The Role of Managers’ Cultural Intelligence and Demographic Variables in Building Trust in Business Relations

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.210

Abstract

This article examines the role of such factors as gender, age, nationality, and cultural intelligence in building trust between business partners coming from different countries. The research involved 560 employees, of which 115 were Croatians (20.5%), 114—Russians (20.4%), and 331—Slovenians (59.1%). In addition to socio-demographic questions (gender, age, nationality), we employed the Organizational Trust Inventory and the Cultural Intelligence Scale. The research was made available to the participants online and in three language versions—Croatian, Russian, and Slovenian. We discovered that gender played the greatest role in building trust between business partners, since women rated all trust components higher than men. Cultural intelligence, nationality, and age are not predictors of trust among business partners. Our data contributes to a clearer understanding of the ambiguity of predictors of trust. While previous studies have focused on cultural intelligence as a factor in successful international interaction, our results show that cultural identity retains its importance even in the context of globalization and international cooperation.

Author Biographies

Eva Boštjančič, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Eva Boštjančič is a Full Professor of the Department of Psychology of Work and Organisation, Psychology Department of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Ljubljana. Her research involves talent, cultural intelligence, and management in an organizational environment, returning to work after burnout or after a long illness, and so forth. She also advises, conducts workshops, gives talks to employees in the private and public sectors, and manages the website www.psihologijadela.com

Fayruza S. Ismagilova, Tashkent State Pedagogical University named after Nizami, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

Fayruza S. Ismagilova’s research interests are primarily in the following three areas. The first area is work experience as a competitive advantage in the labor market. She is interested in when, how, and why an expert’s work experience ceases to be of interest to the employer and what efforts an expert should undertake to save their experience as a competitive advantage in the labor market. The second area is managerial decision making, e.g., what typical decision-making stereotypes and cognitive biases may be considered obstacles to improving managerial and professional performance. The third area is the effectiveness and efficiency of professional performance. Eight research grants supported Fayruza S. Ismagilova’s investigations. Her main research results include 16 papers in journals indexed by SCOPUS and WoS, and invitations to work as a visiting lecturer and researcher at universities in France, Germany, Slovenia, and Uzbekistan (currently at the Kimyo International University in Tashkent).

Sara Pavlović Milijašević, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Sara Pavlović Milijašević is a Master’s student at the Psychology Department of the Faculty of Arts in the University of Ljubljana. Her professional interests lie in organizational psychology, mainly recruiting and acquiring talent. Her research involves sexual harassment at universities, which is also the title of her Master’s thesis. She conducts workshops for young people and is currently a leader of a youth project, helping young women succeed in fields that are not stereotypically female.

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Published
2022-12-30
How to Cite
Boštjančič, E., Ismagilova, F., & Pavlović Milijašević, S. (2022). The Role of Managers’ Cultural Intelligence and Demographic Variables in Building Trust in Business Relations. Changing Societies & Personalities, 6(4), 927–944. doi:10.15826/csp.2022.6.4.210
Citation Formats
Issue
Vol. 6, No. 4 (2022)
Section
Articles