The role of cultural intelligence for the emergence of negotiated culture in IT offshore outsourcing projects

摘要

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to analyze how individual project members in IT offshorernoutsourcing projects cope with culture-specific behavior, and how the project members' culturalrnintelligence enables the emergence of negotiated culture.rnDesign/methodology/approach - The employed research approach is an interpretive, in-depthrnsingle-case study based on 31 qualitative interviews. The cultural intelligence framework serves as arn"sensitizing device" to develop a model of cross-cultural interaction in IT offshore outsourcingrnprojects.rnFindings - The paper presents a model explaining cross-cultural interaction at the individual level inrnIT offshore outsourcing. The analysis shows that effective cross-cultural interaction manifests itself inrnactive cross-cultural adaptation behavior, which is driven by motivational and cognitive factors.rnCultural intelligence, including cognitive, motivational, and behavioral elements, is found to be anrnimportant driver for the development of a negotiated culture, characterized by trust-basedrninterpersonal relationships, shared understanding, and the effective resolution of conflicts in ITrnoffshore outsourcing projects.rnPractical implications - This study helps to understand how the emergence of a negotiated culturerndepends upon the cultural intelligence of individual project members. Practitioners need to focus onrnthe accumulation of cultural intelligence in their project teams.rnOriginality/value - This study makes a theoretical contribution to the IT offshore outsourcingrndomain by presenting a model of individual-level cross-cultural interaction in this context.rnFurthermore, it represents one of the first qualitative case studies on cultural intelligence in IS.