The relationship between cultural intelligence and the performance of seminary management center employees

Dissertation for Master's Degree

(M.A)

Public Administration - Financial Orientation

Abstract

Considering that the world is becoming more and more interconnected and organizations are becoming more and more multinational and culturally diverse, it is vital and necessary that people have the knowledge and skills to effectively face the challenges and requirements of a global society. The result of culturally diverse environments is that people are faced with values, assumptions, demands and expectations that are fundamentally different from their own values ??and assumptions. There is a belief that cultural intelligence explains why some people are more skilled in managing culturally different environments than others. As a new and growing field of research, cultural intelligence has emerged as an important factor for effective performance and interaction within and among culturally different environments. It has been accepted.

The data was collected from 86 employees of the management center of seminaries using a questionnaire. In order to measure cultural intelligence, the questions of the standard questionnaire provided by Ang were used to measure performance, and the questions that were developed based on the review of existing literature in the field of performance were used. Attitudinal, behavioral) and communication function. The priority of the dimensions of cultural intelligence of the seminary management center employees was obtained as follows, based on the results of Friedman's test: Motivational cultural intelligence, behavioral cultural intelligence, metacognitive cultural intelligence, cognitive cultural intelligence. Based on the results obtained from the average test of a statistical population, cultural intelligence, meta-cognitive cultural intelligence, cognitive cultural intelligence, motivational cultural intelligence, behavioral cultural intelligence and the performance of the seminary management center employees were at an optimal level.

Keyword: Cultural intelligence, metacognitive cultural intelligence, cognitive cultural intelligence, motivational cultural intelligence, behavioral cultural intelligence, performance, performance evaluation.

1-Introduction

An outstanding feature of globalization that deeply affects today's organizations is the major trend towards greater cultural diversity. Globalization involves processes of social interaction on a global scale in which people of many nationalities are connected and work in a culturally different environment, both inside and outside their organizations. Organizations are significantly more involved in interactions among different sets of cultures and perspectives (Thomas, p78, 2006), this fact has caused a lot of dynamic relationships in multicultural environments, so that differences in language, ethnicity, politics and many other characteristics can emerge as sources of potential conflict and, in the absence of proper understanding, make it difficult to develop appropriate working relationships. (Dean, p2, 2007)

Perceptual difficulties and conflicts and the increasing growth of international interactions have led to the presentation of a new concept in cognitive issues, which is known as "cultural intelligence". Cultural intelligence is the most important tool that can be used to deal with multicultural situations. Cultural intelligence helps us to understand the different cultural components correctly and quickly, to show appropriate behavior for each of them. (Abbasalizadeh and Naiji, 2016, p. 23)

1-2- Statement of the problem

For a long time, many organizations have expanded the scope of their activities. Gird (Zahedi, 1379, p. 6)

This scope of activity has caused organizations to face cultural diversity both in their workforce and in those who refer to them as customers and clients. In fact, diversity is a fact of life today and no organization can ignore it.. Organizations deal with employees and clients who have different cultural and functional backgrounds and also have assumptions about how to communicate and how to make decisions (Zahedi, 1379, p. 120).

Among the capabilities required in the 21st century, the ability to continuously adapt to people from different cultures and the ability to manage intercultural communication are important. The global work environment needs people who are familiar with different cultures and can communicate properly with people from other cultures. For this purpose, people need cultural intelligence. A person's ability to adapt to values, traditions and customs different from what he is used to and to work in a different cultural environment represents cultural intelligence (John Nisar Ahmadi and Fayazi, 1385, p. 41).

In order to create effective relationships and overcome the problems caused by cultural diversity, people need special abilities in the field of communication and simultaneous interaction with people who have different cultures. One of these abilities is having cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence refers to a person's ability to effectively communicate with people who have different cultures.

Cultural intelligence helps people to be sensitive to different cultures, to be able to communicate competently and appropriately with people from different cultures, and to be able to analyze the new cultures they encounter.

Cultural intelligence according to Ang and Earley includes four metacognitive, cognitive, motivational and behavioral dimensions. Each of these dimensions explain certain aspects of cultural intelligence (Imai, p19, 2007).

Organizations must reach group goals through employees, so the way employees work is effective in achieving goals. As a result, reviewing and identifying the way human resources work and developing the necessary programs to improve performance is an important part of the management of the organization. This is important through the process of evaluating the performance of human resources (Zarei Mateen, 1379, p. 157). Performance evaluation is one of the important approaches of managers to achieve success. Rapid environmental changes, intensification of the competitive environment, increasing society's expectations and so on. The need for management has made performance evaluation inevitable (Yadollahi Farsi, 1384, p. 130).

Given that organizations seek to increase performance and optimize affairs, therefore, in the first stage, they should increase the performance of employees. Performance is a set of actions and activities that are carried out by employees in order to achieve the predetermined goals of the organization. Considering that performance is also a function of knowledge, skills, abilities and motivation, and taking into account that cultural intelligence is an important ability and capability in the current conditions of organizations, which has significant behavioral and motivational manifestations, and since the management center of seminaries, which is one of the important centers of science and knowledge, is one of the most important centers of influence in the formation, growth, and development of Islamic and Iranian culture and civilization, and considering that the staff It interacts and communicates with people from different cultures. The present research aims to answer the following question: Is there a relationship between cultural intelligence and the performance of seminary management center employees or not? The global work environment needs people who are familiar with different cultures and can communicate properly with people from other cultures. For this purpose, people need cultural intelligence. A person's ability to adapt to values, traditions and customs different from what he is used to and to work in a different cultural environment is an indicator of cultural intelligence. Cultural intelligence is a potential source for creating a competitive advantage. (Ahmadi and Fayyaz, 2013, p. 1) In today's world, the increasing growth of cultural diversity in the workplace has caused a strong interest in the workplace to investigate the effects of culture and cultural differences and the new challenges it has created for organizations, leaders and their employees.