Causal Recipes for Cultural Adaptation of Romanian Football Players

Abstract

Most of the Romanian football players who left the internal championship and signed contracts abroad have failed in their attempt to culturally adapt to a new club. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which Romanian football players, who left the internal competition, are aware of the necessity of cultural adaptation in the host countries. Employing a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA - Berg, Dirk, Rihoux and Ragin 2008), this study proposes a configurational approach of Cultural Intelligence skills (Cognitive, Meta-Cognitive, Motivational and Behavioural), affecting the expected outcome: the level of adaptation in the host club. Findings reveal that a causal configuration of antecedent conditions (Cognitive, Meta-Cognitive, Motivational) are sufficient conditions to reach the outcome.