Hypothesis Development
In this study, in order to analyze the effects of employee’s Cultural Intelligence which is our independent variable to the Individual Job Performance which is our dependent variable, we take the actual case of the employees in three international hotels operating in Thailand and conduct the survey using questionnaire to employees of each hotel across different departments. The previous study revealed that Cultural Intelligence has positive relationship with job performance of expatriates (Lee, L. Y., & Sukoco, B. M. (2010), as we focus on employee level in this study and the same way, the employee’s cultural intelligence could also effects the job performance thus the first hypothesis of this study is developed as below.
Hypothesis 1: Employee’s cultural intelligence is positively related to individual job performance.
International experience helps the employees in hospitality industry get familiar with international work environment and the people with whom they associate. It could give the employees confident to adjust themselves to the job easier. On the other hand, the employees who already have international experience may neglect other areas of cultural intelligence or feel less important toward cultural intelligence ones might possess, thus we hypothesize our assumption as follow:
Hypothesis 2: International experience negatively moderates the relationship between Cultural Intelligence and employee’s job performance.
Education in hospitality management provides the employee in hospitality industry with knowledge and skills required for the job. Even most of the jobs in hospitality industry can be trained either by taking related course or by taking on the job training, the employee who has the said education background should adjust oneself to the job faster and perform job better. Anyway, the employee who had education background in hospitality may neglect other areas of cultural intelligence or feel less awareness of the importance of cultural intelligence one might possess, thus we hypothesize our assumption as follow:
Hypothesis 3: Education of employee (in hospitality industry) negatively moderates the relationship between Cultural Intelligence and employee’s job performance.