Cultural intelligence and work engagement of expatriate academics: The role of psychological needs satisfaction

Abstract

Cultural intelligence (CQ) has received considerable research attention in studies on expatriates. However, most of the studies on this have been conducted on business expatriates, neglecting other types of expatriates, such as self-initiated expatriate academics. The growing number of expatriate academics taking up faculty positions in universities in an upper middle-income economy, like Malaysia, which is known for its complex cultural, racial, and religious diversity, has posed greater challenges to human resource managers of the respective universities. This study aims to examine the direct and indirect effects of CQ on work engagement (WE) with the presence of psychological needs satisfaction (PNS) as a mediating factor. Using a sample of 152 expatriate academics employed in 20 Malaysian public universities, it is found that PNS partially mediates the relationship between CQ and WE. In other words, the relationship between CQ and WE is both direct and indirect and mediated through PNS. The findings give rise to a number of implications, both theoretical and practical, in cross-cultural management research.