Relationships between personality traits, cultural intelligence and intercultural communication competence

Abstract

Cultural intelligence has been subject to so many studies in literature. Besides cultural intelligence, intercultural communication competence is emphasized in literature. Relationship between cultural intelligence and intercultural communication competence is presented in literature. Personality traits are very changeable as individuals have different personality traits. This difference influence cultural intelligence and intercultural communication competence. Our study focuses on the relationship between personality traits, cultural intelligence and intercultural communication competence. The study is conducted on 4 senior employees of two firms operating in automotive industry in Turkey. To examine the relations, interviews was done with 3 senior employees working in German origin firm and 1 senior employee working in South Korean origin firm. The obtained data from the interviews are evaluated through the depth examination. Findings revealed that cultural intelligence has positively influence on intercultural communication competence and also personality traits on the cultural intelligence and intercultural communication competence. Also it is supposed that effect of personality traits decrease on intercultural communication competence when cultural intelligence is clearly considered. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.