International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to summarize a successfully defended doctoral dissertation and to place this research in context to emerging areas of international project management (PM), leadership, and cultural intelligence, and to encourage others to embark on further research related to this important topic.

Design/methodology/approach – Results reported in this paper were based upon action learning, and were subsequently tested by utilizing a Delphi panel of international subject matter experts.

Findings – The primary finding was that there are five dimensions of cross-cultural leadership intelligence (XLQ) that enable leaders to function effectively in any culture: societal, business, or group.

Research limitations/implications – Research efforts point to the skills that project and business leaders must have to effectively lead cross-cultural teams, virtual or co-located. It suggests the areas of research that need to be undertaken to put metrics on each dimension, and so to provide a means of training and testing potential leaders.

Originality/value – From academic perspective, the synthesis of anthropology, sociology, psychology, business, management, and leadership enhances the body of knowledge of PM. For practical applications, the dimensions identified can be employed and utilized to begin training of international leaders. The thesis may be downloaded from URL http://adt.lib.rmit.edu.au/adt/public/adt-VIT20061116.125205/