A Comparison of the Cultural Intelligence of Hungarian and International Business Students

In today’s globalised marketplace the difference between the concepts of local and global is disappearing, because of the interdependence of nations. Higher education has to take notice of these realities since the employability of graduates rests on the extent to which business education can focus on the development of the skills necessary to manage across cultures. Education needs to take it upon itself to design courses that will help students acquire intercultural competence. Cultural intelligence comprises similar competences as intercultural competence so, by measuring its level, we can formulate assumptions regarding the intercultural competence of individuals, pinpointing the gaps where development is necessary. In our study, we used the Earley and Mosakowski (2004) questionnaire to measure the cultural intelligence of Hungarian and international business students at the Budapest Business School. The results showed higher scores for Hungarian students in cognitive and physical intelligence, while international students scored higher in emotional/motivational intelligence. The survey also looks at the impact of the Erasmus experience on students’ cultural intelligence.