The influence of individual, family, and social capital factors on expatriate adjustment and performance: The moderating effect of psychology contract and organizational support

This research is conducted to get more understanding about the antecedents and consequences of expatriate adjustment. Expatriate adjustment is a very important factor for the expatriate and for the organization. As prior studies have explained that family, individual, and social capital factors significantly related to expatriate adjustment, but these studies did not integrate the antecedents and consequences of expatriate adjustment into a more comprehensive research model. Therefore, this study aims to integrate relevant research streams into a more comprehensive model of expatriate adjustment and empirically test the viability of the model. The results of this study illustrated that expatriates with higher emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, and experience abroad can adjust more easily in the new work environment. Also, family support and family adaptability have positive influence on expatriate adjustment. Expatriates who had prior experiences on parental demand and family to work conflict tend to be able to manage these problems more easily. Furthermore, social capital and mentoring behavior are also important factors that can enhance the success of expatriate adjustment which could further influence expatriate performance, innovative work behavior, knowledge transfer, and organizational performance. Finally, this study also identified that psychological contract and organizational support as two important moderators that can enhance expatriate adjustment and success. 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Research background and motivation The rapid globalization of world economy has resulted the increasing of global mobility and flexibility of business activities. Global human resources with international experiences are invaluable assets for both individuals and companies (Haslberger & Brewster, 2009) to win in the competitive global marketplace (Wu & Ang, 2011). MNCs sent a lot of employees overseas because international experience is a key channel to develop global talent and leadership (Takeuchi, Shay, & Jiatao, 2008; Tarique & Schuler, 2010). International assignments played a vital role in expanding and building global skills (Shay & Baack, 2004). Likewise, a basic criterion for MNCs’ success is their employee’s ability to adapt, to understand the other cultures and to expand a global mindset (Scullion & Collings, 2006). MNCs must realize that the changes in attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors during expatriate experience can have a lasting impact on their identities (Haslberger & Brewster, 2009). Therefore, expatriate adjustment is very important not only for the expatriate, but also for the organization. As the issue about how to enhance expatriate adjustment, previous studies never integrated individual, family, and social factors into a more solid research framework. This study intends to fill this research gap and empirically test the viability of the framework. First of all, expatriate’s personal factors play important roles to deal with the new environment. Expatriates who are well-adjusted into new cultures and tolerant about different environments tend to have an internal locus of control, flexible, interest in other people and socially adaptable character (Tucker, Bonial, & Lahti, 2004). Furthermore, expatriates with good emotional intelligence (EQ) tend to understand their emotion better and perform better in their overseas adjustment and commitment (Lii & Wong, 2008). Besides EQ, cultural intelligence (CQ) is another important factor for expatriate adjustment because CQ is aimed to capture the ability to adapt, to understand, and to act appropriately across cultures (Thomas & Inkson, 2004). Likewise, expatriates’ previous international experiences can influence their adjustment because http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2014.02.030 0957-4174/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 6 2050611x31; fax: +886 6 2050611. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L.-Y. Lee), [email protected] (N. Kartika). Expert Systems with Applications 41 (2014) 5483–5494