Expanding horizons on expatriate adjustment: A look at the role of emotional display and status

The inverted-U model of employee happiness: examining overdose happiness in context of personal characteristics, job-relationship dependency, benign stress, and various theories

In recent years, the management literature has begun to deal with individual and organizational results after happiness rather than the pursuit of happiness in business life and finally reaching happiness. After the fact that everything in an overdose is harmful, it has become the subject of even more research with paradoxical results that happiness that evokes positive emotions is not as innocent as it seems. In this study, which aims to reveal the harmful effects of overdose of employee happiness, the reasons for the manager's fear - or anxiety - about the happiness of his employees are interpreted. The Inverted-U Model of Employee Happiness (IUMEH) has been developed and individual work outputs have been evaluated in three areas that (1) support happiness, (2) reflect balanced happiness, and (3) turn negative with an overdose of happiness intoxication. It has been suggested that IUMEH, which is thought to contribute to the literature as it is the first descriptive model to emerge, should be supported by applied studies, and it has been reminded that the curvilinear aspect of the model may include differences in terms of culture, type and characteristics of job, private, public or non-profit enterprises, generations of managers and the level of managers (front-line, middle level and senior level etc.).

Facilitating Cross-Cultural Adaptation: A Meta-Analytic Review of Dispositional Predictors of Expatriate Adjustment

This meta-analytic review examines the relationship between various dispositional characteristics and expatriate adjustment, including the Big Five constructs and other characteristics that have garnered more recent empirical attention (i.e., cultural empathy/flexibility, cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence). Using 62 primary studies ( n = 13,060), we found that the Big Five traits play an important role in expatriate adjustment; however, when assessing the relative influence of these predictors, characteristics such as cultural empathy, cultural intelligence (e.g., motivational CQ), and emotional intelligence appear to exert a stronger influence on adjustment outcomes. Various cultural variables (cultural distance, cultural tightness, gender inequality in the host country) and year of publication were found to moderate some relationships, indicating that sociocultural factors may temper some of these effects.

Combining lifelines to thrive: a stage-based need fulfilment network of international assignees

Purpose

The paper tries to understand the needs of the international assignees across the different stages of expatriation and how different developers in the professional and non-professional sphere render support and advice through these stages.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, the authors have interviewed 20 expatriates of various nationalities and tried to understand the various needs of the expatriates across the three initial stages of an assignment.

Findings

The paper finds that four important mentors in an expatriation assignment play multiple need-based mentoring functions at various assignment stages: host country nationals (HCNs), parent country nationals, fellow expatriates and family.

Research limitations/implications

This paper contributes to the literature on the need-based support rendered to expatriates during an international assignment. The paper, however, does not incorporate the perceptions of other vital stakeholders in the network and their intentions to contribute to the developmental network.

Practical implications

This paper lays down important practical implications for expatriates and the human resource management (HRM) professionals. This paper urges the practitioners to take a nuanced approach for developing expatriates than a generalized mentoring programme.

Originality/value

This study highlights the changing needs of the international assignees across the stages of an international assignment and demonstrates the important intra-organizational and extra-organizational developers such as family members in the fulfilment of these needs.

A grounded theory approach to understand the Portuguese emerging adult self-initiated expatriates’ cross-cultural adaptation in the United Kingdom

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to inductively develop a model of cross-cultural adaptation for emerging adult self-initiated expatriates (SIEs).

Design/methodology/approach

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 18 Portuguese emerging adult SIEs, aged between 18 and 29 years, residing in the UK from 5 months to 2 years. The analysis of these interviews through a grounded theory, using computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (Atlas.ti), allowed describing what constitutes participants’ cross-cultural adaptation and what are its determinants.

Findings

Five dimensions of cross-cultural adaptation emerged (cultural, emotional, social, practical and work), along with 18 determinants related with four different levels: personal, interpersonal, societal and situational. These determinants are related with the pre- and post-relocation phases of participants’ expatriation experience and some of them act as buffers, capturing a more integrative picture of the cross-cultural adaption process.

Research limitations/implications

In order to enhance the validity of the inductively identified relationships between cross-cultural adaptation and its determinants, the authors consider that they could be empirically tested.

Originality/value

This study points to several contributions in the fields of cross-cultural adaptation, emerging adulthood and self-initiated expatriation. By considering this study’s sample, the authors contributed to Farcas and Gonçalves’ (2016) call for more research focusing on emerging adult SIEs. In doing so, the authors simultaneously addressed the gap in the emerging adulthood literature regarding the focus on non-university samples of emerging adults. The methodology of this study can also be considered a contribution. By conducting interviews with emerging adult SIEs and analyzing them through a grounded theory approach, the authors were able to develop a model of cross-cultural adaptation. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first model which was inductively developed, enabling a broad understanding of emerging adult SIEs’ cross-cultural adaptation, in terms of what constitutes and influences it.