Being culturally intelligent

: a key lever for employee retention?

Abstract

The retention of employees is an increasing challenge for international companies. Cultural intelligence (CQ) as a soft skill can bring one solution to this problem. This dissertation examines the effect of employees and leaders’ CQ in international companies on their willingness to remain in the company, meaning the loyalty of employees toward their company. To assess this relationship, four interviews and a survey with employees working in an international context have been conducted. The interviews provided context to build the survey and the survey data was used to run several multiple-linear regression models with four main dependent variables linked with employee loyalty. The findings suggest that both employee’s CQ and leader’s CQ are significant when trying to predict employee loyalty, with bigger importance given to meta-cognitive CQ and motivational CQ of leaders, and motivational CQ of employees. The main conclusion draft out of this paper is the importance for international companies to consider CQ as a critical skill to have among their employees to deal with the challenge of employees retention, with a strategic focus put on leaders and leadership management. Limitations and suggestions for further research in this context are also discussed.

Date of Award	28 Jun 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Sérgio Paulo Moreira (Supervisor)