Cultural Intelligence , Psychological Well-Being , and Employability of Taiwan ’ s Indigenous College Students

The purpose of this survey is to explore the relationship among cultural intelligence, psychological well-being, and employability using a questionnaire. The research used survey sampling to target aboriginal college students and collected 268 effective samples from among public and private universities. The study then adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) to examine the models for study and the tenability of the hypothesis. The data indicated that (1) cultural intelligence positively influences psychological well-being; (2) cultural intelligence positively influences employability; (3) psychological well-being positively influences employability; and (4) psychological well-being’s influence on employability is greater than cultural intelligence’s influence on employability. Finally, the meanings and implications of this study are offered in terms of both practical and academic aspects.


Introduction
Globalization forces us to understand the different cultures and to interact with people from various countries.Therefore, understanding how to interact effectively with people from different countries and applying the experiences to develop cultural intelligence and multicultural working skills are crucial factors for employability (Malik, Cooper-Thomas, & Zikic, 2014;Thomas & Inkson, 2004).
Taiwan's aboriginals' cultural intelligence includes the ability to adapt to the mainstream society, thereby demonstrating that they can develop a good interpersonal relationship.This skill is essential to employability.The employment rate of aboriginals is not yet satisfactory.Aboriginal college students accounted for only 0.35% of all college students in 1998 due to the lower education rate (The Ministry of Education and Statistics Department, 2014).In addition, in 2009, the unemployment rate of aboriginals with degrees below the secondary level was up to 9.83% whereas that of the majority with the same degree was 5.35%.In the same year, the unemployment rate of aboriginals with a college degree or more was 2.8%.Thus, aboriginals' high unemployment rate is related to their low education attainment.
Due to the expansion of Taiwan's higher education since 2000, the population of aboriginal college students increased rapidly until 2013.However, the unemployment rate of aboriginals who pursued higher education remained above 4%, which was the same as that of the majority (Commission of Indigenous Affairs, 2014).This statistic indicated that the advantage that aboriginals gained through higher education was lost.The author wonders if high cultural intelligence (CQ) has a positive impact on employability for the rapidly increasing highly educated aboriginal in the globalization era.
CQ refers to an individual's capability to acquire, interpret, and act on different cues to perform effectively in culturally diverse situations (Earley & Peterson, 2004).Employment and adaptability determine cultural intelligence.CQ is helpful for newcomers' employability and adaptability (Malik et al., 2014).An interrelationship among CQ, cultural adaptability, and work performance was also identified (Ang et al., 2007).
The common point between aboriginals and newcomers is the position of inferiority when the former have to adapt mainstream society's rules to enhance their employability.However, it seems that no research has directly dealt with the relationship between CQ and aboriginal college students' employability.As a result, this study will explore the relationship between aboriginals' CQ and employability.
In addition, previous research has demonstrated that cross-cultural transition and adaptation as a normal part of life generate stress, thereby leading to the need to appraise and cope with it through acculturation strategies; thus, these factors influence well-being psychologically (Berry, 2006;Berry & Sam, 1997;Ward & Kennedy, 2001).Ang et al. (2007) found that CQ is related to cultural adaptation, including the aspect of psychological well-being.When it comes to the relationship between psychological well-being and employability, some scholars have noted that it is necessary to cover the index of psychological well-being because the one-sided cultural survey in employment is not enough.Therefore, the relationship between well-being and employability is discussed (De Cuyper, Bernhard-Oettel, Berntson, De Witte, & Alarco, 2008).
In terms of cultural aspects, CQ affects employability, while well-being also affects employability psychologically.No direct research has addressed this topic, not to mention the intensity of the two paths of CQ and well-being.To support the related research, this study explores the impacts of CQ and psychological well-being on employability, with a focus on aboriginal college students.The article aims to determine whether CQ positively affects aboriginal college students' psychological well-being and employability and whether psychological well-being positively influences their employability.

Cultural Intelligence (CQ)
Earley and Ang (2003) first introduced CQ, defining it as an individual's capability to manage and perform effectively in an intercultural environment.Earley and Mosakowski (2004) further defined cultural intelligence to refer to the ability of newcomers to act like their colleagues or collaborators to understand unfamiliar things and even imitate to adapt to cross-cultural lives.Earley and Peterson (2004) defined cultural intelligence as a person's capability to perform effectively in culturally different situations due to their ability to acquire, interpret, and behave based on different cues.Earley and Mosakowski (2004) divided cultural intelligence into cognition CQ, physical CQ, and emotional/motivational CQ.Previous researchers have used metacognition to separate it from cognition when defining CQ (Ang et al., 2007;Early & Ang, 2003;Earley & Mosakowski, 2004;Earley & Peterson, 2004).Some scholars have integrated CQ into three dimensions-namely, cognition, behavior, and emotion-which are often clarified in knowledge/cognition, behavior, and motivation/mindfulness (Thomas, 2006;Thomas & Inkson, 2004).The system has a strong connection to theories put forth by Early and Ang (2003).The current study adopts the viewpoints of Thomas andInkson (2004), andThomas (2006) to calculate the average of aboriginal college students' cognitive/meta-cognitive behavior and motivation to measure CQ.

Psychological Well-Being
Psychological well-being is what makes people evaluate their lives through the mutual effect among their psychological resources, circumstances, and activities.Social psychologists have endeavored for many years to find out how an individual's psychology functions by measuring their psychological well-being (La Placa, McNaught, & Knight, 2013).National Wellness Institute of Australia (NWIA) defined well-being as the prevalence of positive attributes (NWIA, 2011).The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in United Kingdom (DEFRA) defined well-being as giving a sense of purpose and satisfying an individual's need regarding attractive environments, financial rewards, and personal relationships (DEFRA, 2009;La Placa et al., 2013).Six general characteristics are often included in positive psychological definitions of well-being: a balance of attributes; the active pursuit of well-being; prosocial behavior; positive affect or life satisfaction; multiple dimensions; and personal optimization.In Ryff's scales, psychological well-being consists of autonomy and self-acceptance, quality ties to others and continued growth, environmental mastery, the pursuit of personal needs, and meaningful goals in life (Ryff & Keyes, 1995).
The current study integrates these theories and refers to Ryff's scale to discuss the average of aboriginal college students via the measurement of psychological well-being in autonomy and self-acceptance (autonomy, self-acceptance), life satisfaction (environmental mastery, meaningful goals in life), and positive relationships and growth (the quality ties to others and continued growth, the pursuit of personal needs).The study uses these dimensions-namely, self-acceptance, life satisfaction and positive relationships-to measure psychological well-being of the aboriginal college students.

Employability
Employability refers to the capability to seek, maintain work, and obtain employment, if necessary.Generally speaking, employability arises from one's ability to learn.Based on the definition put forth by Harvey, Locke, and Morey (2002), employability is an individual's ability to take up, remain in, and engage in an occupation well after the process of learning.Briefly, employability includes the ability to look for jobs, complete tasks, and realize one's own potential through sustainable employment in the labor market.
Employability has a close correlation with an individual's work competence.An individual plans and performs tasks, then accommodates his or her knowledge, attitude, and behavior during employment to show employability (Herr & Long, 1983).Harvey et al. (2002) highlighted core employability, which refers to the capacity to adapt to and be flexible for different occupations.It involves many parts: traits and attitudes that are beneficial for employment, facilities in self-marketing and career management, and a strong will to learn and introspection.Self-marketing and career management generalize to the dimension of professional knowledge management.A strong will to learn and introspection generalize the scope of learning and thinking.The study adopts Harvey et al.'s (2002) standpoint to discuss aboriginal college students' attitudes and traits, learning and thinking, and professional knowledge in order to measure employability of the aboriginal college students.

Research Framework and Hypothesis
This research examines the relationships among cultural intelligence, employability, and psychological well-being.The whole research framework is depicted in Figure 1.The proposed assumptions of the relationships among the constructive concepts in the study are discussed in the following subsections.

Figure 1. Framework of the research
Relationship between culture and employability.Humans' actions, gestures, and speech patterns tend to be misunderstood because of the wider range of interpretations, which can lead to cooperation being impossible.However, occasionally an outsider can interpret someone's unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures naturally in the same way that an insider can.CQ provides employees, supervisors, and organizations with the ability to deal with multicultural situations that engage them in cross-cultural interactions and helps them perform effectively in culturally diverse workplaces (Haghighatian, Sadeghi, & Shahcheraghi, 2015).Those who possess higher CQ would be able to understand and accept those cultural differences that affect the rules and expectations of the new work culture to engage in intercultural communication so they can perform effectively (Malik et al., 2014).
Today's work environments force people to be familiar with different cultures and communicate well with other people with heterogeneous cultures (Afkaneh & Beyginia, 2014).Effective cross-cultural communication is a significant criterion for organizations (Haghighatian et al., 2015).Ang et al. (2007)  Employability is the capacity to adapt to and be flexible for different occupations, including attitudes and characteristics, learning and thinking, and professional knowledge (Harvey et al., 2002).Possessing the skills that the supervisors need would boost employees' work performance (Abas-Mastura, Imam, & Osman, 2013).Those who possess higher CQ would be able to understand and accept the cultural differences that affect the rules and expectations of the new work culture to engage in intercultural communication so they can perform effectively (Malik et al., 2014).
Based on the discussion thus far, a person's higher employability causes better performance in work.In addition, those who have high CQ perform well when working and adapting.The acquisition and competence of employability skills valued by employers require continuous enhancement to succeed in job performance (Abas-Mastura et al., 2013).
Employability is related to the concepts of attitudes and characteristics, learning and thinking, and professional knowledge.Janssens and Cappelen (2008) demonstrated that relationships between the factors and CQs, including knowledge of workplace behaviors and norms, by collecting data from global managers about their use of cultural intelligence in their positions.CQ symbolizes the ability of a person to adapt to values, customs, and traditions that differ from those in which they worked in different cultural environments (Thomas, 2006).In cross-cultural conditions, CQ would allow a recent immigrant to not only seek content knowledge (i.e., learn about the individualistic culture) but also gather process knowledge on how the individualistic culture affects employees' behaviors (Malik et al., 2014).Following similar reasoning, it can be argued that higher CQ can enable individuals to more easily adapt and adjust their thinking and behaviors to fit local norms and develop within the profession (Malik et al., 2014).All of these elements could be classified in concepts of employability.Templer et al. (2006) found that CQ has prominent connections with study of cross-culture, including general research, learning to adapt, and interactive adaptation.An individual with higher CQ is better able to face culture shock (Earley & Ang, 2003).Based on this discussion, this study proposes the following hypothesis: H1: CQ has a positive impact on employability Relationship between CQ and psychological well-being.Lazarus and Folkman (1984) noted that the adaptability during a stress-provoking life in cross-cultural transition would be reflected in psychological well-being, and its predictors have been linked to life changes, personality, stress appraisal, coping styles, and acculturation strategies (Berry, 2006;Berry & Sam, 1997;Ward & Kennedy, 2001).
CQ refers to the ability to interact effectively with people from different cultures.This is a multi-dimensional ability, and its elements include cultural knowledge, attitude, and cross-cultural ability (Thomas & Inkson, 2004).Peterson (2004) claimed that CQ would be a self-adapting ability that helps individual adapt effectively in different countries, organizations, and cultures.As such, it can boost the adaptability of individuals to be familiar with strange surroundings (Earley & Mosakowski, 2004) and has a prominent impact on general adaptation (Yeşil, 2013).Malik et al. (2014) used recent immigrant newcomers as an example.Those with a higher CQ were expected to better understand and appreciate other cultures and behave appropriately and flexibly in cross-cultural settings.CQ's functions include boosting integrations of the role in the process of socialization as well as increasing self-achievement and self-acceptance to behave appropriately (Malik et al., 2014;Ozcelik & Paprika, 2010).
CQ helps people understand nuances and develop relationships with their colleagues, which can motivate them to further develop their CQ by interacting with others.The functions of CQ help people develop effectively in terms of cultural differences and well-being (Malik et al., 2014).Based on this discussion, this study proposes the following hypothesis: H2: CQ has a positive impact on psychological well-being.
Relationship between well-being and employability.When ethnic minority college students are under pressure in international and diverse work environments, the psychological capital is their psychological source of well-being (Ang & Inkpen, 2008).Few articles discuss the relationships between well-being and other variables, such as employability, unemployment, insecurity, and satisfaction with work.Chen and Lim (2012) found that psychological capital was positively related with employees' perceived employability.Some research has indicated that psychological capital has a positive relationship to well-being (Avey, Luthans, Smith, & Palmer, 2010;Sabaitytė, 2014).However, few studies have directly coped with the relationships between well-being and employability.Employability might matter directly for the employed because it could be part of a new psychological contract.(De Cuyper et al., 2008).
Employability is broadly defined as the possibility to acquire a job; it can also represent people's competences (Bernston, Sverke, & Marklund, 2006;Van der Heijde & Van der Heijde, 2006). De Cuyper et al. (2008) showed that employability is positively correlated with well-being.Carrieri, Novi, Jacobs, and Robone (2014) found that psychological well-being is mediated by factors such as the level of employability.As psychological well-being seems to positively impact employability, this study proposes the following hypothesis: H3: Psychological well-being has a positive impact on employability.

Variables and Study Design
The survey in this study uses a Likert scale as the standard of measurement, ranging from "strongly disagree" (1 point) to "strongly agree" (5 point).Table 1 shows the instruments and the operational definitions of each variable.

Survey and Analytic Method
Participants in this study include indigenous students in a national university, private university, or university of technology.According to the ratio of indigenous students studying in national and private universities, 500 questionnaires were issued; 294 were returned, with 26 being removed as they were deemed to be invalid or have incomplete answers.This resulted in a 53.6%rate of valid returns.The study used descriptive statistics in SPSS to explain the characteristics in interviewed samples and examined hypothetical paths using AMOS.

General Information on Samples
Table 2 summarizes the descriptive statistics of the 268 valid samples from the interviewed samples.In terms of gender, males accounted for 50.4% of the sample and females for 49.6%.In the schools dimension, private universities are the majority, accounting for 43.1%, followed by national universities (23.6%) and private universities of technology, including institutes of technology (22.8%).In the college dimension, 32% of the sample was enrolled in humanities and arts, 31.6% in other programs, and 15.8% in management.The majority (44.3%) were born in non-indigenous areas.In terms of annual household income, 57.9% and 34.5% earn less than 20,000 USD and 20,000 to 40,000 USD, respectively.Fathers and mothers are guardians in 97.7% of the cases, and 71.1% work as non-skilled workers and laborers in agriculture or sales, machine-operating workers, and skilled workers.Technicians, professionals, or managers 33 12.9

Second-Order Confirmatory Factor Analysis
As the research structure contains three second-order concepts (CQ, employability, and well-being), this study uses three second-order confirmatory factor analyses to examine the fit of these three second-order concepts.The second-order confirmatory factor analysis of CQ indicates that the factor loadings of the second question in CQ (Q2: You think about the goals or tasks before interacting with people from different cultural backgrounds) and the tenth question (Q10: You use pauses and silence to adapt to different cross-cultural situations) are lower than 0.5, so they were removed.The second-order confirmatory factor analysis of employability indicated that the factor loadings of the sixth question in employability (Q6: You have the ability to think creatively), the thirteenth question (Q13: You have the ability to manipulate information technology), and the fourteenth question (Q14: You have the ability to communicate) are lower than 0.5, so they were deleted.The second-order confirmatory factor analysis of psychological well-being indicated that the factor loadings of the eleventh question in well-being (Q11: You cannot fit in with the groups around you) and the twelfth question (Q12: You often feel lonely because you have few close friends to share your worries) are lower than 0.5, so they were excluded.

Construct Validity and Reliability Analyses
Construct validity analysis.Construct validity is "the degree to which a test measures what it claims, or purports, to be measuring" (Brown, 1996).This leads to two subtypes: convergent validity and discriminant validity.The study used confirmatory factor analysis to examine the convergent validity and discriminant validity of the three constructs: CQ, employability, and psychological well-being.
In convergent validity, we can take a close look from three aspects: individual item reliability, composite reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE).First, in individual item reliability, the standardized factor loadings corresponding to CQ, employability, and psychological well-being are 0.650, 0.712, and 0.663; 0.608, 0.903, and 0.795; and 0.400, 0.767, and 0.798, respectively.Except for the factor loadings corresponding to psychological well-being that are slightly lower than 0.5, the statistics meet the suggested level that Hair et al. (1998) mentioned and all questions reached the obvious level of 0.001.Second, in terms of the composite reliability, the three constructs of the CR values are 0.715, 0.818, and 0.705, which are higher than standard 0.6 that Fornell and Larcker (1981) required.Third, the AVE values for the three concepts are 0.456, 0.606, and 0.462, which are close to the 0.5 level Fornell and Larcker (1981) mentioned.Based on these data, the three constructs in this study must have some convergent validity.
To determine discriminant validity, the square root of the average amount of AVE should be larger than the correlation coefficient of each construct pair (Fornell & Larcker, 1981;Hair et al., 1998).The square roots of the average amount of AVE in all constructs are shown in Table 3. Significant discriminant validity existed for each construct pair.  4 shows the Cronbach's α of each construct and relative sub-construct.Apart from the behavior construct of CQ being 0.661 and that of employability being 0.676, all others are higher than the recommended 0.7 level (Nunnally, 1978).However, Peterson (1994) pointed out that the α value should be higher than 0.6 for the criterion in use.Therefore, the scale this study used is convincing.

Examination of Model and Hypothetical Path
This study applied structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate the models and hypotheses.The analytical consequences are shown in Figure 2. The model points out that χ2 is 72.447 and its degree of freedom is 24 (p < 0.001).However, chi-square is easily affected by the samples; the more samples that are included, the more significant the chi-square is.Thus, this study can use the chi-square and degree of freedom (Hair et al., 1998), that it had better less than 3, and the value of the room for fluctuation is less than 5 (Wheaton et al., 1977).The value of the chi-square (72.447) divided by the degree of freedom (24) in this study was 3.019, which fit the required value (5).The other adaptation indices were GFI = 0.944, RMSEA = 0.087, NFI = 0.919, AGFI = 0.894, CFI = 0.943, IFI = 0.944, RFI = 0.878, PNFI = 0.613, and PGFI = 0.503.These index values fall approximately within the accepted range.Based on the outcomes, the models given in the study have an appropriate relationship with the tested data.
In the models in Figure 2, the path coefficients, which also indicate the standardized regression coefficients and t values, provide a foundation for examining the hypotheses.As shown in Figure 2, the t values for all three hypotheses are higher than 1.96; thus all three are supported.means the remarkable path relationship

Psychological Well-being's Positive Impact on Employability (H3)
The data confirmed that psychological well-being has a positive impact on employability, supporting H3.This result is consistent with the conclusions of Carrieri et al. (2014), Silla, Gracia, andPeiro (2005), andDe Cuyper et al. (2008).
Based on the results of this paper, CQ (path coefficient 0.367) and psychological well-being (path coefficient 0.583) have a positive influence on employability individually based on the level of standardized path coefficient.
The data indicate that the impact of psychological well-being on employability is much greater than that of CQ on psychological well-being.

Impliciations
The present study also offers several practical and academic implications for universities or colleges.First, based on these findings, schools and related authorities should pay attention to aboriginal students' CQ and psychological well-being; in particular, the more psychological well-being they have, the better their employability will be.These findings could be valued by the government when it comes to the employability of higher-educated aboriginals.
In addition, CQ has a positive relationship with employability and psychological well-being.However, even if CQ through psychological well-being affects employability, it still requires a theoretical basis and thus further research.Future research could include variables such as job insecurity, psychological capital, or social prejudices that the minority experiences.Understanding the relationships among these variables could provide clearer verification.
Finally, this study focused on aboriginal students.Thus, the findings are not generalizable to majority college students.Future studies should use majority college students as participants to compare the results.
demonstrated that CQ has a Cultural intelligence Employability Psychological well-being positive and meaningful relationship with occupational performance

Figure 2 .
Figure 2.Estimated results of standardized parameter in overall patterns Note.The number before parentheses stands for the standardized regression coefficients, the numbers in parentheses are t values; *** p < 0.001.

Table 3 .
Correlation coefficient matrix The value of positive diagonal (in bold) stands for the square root of AVE Reliability analysis.Table a