An investigation of factors influencing intercultural communication competence of the international students from a higher education institute in Malaysia

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to highlight the importance of intercultural communication competence (ICC) of international students living in Malaysia. This study considered the culture-general factors of integrated model of ICC (IMICC) established from the West with an addition of empathy and further addressed these influencers on the international students from a Malaysian university. It is proposed that empathy, sensation seeking, ethnocentrism, attitude and motivation have a direct influence on ICC.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research methodology was considered to address the relationship between the variables of this study. Data were collected through a survey by visiting different parts of the university campus. A total of 388 international students took part in the study voluntarily. Data were analysed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and structural equation modeling-analysis of a moment structures (SEM-AMOS).FindingsThe findings revealed that empathy, sensation seeking and attitude are the antecedents of ICC. However, ethnocentrism and motivation do not influence ICC significantly.Originality/valueThrough the findings of this study, a series of training sessions can be conducted by Malaysia (host country training) and sender countries (home country training) to educate international students regarding ICC. Furthermore, ministry of higher education (MoHE) Malaysia and higher education institutes (HEIs) can improve their infrastructure and services in terms of hosting and accommodating more international students by considering the findings of this study. These approaches could help international students to adjust in a new cultural setting of Malaysia.

An Extension of the Integrated Model of Intercultural Communication Competence (IMICC) with Religiosity: An International Students’ Perspective

“…Ethnocentrism is a variable that had a negative relationship with ICC as well as weakened the relationship between other variables that contribute to ICC (Arasaratnam, 2007). On the contrary, various studies found that ethnocentrism fails to impact ICC of the students (Nadeem et al, 2020b(Nadeem et al, , 2021.…”

“…The findings indicated that sensation seeking positively affects the communication with people of different cultural backgrounds. Recently, Nadeem et al (2021) witnessed that sensation seeking is one of the significant indicators of ICC.…”

“…Therefore, the current study has followed the same line and adopted the latest version of IMICC extended with religiosity and aims to address on the Malaysian context. The factors associated with IMICC are empathy, sensation seeking, ethnocentrism, MTEIIC, and ATOC (Arasaratnam & Banerjee, 2011: Nadeem et al, 2020b, 2021). The mentioned factors of IMICC have tendency to impact ICC, directly, or indirectly.…”

“…Hence, the importance of religion cannot be ignored in the context of Malaysia, and it is crucial to examine the relationship between religion and ICC empirically. Responding to this call, this study re-examines and refines IMICC model (Arasaratnam & Banerjee, 2011;Nadeem et al, 2020bNadeem et al, , 2021 with religiosity (as a moderating variable) and aims to test it in the Malaysian context (Nadeem et al, 2017).…”

“…At this stage, the importance of context and contextual variables cannot be ignored. The recent versions of IMICC (Arasaratnam & Banerjee, 2011;Nadeem et al, 2020bNadeem et al, , 2021 have not considered religiosity, possibly due to the influence of Western perspective. For that reason, this study incorporated the suggestions of earlier researcher and further extended IMICC with religiosity (moderating variable).…”