Metacogonitive and Motivational Cultural Intelligence: Superpowers for Creativity an a Culturally Diverse Environment

We propose that employees who are highly motivated for cultural interactions (motivational cultural intelligence) and can modify their thinking about cultural differences (metacognitive cultural intelligence) are more likely to be creative in culturally diverse environments. Based on the social categorization theory, we propose that metacognitive and motivational cultural intelligence will be positively related to individual creativity. Moreover, we predict that metacognitive and motivational cultural intelligence can decrease the negative aspects of the social categorization process and, in turn, be positively related to creativity. A quantitative analysis of 787 employees in 20 SME multicultural companies in the Adriatic region shows that metacognitive and motivational cultural intelligence are in fact positively related to individual creativity. We discuss the implications for practice and future research. DOI: 10.15458/85451.18