Assessing intercultural communication competence as a relational construct using social network analysis. (September 2015) - Chi, Ruobing
Highlights: Relational structure of the hosting community provides alternative ICC assessments. The number of connections rather than connections with whom relates to adaptation. Connectivity of oneself and one's neighbors in the community affects adaptation. ICC not only relates to individual characteristics but resides in social networks. Abstract: This paper explores assessment of intercultural communication competence (ICC) from a relational perspective using social network analysis. ICC is defined as the ability to develop meaningful intercultural relations with host and other nationals, and is operationalized in measures derived from the social network of a multicultural community with 280 members. Three hypotheses are tested to see how measures that account for local and global relational structure are related to socio-cultural adaptation, and how relations with specific cultural groups (i.e., host and home cultures) relate to acculturation outcomes. Findings indicate that the more social relations one has (i.e., well-connected locally) within the community, the less difficulty one experiences in acculturation. In addition, the more social relations one's friends have (i.e., well-connected globally), the less difficulty one experiences. However, contrary to expectations, in this given community, social relations with co-nationals and host-nationals do not have significant impacts on one's socio-cultural adaptation. These findings support the conclusion that ICC is distributed throughout members of a community rather than being strictly an individual attribute. When the community is cohesive, the number of other members one can directly or indirectly reach is important for adaptation, but it does not matter whether or how many are from the host or home countries. The findings point to the need for theorizing and measuring ICC as residing in actors' social networks as well as individual characteristics. Implications for developing and designing intervention and training programs are discussed.