cultural intelligence (CQ) refers to the capability of an individual, team or organization to function effectively in culturally diverse situations. 

Professor Soon Ang, Founder and Executive Director of CLCI, pioneered the concept of CQ. Professor Ang’s discovery of CQ offers three breakthroughs in intercultural competence research: 

Modeled CQ as a form of meta-intelligence comprising four distinctive intelligences – meta-cognition, cognition, motivation, and behavior.  The CQ model has been described as the most cogent, well-researched, and comprehensive model of intercultural competence.

Created and validated multiple psychometric instruments to assess CQ, offering methodological rigor and diversity to research.

Demonstrated the predictive validity of CQ. CQ predicts a wide range of outcomes, including cultural judgment and decision-making, cultural adaptation, job performance (including task performance, citizenship behaviors, and adaptive performance), creativity, negotiation effectiveness, and leadership effectiveness. 

CQ's impact on science and practice is profound. CQ is cited in over 1,000 journals, proceedings, and book chapters spanning twenty-four academic disciplines, including management, social sciences, economics and finance, arts and humanities, decision sciences, engineering, and medicine. CQ has also spawned over 1,500 doctoral theses in 21 disciplines.

Beyond academia, CQ shapes the policies and practices of global human capital across a wide range of industries (including aviation, consulting services, education, finance, high tech, food, real estate, oil and gas, etc.) as well as government and non-profit sectors (e.g., armed forces, education, mental health, judiciary courts, counselling, public service, and religious missions). To date, more than 100,000 people across 161 nations have received their CQ profile via the CQS (Ang et al., 2007) or the expanded CQS (Van Dyne et al., 2012).

Origins

Professor Ang’s autobiographical CQ journey appears in an Oxford University Press book titled A Journey Toward Influential Scholarship.  The book highlights back stories of the 12 most influential management scholars across the world.

Ang, S. (2022). Cultural intelligence: Two bowls singing. In X.P. Chen & H. K. Steensma (Eds.), A Journey Toward Influential Scholarship: Insights from Leading Management Scversity Press.

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Selected Publications (Cultural Intelligence)

Foundational Books

Earley, P. C., & Ang, S. (2003). Cultural intelligence: Individual interactions across cultures. Stanford University Press.

Earley, P. C., Ang, S., & Tan, J. S. (2006). CQ: Developing cultural intelligence at work. Stanford University Press.

Ang, S., & Van Dyne, L. (2008). Handbook of cultural intelligence: Theory, measurement, and applications. M.E. Sharpe.

Articles & Chapters

Rockstuhl, T., Ng, K. Y., & Ang, S. (2025). Stability and plasticity in personality: A meta-analytic investigation of their influence on cultural intelligence and five forms of job performance. Applied Psychology, 74(1), e12557.

Rockstuhl, T., Ng, K. Y., & Ang, S. (2024). Cultural intelligence and personality: Differential effects of plasticity and stability meta-traits. In A. Tuncdogan, O. A. Acar, H. Volberda & K. de Ruyter (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Individual Differences in Organizational Contexts (pp. 64-81). Oxford University Publications.

Ang, S., Rockstuhl, T., & Erez, M. (2024). Global identity and cultural intelligence: Complementarity in global leadership. In M. Gelfand & M. Erez (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Organizations (pp. 667-689). Oxford University Press.

Rockstuhl, T., & Van Dyne, L. (2023). A Bi-Factor Model of Cultural Intelligence: Comparison with Four-Factor and Hierarchical Models. In D. C. Thomas & Y. Liao (Eds.). Handbook of Cultural Intelligence Research (pp. 89-104). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Wu, C. P., Ng, K. Y., & Ang, S. (2023). Cultural intelligence and language proficiency: Do they substitute or complement each other in predicting adjustment? In D. C. Thomas and Y. Liao (Eds), Handbook of cultural intelligence research (pp. 192-213). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ng, K. Y., Ang. S., & Rockstuhl, T. (2022). Cultural Intelligence: From intelligence in context and across cultures to intercultural contexts. In R. C. Sternberg & D. Preiss (Eds.). Intelligence in Context: The Cultural and Historical Foundations of Human Intelligence (pp. 177-200). Palgrave Macmillan.

Ang. S., Rockstuhl, T., & Christopoulos, G. (2021). Cultural Intelligence and Leadership Judgment & Decision Making: Ethnology and Capabilities. In D.C. Kayes & A. B. Kayes (Eds.). Judgment and Leadership: A multidisciplinary approach to concepts, practice, and development. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Ang, S. (2021). Cultural intelligence: Two bowls singing. In X.P. Chen & H. K. Steensma (Eds.), A Journey Toward Influential Scholarship: Insights from Leading Management Scholars (pp. 26-51). Oxford University Press.

Livermore, D., Van Dyne, L., & Ang, S. (2021). Organizational CQ: Cultural intelligence (CQ) for 21st century organizations. Business Horizons. Advanced online publication: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2021.11.001.

Ang, S., Rockstuhl, T., & Ng, K. Y. (2020). Cultural intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg & S. B. Kaufman (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence (2nd Ed., pp. 820-845). Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Leung, K., Ang, S., & Tan, M. L. (2014). Intercultural competence. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1, 489-519.

Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., Ng, K. Y., Rockstuhl, T., Tan, M. L., & Koh, C. (2012). Sub‐dimensions of the four factor model of cultural intelligence: Expanding the conceptualization and measurement of cultural intelligence. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(4), 295-313.

Gelfand, M. J., Raver, J. L., Nishii, L., Leslie, L. M., Lun, J., Ang, S., ... & Yamaguchi, S. (2011). Differences between tight and loose cultures: A 33-nation study. Science, 332(6033), 1100-1104.

Ng, K. Y., Van Dyne, L., & Ang, S. (2009). From experience to experiential learning: Cultural intelligence as a learning capability for global leader development. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 8(4), 511-526.

Ang, S., & Inkpen, A. C. (2008). Cultural intelligence and offshore outsourcing success: A framework of firm-level intercultural capability. Decision Sciences, 39(3), 337–358.

Ang, S., Van Dyne, L., Koh, C., Ng, K. Y., Templer, K. J., Tay, C., & Chandrasekar, N. A. (2007). Cultural intelligence: Its measurement and effects on cultural judgment and decision making, cultural adaptation and task performance. Management and Organization Review, 3(3), 335-371.

Ng, K. Y., & Earley, P. C (2006). Culture + intelligence: Old constructs, new frontiers. Group and Organization Management, 31, 4-19.

Ang, S., Van Dyne, L., & Koh, C. (2006). Personality correlates of the four-factor model of cultural intelligence. Group and Organization Management, 31(1), 100–123.

Bian, Y., & Ang, S. (1997). Guanxi networks and job mobility in China and Singapore. Social Forces, 75(3), 981–1005.