This chapter provides an overview of the study and addresses the background of the study, problem statement, purpose of the study, research questions, and definition of key terms. The background describes the imperative of research on the current circumstance of the globalization trend and expatriates’ condition in Taiwan.
Background of the Study
Due to the globalization trend, people have more opportunities to find a job outside of their nations. Many multinational corporations explore the international market by delivering their employees to other nations in order to fulfill their stipulated missions (Farh, Bartol, Shapiro, & Shin, 2010). According to data from the Ministry of Labor in 2015, there were 586,273 foreign workers in Taiwan, 29,000 were white-collar workers and most of them worked as engineers, managers and teachers. There is a great opportunity for expatriates in Taiwan to interact with people from different cultural backgrounds, but many problems immediately arise following the transitions to other countries.
Expatriates understand that emotional expression, attitudes, behavior patterns and cultural values which are accepted in their own country may not be allowed in a cross-cultural environment (Chen, Lin, & Swangpattanakul, 2011). Expatriates will feel unfamiliar with foreign cultures and face obstacles in adapting to their new surroundings. For example, due to the lack of cultural knowledge and understanding, expatriates will suffer from misunderstandings and conflicts in cross-cultural environments (Lin, Chen & Song, 2012). Previous studies show that some expatriates fail their assignments because of their inability to adapt to a new culture (Kraimer, Wayne, & Jaworski, 2001; Lin et al., 2012). In
order to overcome these problems, it is necessary for people to have the intelligence to adjust or face the challenges in the host countries.
To reduce the impact of a culturally diverse environment, expatriates should be aware of cultural differences as well as their own personal abilities. Cultural intelligence (CQ) is the ability to interpret the differences in the effectiveness of individual interactions across cultures (Earley, 2002; Earley & Ang, 2003). CQ refers to the ability to help individuals understand unfamiliar cultures and adjust their behaviors correspondingly so that they can have good performance (Earley & Ang, 2003). Kim, Kirkman and Chen (2008) also stated that people possessing a high CQ would be able to regulate both working and nonworking environments. Having a higher CQ means being able to adjust better to new cultures, understand local practice and behave appropriately. For this reason, it is very important for expatriates to have a high CQ in cross-cultural environments, so that they can acquire stable satisfaction.
For most people, work takes most of the time in their life. It is very important for them to acquire stable emotions to keep working. “Employees with positive emotion can motivate them to pursue their goal and stimulate them to approach some behaviors, which are positive for organization (e.g., achieve goals or rewards)” (Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999, p.830). In terms of organizational context, George and Brief (1996) suggest that “happy employees” are more energized and therefore are readier to participate in work assignments.
For employees to acquire positive emotion, it is very important for them to be satisfied with their work. According to Brief and Roberson (1989, p.86), job satisfaction can be best defined as “an internal state that is expressed by affectively and/or cognitively evaluating an
experienced job with some degree of favor or disfavor.” It is very important for individuals to fulfill their mission and acquire the supervisor’s respect, so they might have positive experiences in their work. Furthermore, Locke (1970) stated that job satisfaction can help to determine whether or not people obtain rewards; in other words, people who are satisfied with their job when they finish tasks may acquire rewards. For this reason, in order to complete their tasks, individuals need a kind of social ability to communicate with supervisors and cooperate with colleagues.
Mintzberg (1985) stated that organizations are inherently political arenas. Most researchers and practitioners also recognize that politics are part of the daily life in organizations (Ferris et al., 2002). Strong political skills help people to do their jobs in the organization. For example, they can build relationships and support each other. They can also use their sincere reactions to persuade people to trust them. They can adjust their behavior to accommodate foreign environments and adapt their social style (Ferris et al., 2005).
Therefore, individuals’ high political skill offers them with more opportunities to succeed in organizations.
Problem Statement
Job satisfaction leads expatriates to become productive and acquire motivation to work.
Individuals with job satisfaction might have a great chance to improve their performance.
Judge, Thoresen, Bono and Patton (2001) stated that job performance and job satisfaction are strongly related. In this way, compared to job performance, job satisfaction has a more direct relationship with CQ. Furthermore, Ang et al. (2007) also examined whether CQ is correlated
with job satisfaction. While it is very important to clarify the relationship between CQ and job satisfaction, most related studies focus on the relationships between CQ and other variables such as expatriate performance (Lee & Sukoco, 2010) and cross-cultural adjustment (Chen, Wu, & Bian 2014), while the relationship between CQ and job satisfaction has rarely been discussed. It is also very important to investigate the relationship between CQ and job satisfaction. In addition, few studies have examined the specific relationship between political skill and job satisfaction (Harris, Harris, & Brouer, 2009). Meisler (2014) also suggests paying more attention to how political skill relates to employees’ job satisfaction in the future studies. The present study proposes political skill as an antecedent factor of job satisfaction.
A review of the literature reveals that a few recent studies have simultaneously explored CQ and political skill, a key precursor of success in cross-cultural organization. If expatriates need CQ to work in a cross-cultural organization, and if political skill supports their building a network and acquiring assistance, expatriates can adjust to their life overseas very well. For example, individuals with low CQ who have high political skill still have the capability to use this skill to adjust to many sensitive behaviors. As a result, we suggest that expatriates should possess CQ and political skill so that they can work smoothly and successfully.
Study Purpose
The purposes of this study are to examine the relationship between cultural intelligence and job satisfaction, as well as the moderating effect of political skill on the effect of cultural intelligence on job satisfaction.
Research Questions
This study developed two research questions:
1. Does cultural intelligence have a positive relationship with job satisfaction?
2. Can political skill positively moderate the relationship between cultural intelligence and job satisfaction?
Definition of Key Terms
There are four key terms in this research: cultural intelligence (CQ), job satisfaction, political skill and expatriate.
Cultural Intelligence (CQ)
The term CQ was first introduced in 2003 in the book Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions across Cultures by Christopher Earley and Soom Ang. CQ was characterized as an individual’s ability to acquire and deliver messages smoothly and effectively in different
cultural settings and afterwards to make sensible judgments in response to the new cultural context (Earley & Ang, 2003).
Job Satisfaction
The definition of job satisfaction, based on different research purposes, has different meanings (Johnston, 1997). Job satisfaction is characterized as the general mentality and positive state reflecting a full of feeling reaction, or response, of a person toward his or her work experience in regard to the perceived importance of the work achievement (Locke, 1976; Judge & Hurst, 2008).
Political Skill
Political skill has been defined as “the ability to effectively understand others at work,
and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or organizational objectives” (Ahearn et al., 2004, p.315).
Expatriate
Owing to the globalization trend and international labor market many work opportunities are provided for those people we call “expatriates” to work in other countries
they desire or need to (Froese, 2012). In this research, we will collect white-collar workers as our samples. Horn and Schaffner (2003) stated that white-collar workers usually perform job duties in an office setting. They are highly skilled and formally trained professionals.