How Expats really feel?

Do you fear leaving your comfort zone to explore a new country because you don’t know what exactly you are going to find there? If you are going to be happy? If you are going to be succeed? A lot of expats and organizations have asked the same question. Stay tuned to discover the key factors that will help you settle and adapt to a brand a new country and culture.

The global spread of markets and geographical expansion of international corporations has gained a lot of importance across the globe and makes it increasingly necessary to send professionals abroad to fill an immediate business need in a foreign country (Eccher & Duarte, 2016; Haslberger, A., Brewster, C. 2009). This growing trend of sending professionals to international missions is accompanied by the need to know what needs to be done for expatriates to adjust successfully and as quickly as possible in order to carry out their day-to-day tasks. Expatriates are expected to go beyond market pressure or competitors to generate new knowledge for the organization while interacting and struggling to adjust to a new cultural diversity and teams formed by employees of different nationalities (Przytuła, S., et al., 2014). Globalization requires cross-cultural literacy and successful management of diversity.

For the individual employee, the success of international missions depends, among other things, on good and positive adjustment to the new social, cultural and working environment (Przytuła, S., et al., 2014). Social interactions with HCN´s can be a source of positive and negative experiences. Social interaction with HCN´s and third-country nationals is an invaluable source of information on culturally acceptable norms and behaviors and reduces the uncertainties associated with work and non-work situations (Selmer, J. & Fenner, C.R. Jr. 2009; Caligiuri & Lazarova, 2002). Expatriate networks have been predominantly characterized to identify impacts on adjustment and performance (Osman-Gani and Rockstuhl, 2008).

Social relationships are beneficial to emotional support and mental health as they can provide the individual with the knowledge of which belongs to a group. Friendships and social support systems contribute to a sense of self-esteem and personal well-being. This can have a positive impact on the workplace (Kraimer, L., Wayne, J., 2004; Caligiuri & Lazarova, 2002).

For the organizational point of view, HR managers shall have a winning track record process for global assignment’s in capturing strategic opportunities in order to increase expatriates knowledge creation and global leadership development and minimize expatriates dysfunctional performance in interpersonal relationships, which result in the failure of a mission (Stroppa, C., Spieß, E., 2011; Przytuła, S., et al., 2014 cf. Kraimer and Wayne, 2004; Wang, M., & Takeuchi, R. 2007; Takeuchi, 2010).

Many international organizations underestimate the complex nature of expatriates management issues in the international field and that business failures may often be linked to the poor performance of expatriates (Rishbha et al., 2015).

The literature of expatriates primarily focused on the process of adaptation and living in a foreign country in four stages: honeymoon, culture shock, adjustment, and mastery (Y. Li. 2016 cf Torbion 1988). Furthermore, scholars developed an expatriate adjustment scale focusing on three specific facets of expatriate adjustment: general adjustment, interaction adjustment and work adjustment Y. Li. 2016 cf Black and Stephens 1989). Overall as a degree of psychological comfort during the length of the assignment (Shaffer, M. A., et al, 2006), studying the lack of performance at work that leads to withdrawal cognitions as expatriates plans to prematurely quite their assignment (Shaffer, M. A., et al, 2006). Subsequent research examined three new dimensions to understand the nature of expatriate adjustment such as cognitions (withdrawal cognitions), moods (feelings) and behaviours (job performance) (Haslberger, A., et al. 2013).

Based on this literature, our research focus mainly on one of the three facets of adjustment, interaction adjustment, and the reasons that leads to cross-cultural adjustment or withdrawal cognitions. The relevance of conducting such a study is threefold:

❖ First goal: while no known study investigated the effects of expatriates with different backgrounds on informal social networks and friendships between groups in expatriate adjustment, this study, suggested by researchers (Haslberger, A. et al., 2014), that future research should be able to reflect more accurately the reality of the expatriate experience, sought to understand the effects of social networks on expatriates living abroad and the impact of these connections on their fit dimensions in the workplace.

❖ Second goal: despite the abundant and growing research on cross-cultural adjustment, we know surprisingly little about the effects of social support, friendships between groups and their relation to psychological well-being in the context of work and non-work and/or reverse withdrawal cognitions. This investigation will allow companies to gain a better understanding of how expatriates develop their social network, how they use social support and the impact that those have on overall adjustment. Working in a foreign country involves significant changes for expatriates in various areas for which they must be prepared and supported during their overseas assignment. If this does not happen, there is a risk that the employee will be stressed, unable to work effectively and, at worst, have to finish his job prematurely (Stroppa, C., Spieß, E., 2010).

❖ Third goal, since previous research indicates that expatriate adjustment can be a difficult and stressful process (Stroppa & Spieb 2010), day-to-day studies of expatriates in the work environment per se are not abundant (Selmer, J., 2001). It is useful to understand the dynamics of adjustment in the host countries by examining the day-to-day experience in which employees live abroad in the short or medium term. As mentioned above, social interactions can influence the adjustment dimensions and can enable withdrawal cognitions if the expat is not psychologically well adjusted. How exactly expatriates establish social interactions with local cultural differences and how social interaction influences their intercultural, psychological, and estrangement cognitions is less clear.

A research I’ve conducted during the executive master in Human Resources management with a data of 1000 people has shown that you have to keep a positive attitude about the country in both work and non-work environment. This will allow you to adapt psychologically and improve your understanding of the new country. At the very beginning you will feel the joy and happiness to discover new opportunities and people but you have to be conscious that you will also feel homesick and that’s also fine. What you need to keep in mind is you need to interact as much as possible with your co-workers and locals and make new friendships, specially if the local language is rather different these interactions will help your adjustment in the new country. It was also discovered that people that were motivated and seeking social support would have better experience and would feel happy about it.

High support protects individuals from the negative effects of work stressors and may produce positive feelings that lead to less reporting of stressors. Motivation and positive attitudes toward interactions with HCN’s are important aspects of successful cross-cultural adjustment (Froese et al., 2012 cf.Takeuchi et al., 2005). Indeed, in the current study, data also indicates that cross-cultural motivation predicts expatriate adjustment and highlights the spillover effects on withdrawal cognitions. These results suggest that younger motivated expatriates don’t intend to leave the assignment earlier even tough they don’t feel comfortable in the host country.

Also, the traditional form of expatriation, professionals who are sent by their organizations on international assignments has been widely used by multinational corporations but adjustment issues have indeed been found to be an issue for assigned expatriates (AEs) (Selmer, 2002).

64% of expatriates, from our study, were sent to the host country by a company they had a previous work relation and they seemed to have issues on job adjustment. As self-initiate expatriates (SIEs) have been found to possess strong cross-cultural skills and knowledge about local environments that could be very valuable to organizations (Peltokorpi, 2008) maybe the combination of having both host country and international business competencies may be a solution for AEs to establish social ties with these increasingly common type of expat.

In the other hand, negative interactions has a negative direct effect on withdrawal cognitions and do not predict expatriates adjustment.