Unpacking Cultural Intelligence: Cultivating Ethnorelativism in International Business Education

ABSTRACT In light of diverse designs of the international business (IB) curriculum, this study investigates how the IB curriculum that requires students to major in a functional area enhances students’ cultural intelligence as well as differentiates the effect of students’ study abroad experience above and beyond various functional IB courses. By conducting qualitative focus groups and a quantitative survey in the United States, we find that although students’ past study abroad experiences improved their cultural intelligence (CQ), the IB education curriculum, even without a study abroad component, plays a pivotal role in improving students’ ethnorelativism, which leads to increased CQ. The finding of the current study supports that IB programs focusing on curriculum that enhances students’ ethnorelativism will help students develop CQ despite lacking study-abroad opportunities due to various travel restrictions, such as the ones caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, ethnorelativism in its own right has become a salient issue in the current climate of rising intolerance against minorities of different cultural backgrounds. We offer suggestions in the IB curriculum to further foster students’ ethnorelativism and CQ.