Abstract
International opportunity recognition has become increasingly important in both the international business and international entrepreneurship fields. While previous international entrepreneurship research has suggested a wide variety of innovation-inducing factors, it has neglected the role of cross-cultural competences and the expatriate as a potential actor. Building on the experiential learning theory and a model of opportunity recognition, we argue how and why metacognitive and cognitive cultural intelligence are important cross-cultural competences that stimulate and enable expatriates to discover international opportunities and be innovative. We use a mixed method approach to analyze differences in the innovativeness of expatriates.