Validating the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS) for the Portuguese population was the main objective of this study. Cultural Intelligence is recognized as a crucial competence in multicultural situations. The multidimensional cultural intelligence scale is composed of 20 items arranged into four dimensions and is used to evaluate the individual characteristics that predispose to better performance in unfamiliar cultural environments. The results from the analysis of main components in a total sample of 275 participants, aged between 18 and 72 (M = 29.3; SD = 12.9), replicated the original ones, therefore showing good validity values and internal consistency (Cronbach alpha .93), revealing the multidimension of the evaluated construct. Once the exploratory analysis replicated the model tested by the confirmatory analysis, the application of this instrument in multicultural organizational contexts can be considered an essential tool, not only to identify crucial capacities for the functioning of the human resources, teams or organizations in environments characterized by cultural diversity, but also to ensure the success in the integration processes of immigrants and expatriates.
Cultural intelligence; Portuguese adaptation; psychometrics