The Effect of Cultural Intelligence on Turnover Intention among Academic Expatriates in Malaysia:The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction

Academic expatriates are important for any higher education institutions. Having academic expatriates with high cultural intelligence is crucial for the successful of cross-cultural interactions and work effectiveness in different cultural settings. This paper focuses on the effect of cultural intelligence on job satisfaction and turnover intentionamong academic expatriates as well as to examine the role of job satisfaction as a mediator in the cultural intelligence and turnover intention relationships. The data of this study were drawn from 51 academic expatriates working at public universities in Malaysia. This study used regression analysis and a procedure called PROCESS to test the mediated relationship. The result indicated that cultural intelligence was found to influence job satisfaction positively. The result also showed that job satisfaction has a negative effect on academic expatriates’ intention to quit and also was a factor that influenced the relationship between cultural intelligence and turnover intention among academic expatriates in Malaysia. However, the findings failed to provide supports that cultural intelligence would lead to lower turnover intention. This finding provides some evidence that cultural intelligence may not be entirely applicable in a multiracial and multicultural country like Malaysia. In a country with diverse background and cultures, people are more tolerating to cultural differences and having mutual respects toward other cultures is a common practice, thus in Malaysia, cultural intelligence may not be regarded as the main determinant factor for expatriates’ intention to leave.

Keywords:

Cultural intelligence , job satisfaction , turnover intention , academic expatriate , Malaysia