Kevin Groves, Ann Feyerherm and Xinhua Gu recently had their article, “Examining Cultural Intelligence and Cross-Cultural Negotiation Effectiveness,” in the Journal of Management Education. This is great news because more information is needed on this topic. They stated that cultural intelligence (CQ), defined by Earley, Ang, and Tan (2006) as “a person’s capability for successful adaptation to new cultural settings. . .”

Certainly cultural intelligence is necessary. I do, however, take issue with two comments.

First, it is not enough to know that adaptation is necessary or about generic cultural customs. Knowledge of and skill development in specific strategies and techniques appropriate for different cultures necessary for success.  Schuster and Copeland have developed cultural classification models with recommendations for adoption in their books published in 1996 and 2006.

Second, there is a statement that there is very little empirical research documenting the impact of cultural adaptability on the success of negotiation. Schuster, Brodowsky and Anderson have published several articles reporting empirical validation of the Schuster and Copeland model.

The work reported in this article would make an even stronger impact by incorporating relevant academic work  that is directly relevant to the topic.