INTERNATIONAL-SURVEYING-RESEARCH-JOURNAL-ISrj-ISrJ-Vol-11-Year-2022

Total Motivational 42.94 61.31 0.002**
Behavioural (BEH2) 43.33 60.60 0.002**
Behavioural (BEH3) 44.58 58.36 0.014*
Behavioural (BEH4) 44.81 57.94 0.021*
Behavioural (BEH5) 43.55 60.21 0.004**
Total Behavioural 43.28 60.70 0.003**
Total CQ score 43.31 60.64 0.004**
Notes: Cultural intelligence details refer to Appendix I,
*Significant level at 0.05, **significant level at 0.01
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS
Conclusion
Expatriation is never easy, especially when expatriates are challenged by the multicultural environment
and temporary working partners. Hence an expatriate who has a higher CQ would be easier to adjust
themselves to a host country. This research aimed to study the level of CQ in a temporary project team and
to compare Malaysian expatriates with expatriates from other regions.
In a temporary project team, the project management team was cultural intelligently from metacognitive
and motivational aspects when compared with designer and cost consultants, which somehow rejected
hypothesis 1. Due to the feature of a construction project, the project management team has to communicate
with other people from multiple disciplines, hence it was vital for them to be confident that they could socialise
with locals in an unfamiliar culture and deal with the stress of adjusting to a new culture compared to other
team members.
Malaysian expatriates were used to be compared with the expatriates from other regions to determine
whether growing up in a multi-ethnic, multicultural and multilingual society will cultivate higher CQ however,
the results failed to prove hypothesis 2. Malaysian expatriates appeared to be second lowest in the CQ score,
and surprisingly, their CQ level differed significantly from expatriates from other SEA countries, particularly in
terms of motivational and behavioural CQ.
Preliminary Implications For Future Research
This study provides preliminary implications for future research. Hopefully, an in-depth investigation can
be carried out to help the human resource practitioner better select the finest candidates to be assigned abroad
and develop a training guideline to prepare their project team. Human resource professionals may consider
putting more efforts into architects and engineers if they are placed in the international context. Malaysian
expatriates appeared to have lower motivational and behavioural CQ if compared to other SEA expatriates,
and therefore appropriate training for Malaysian expatriates on motivational and behavioural CQ could be
provided. By assessing the effects of expatriates' backgrounds and professional disciplines, multinational
corporations will minimise the risk of premature return.
ISrJ Vol. 11 - 2022, Session 2022/2023 48