In search of cross-cultural competence: A comprehensive review of five measurement instruments

The assessment of cross-cultural competence (3C) and related constructs is of vital importance for both theoretical and practical reasons. The present review was undertaken to evaluate the quality of instrumentation designed to measure individuals’ capabilities for living and working successfully in cross-cultural contexts. The psychometric properties of five instruments deemed most important, useful, and visible in the field were evaluated with a focus on 3C measurement literature that became available since the publication of reviews by Gabrenya and colleagues (2013) and Matsumoto and Hwang (2013). Findings regarding the quality of 3C measures were mixed. First, we found that convergent validity was generally good across instruments and most showed reasonable criterion validity. However, discriminant validity was lacking in several instruments. The internal structures of instruments claiming to assess multiple constructs through subdimensions was in most cases poor. Content and face validity varied widely. Cross-cultural measurement equivalence was found to be poor in the limited research conducted on this important issue, as adaptation of instruments for use outside the culture in which they were developed rarely extends beyond the use of back-translation procedures. We suggest alternate approaches to assessing 3C and evaluating the validity of 3C instruments based on modeling sojourner outcomes such as expatriate adjustment and performance.