Cultural Intelligence and Cultural Capability

Running head: CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND CULTURAL CAPABILITY
CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND CULTURAL CAPABILITY
Name of the University:
Name of the Student:
Author Note:

1CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND CULTURAL CAPABILITY
In today’s world where cultural diversity has become the driving force of the society,
it is important to understand the concepts of cultural awareness and cultural intelligence. The
increasing rate of globalization has impacted gravely on the socio-cultural system of the
societies. The growing rate of multiculturalism has impacted upon the diversified manpower
of the organizations, thus impacting upon the cultural intelligence of a space. It is especially
true for the private organizations of the country. The Multi- National Companies of the
countries are especially seen to staff with employees from different culture, that impacts upon
the organizational culture of the organization, further impacting upon the cultural intelligence
of the organization (Spencer-Oatey, & Franklin, 2012). Therefore, in the following essay, I
wish to focus upon the concepts of cultural self- awareness and cultural intelligence and
further, I have reviewed the relationship between these two components.
Cultural Awareness:
Cultural Awareness refers to the understanding of one’s own culture. It refers to the
objective examination of the values, beliefs, perceptions and traditions of one’s own culture.
It is the central part of the interaction process among the society. People perceive a
conversation differently, having differences in perceptions and they evaluate a concept
differently (Quappe & Cantatore, 2005). This is essentially because, they belong to different
cultural backgrounds. This is known as the cultural awareness (Tomalin & Stempleski, 2013).
As the people perceive a same thing form different perceptions, this shows that they are
culturally objective and that they are aware if their own cultural backgrounds. Moreover,
cultural awareness refers to the understanding of the cultural norms and accounting to the
same. Each society is perceived with differences in their cultural setting, therefore, what is
normalized in one culture may not be normalised in another society (Christopher et al., 2014).
Therefore, to understand the differences in the cultural set up and further accounting and
addressing the same, by being objective, makes one person culturally aware.

2CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND CULTURAL CAPABILITY
Cultural Intelligence:
Cultural intelligence denotes the understanding and knowledge of different cultures
and refer to the system of addressing the differences that exist between the cultures
effectively. This term is essentially used from the perspectives of organizational set up, where
the employees come from different social set ups. Therefore, the cultural intelligence or
cultural quotient (CQ) is perceived as ways to practice tolerating and addressing to the
differences that exist within the cross cultural set up with an effective communication process
(Ng, 2013). The term is seen to be practiced essentially, at the business, educational,
organizational, and institutional set ups. It refers to the capability of the people to juggle
between the personal culture and the culture of the place their workplace and also refer to the
capability of the people to address the differences among cultures the cultures effectively
(Bruhn, 2005). The term Cultural Intelligence was coined by Soon Ang and Linn Van Dyne
(2015), in order to determine and quantify the intercultural performances and the cross-
cultural competence. It also tries to measure the capabilities in the form of intelligence.
Critical Analysis of How Cultural Awareness Helps People to be Culturally
Intelligent:
Cultural Awareness refers to, having enough knowledge about one’s own culture as
well as knowing about the culture of others. For example, each society has different societal
norms and regulations related to religion and religious practices (Brislin, Worthley, &
Macnab,2006). These differs and varies greatly from one culture to another culture, and the
accepted behaviours fort each of these religious sects are different (Martin & Nakayama,
2013). Therefore, a person born into a particular religion and has or must have the popper
knowledge of the religious practices. Now, if the person goes to a different country due to
educational or work purpose, then that person is expected to be aware of the cultural and