Are You a Trustworthy Partner in a Cross-cultural Virtual Environment? - Behavioral Cultural Intelligence and Receptivity-based Trust in Virtual Collaboration
Li, Y., Li, H., Maedche, A. & Rau, P.-L. P.
to appear in: 4th ACM International Conference on Intercultural Collaboration (ICIC 2012), Bengaluru, India (2012)
Globally distributed work has been prevalent in organizations. However, cultural issues in distributed work are still challenging team performance. Cultural intelligence, defined as individuals? capability to perform in cross-cultural settings, has great potential in untangling these issues. The present study examines three individual capabilities (behavioral cultural intelligence, language proficiency and technical skills) and their effects on partners? receptivity-based trust and satisfaction in a cross-cultural virtual environment. We develop a theoretical model based on the extended adaptive structuration theory (EAST) and verify the model in a cross-border experiment. The result suggests that focal members? behavioral cultural intelligence strongly influences their remote partners? receptivity/trust. This effect is moderated by language proficiency; 57% of the variance of partners? satisfaction is predicted by receptivity/trust and the focal members? technical skills.