Intercultural Competencies as Antecedents of Responsible Global Leadership

To date, little is known about the intercultural competencies that enable global leaders to effectively address CSR-related demands of global stakeholder communities. In order to explore this gap in the literature we empirically investigate several intercultural competencies and their influence on responsible global leadership (RGL). In delineating the antecedents of RGL we studied three CSR decision-making approaches: the globally standardized, locally adapted, and the transnational. We found that different competency configurations were related to each of the three approaches and that intercultural competencies are most critical for the utilization of the transnational approach. Our study contributes to the CSR literature by delineating some of the antecedents of RGL, and to global leadership research by establishing the scope of intercultural competencies within the domains of CSR and stakeholder management.