The role of cultural intelligence for the emergence of negotiated culture in IT offshore outsourcing projects

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze how individual project members in IT offshore outsourcing projects cope with culture‐specific behavior, and how the project members' cultural intelligence enables the emergence of negotiated culture.Design/methodology/approachThe employed research approach is an interpretive, in‐depth single‐case study based on 31 qualitative interviews. The cultural intelligence framework serves as a “sensitizing device” to develop a model of cross‐cultural interaction in IT offshore outsourcing projects.FindingsThe paper presents a model explaining cross‐cultural interaction at the individual level in IT offshore outsourcing. The analysis shows that effective cross‐cultural interaction manifests itself in active cross‐cultural adaptation behavior, which is driven by motivational and cognitive factors. Cultural intelligence, including cognitive, motivational, and behavioral elements, is found to be an important driver for the development of a negotiated culture, characterized by trust‐based interpersonal relationships, shared understanding, and the effective resolution of conflicts in IT offshore outsourcing projects.Practical implicationsThis study helps to understand how the emergence of a negotiated culture depends upon the cultural intelligence of individual project members. Practitioners need to focus on the accumulation of cultural intelligence in their project teams.Originality/valueThis study makes a theoretical contribution to the IT offshore outsourcing domain by presenting a model of individual‐level cross‐cultural interaction in this context. Furthermore, it represents one of the first qualitative case studies on cultural intelligence in IS.