Exploring the Relationship between Cultural Intelligence (CQ) and Management Competencies (MC)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review Report

Thank you for letting me review this interesting paper. The paper shows great potential and I find the RQ:s well formulated and well worth pursuing. However, the presentation needs to be enhanced. The approach is good, but the presentation needs a major reorganization before the paper is ready to be published. You find my specific comments below.

Line 8: The aim of this study is to show the importance of Cultural Intelligence (CQ) in management performance through measurable performance assessment.

Line 267: The aim of the research was to prove the connection between Cultural Intelligence and Management Competencies by testing the correlation of the aggregate values given for each manager by their subordinates.

I suggest that you reconsider the chosen verbs (“show” “prove”) in the aim(s) of the paper. It would be better to use other verbs.

Line 111: Q1: Is the CQ level of managers measurable, and what do the scores indicate to the manager, the subordinates and the company?

Line 178: Q2: What influences the perception of leaders from the employees' perspective?

Line 194: Q3: Are the perceptions and effectiveness of leaders of multicultural groups better when they have higher Cultural Intelligence?

Th RQ:s are well formulated. Q3 could also be stated as a hypothesis:  H1: Leader effectiveness is positively related with Cultural Intelligence.

Line 255: H1: Cultural Intelligence (CQ) has a stronger effect on Management Competencies (MC) than sociodemographic characteristics (age, education, gender, whether the person is Hungarian or foreign) or the role in the organisation (job title).

I suggest that you omit this hypothesis from the paper (see below).

Major Issues

The introduction is lacking a clear logic of argumentation and contains parts that are better suited for a method section (e.g., line 48). Suggestion: rewrite the introduction of the paper using the logic:

1.       What is the problem or issue? Mention 3–5 of the most important references.

2.       What is the importance of the problem or issue? You can include a few recent references here to demonstrate that research is active on the subject.

3.       State your research question and or hypothesis.

Although the RQ:s are presented later in in the paper, I suggest that they, or at least the objective/aim of the paper, are presented in the end of the introduction. You can then use the literature review to substantiate your RQ:s.

There are many claims without references in the introduction. Please substantiate your claims with references.

Definition of terms: you use the concept Cultural Intelligence and CQ interchangeably. Please decide on one way of naming the concept (and add that some research refer to it as CQ and others to it as Cultural Intelligence).

Sampling procedure needs to be better described and further elaborated. Give details about randomization. Also, a discussion of validity and reliability of the results is needed. Convenience sampling refer to when respondents are chosen because they are easily accessible, most often used in qualitive studies where access is limited or restricted. I doubt that the study used a convenience sample, and if it did it would not be suited for the selected method of data collection and analysis.

What does “interviewed on paper” mean? Were they given an open-ended questionnaire or a closed? How, when, and by whom, were these questionnaires distributed and collected?

Analysis and presentation of results – it is unclear when you have used the entire sample (n=401) and when you have used the paired sample managers to their subordinates.

Discussion – needs to be rewritten. Some suggestions:

1.       Describe the major findings of the report. Answer the research question. Don’t make conclusions

2.       Interpret your findings. Explain what you believe the major findings mean. Don’t over-interpret.

3.       Compare your results to the current literature on the same or similar topics. Use references to support your interpretation of your findings and the current literature. Make sure to discuss the literature that conflicts with your data and explain why the reports conflict.

4.       List the limitations of your study. Describe the generalizability of your results to other situations. Describe problems you encountered in the methods.

5.       List unanswered questions. Propose further research that should be undertaken.

6.       Conclusion. Answer the research question and explain your interpretation of the findings. Don’t make conclusions not supported by the results.

Suggestions for major reorganization of the paper:

·         State your aim and RQ:s at the end of the introduction. Make an argument for study based on previous research.

·         Elaborate on your RQ:s theoretical relevance in the literature section.

·         Delete superfluous information in the method and results section.

·         Limit yourself to the three research questions. Remove H1 from the paper.

·         Delete the normal-distribution graphs in the results.

·         Rewrite the results section. Present the results for each research question. Remove text that describe what you did, i.e. “we first examined…” “next step was to..” “we then compared…” (Suggestion: remove all first-person statements from the results.)

·         Rewrite the discussion section: start with the aim of the paper, then present and discuss the results for each of the research questions. The discussion lacks references. This needs to be remedied, this is where you compare your findings with previous research.

Minor issues

Q1 is presented very suddenly, and you have not mentioned measurability in the paragraph above. Please discuss why this is an important issue to solve.

Confirm the claim in lines 115-117 by a reference.

Confirm the claims in lines 163-165 by a reference.

The numbering of the tables is not correct.

Lines 172-176 belongs better in the method.

The used CQ scale is lacking a reference.

Line 140: hypothesis analysis is presented without explanation (the hypothesis, which I suggest you delete from the paper, is presented in line 255).

An aim is stated on line 267.

Skip the presentation of normal distribution tests in the results. We take your word for it. The results are weighed down by this and nothing is added to the understanding of the results. As a general rule, restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess its support.

Delete the sentence on line 341.

Delete table 9.

Author Response

Thank you for your thorough and insightful review. Your suggestions were indeed helpful and taken into consideration. The paper was rewritten according to your suggestions.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Research design in this article lacks clarity. The researchers need to more clearly define what they did in order for the reader to understand. Revisions to improve clarity of study procedures appear warranted. Moreover, present research questions and their associated hypotheses together.

Please clearly connect analyses to the research questions and/or hypotheses they seek to answer.

Additionally, provide details in relation with participants. Please include additional demographic information related to socio-economic status, race-ethnicity, etc. if available. Additional explanation and description should be provided for each of the measures included in the study. Please include psychometric evidence supporting use of these measures if available. If unavailable, please provide a rationale for their use.

Please reorganize content into “Results” and “Discussion” sections. In each section, clearly connect results and discussion content to the research question or hypothesis they address.

Implications are missing at the bottom of the manuscript. Implications need to be clearly presented and discussed in relation with the opted study derived results.

Please review the article for grammar/syntax errors. Please review the article for APA errors. APA formatting rules (e.g., citations, use of parentheses, manuscript sections/headings/subheadings). Please conform for more conventional APA recommended headings and subheadings (i.e., introduction, Method [Participants, Measures, Procedures, Analysis Plan], Results, Discussion, Limitations and Future Directions, Conclusions).

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to revise the new version of your article. The article is clearly improved, however some minor changes remain before it is ready for publication:

The aim of the study: here you use the verb "reveal" in abstract, I suggest that you change to the verb "demonstrate". It would also be a good idea to include the aim of the study in the end of the introduction, just before the research questions.

Method: how many master's students participated in the data collection?

Please provide a source for the sampling technique used.

Otherwise, this article is ready to be completed and published. Good luck with your continued research!

Author Response

Thank you again for your review. I have corrected everything according to your recommendations.

The aim of the study: here you use the verb "reveal" in abstract, I suggest that you change to the verb "demonstrate". It would also be a good idea to include the aim of the study in the end of the introduction, just before the research questions. - replaced word

Method: how many master's students participated in the data collection? - added information

Please provide a source for the sampling technique used. - source added