Social intelligence in the Cultural Context: Comparison of Indian and Slovak Managers (in English)

Abstract

The presented study is based on the assumption that social constructs do not have a generally valid form but are culturally conditioned. Purpose. It presents the results of a research aimed at an analysis of the consistency of the factor structure of the MESI methodology (Measuring Social Intelligence) in the Indian and Slovak managerial environment. At the same time, the results of the analysis of differences in the assessment of the extracted social intelligence factors (Manipulation, Empathy and Social Irritability) between the managers from India and Slovakia are presented. Study design. The research file consisted of 504 managers, of which 252 were Indian and 252 were Slovak managers. Findings. The findings enable formulation of solution to two issues. The first is related to the degree of universality of the extracted factor structures of social intelligence in the individual cultures. The second relates to the assessment of the individual specified social intelligence factors within different cultures. The presented findings confirm that the MESI methodology factor structure detected based on the samples of Indian and Slovak managers is consistent. The only difference was detected in the order of the factors extracted based on the percentage of the variance explained. Consistency of the factor structure presented is confirmed also by the results of saturation of the factors by the individual items, the Cronbach´s alpha values, and correlation of the extracted factors. Existence of several differences in the assessment of the social intelligence attributes of Manipulation and Social Irritability was confirmed. Manipulation was more prominently rejected by the Indian managers, while Social irritability was more prominently rejected by the Slovak managers. Value of results. This finding also points to the necessity of accepting the cultural context in examining social intelligence and social constructs in general.