The Influence of the Cultural Context on Expatriate Adjustment

Abstract

While the expatriate management literature has shown the importance of the cultural context for expatriate adjustment, empirical evidence on the role of cultural distance remains mixed. We corroborate the expatriate management literature by developing a conceptual rationale for different mechanisms (underestimation effect, motivation and support effects, and complexity effect) linking cultural distance and expatriate adjustment that lead to a curvilinear relationship between the two constructs. Additionally, we introduce cultural tightness and attractiveness into the expatriate management context and posit that cultural tightness and attractiveness exert a moderating influence on the effect of cultural distance on expatriate adjustment. Specifically, we theorize that tightness negatively moderates the relationship between cultural distance and expatriate adjustment while attractiveness should exert a positive moderating effect.

North American Perspective

The Influence of the Cultural Context on Expatriate Adjustment

• Mark C. Bolino 

1. Division of Management & International Business, Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA

   Mark C. Bolino

Cultural Distance And Adjustment: A More Nuanced Approach

Researchers have sometimes noted that international transfers, in many ways, are similar to domestic geographic transfers (e.g., Feldman & Tompson, 1993). The most notable difference, though, is that an expatriate assignment typically involves living and working in a host country culture that is quite different from one’s home country culture. Although researchers have been studying the implications of international work assignments for more than four decades (Kraimer, Bolino, & Mead, 2015), only recently have they started to develop a more nuanced view of the nature of cultural distance itself (e.g., Shenkar, 2001b) and its implications for expatriate adjustment (e.g., Jenkins & Mockaitis, 2010; Selmer, Chiu, & Shenkar, 2007b). In their chapter, Baum and Isidor focus on the cultural context of the expatriate experience and contribute importantly to this more recent line of inquiry. Most notably, they explain how underestimation, motivation, and support, and complexity effects may result in a non-linear relationship between cultural distance and expatriate adjustment. In addition, they describe the ways in which cultural tightness and cultural attractiveness may influence how cultural distance affects the adjustment of expatriates.

From a US perspective, these ideas have great resonance. Indeed, US researchers have a tendency to rely on expatriate samples that are largely comprised of American workers sent on overseas assignments in Europe, Asia, and Latin America (e.g., Bolino & Feldman, 2000a). However, as shown by Selmer et al. (2007b), the implications of cultural distance are not always symmetric, and thus, the effects of cultural distance on workers sent from the USA to Europe are not necessarily equivalent to the effects of cultural distance on workers sent from Europe to the USA. Baum and Isidor’s conceptual model and theorizing, then, offer some variables that should help organizational researchers worldwide to better understand the effects of cultural distance by accounting for cultural tightness and attractiveness. Indeed, considering these variables may not only help explain the inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between cultural distance and expatriate adjustment (as highlighted by the authors) but may also help explain the asymmetric effects of cultural distance observed in prior studies (e.g., Selmer et al., 2007b) and the finding that expatriates’ perceptions of cultural distance are not always consistent with more objective measures (Jenkins & Mockaitis, 2010).

Baum and Isidor also describe some interesting and potentially important avenues for future research that provide a good foundation for additional investigations. As they point out, working in a more culturally distant environment is typically associated with increased costs. Although this is true in the short run, it would be interesting to consider the possible long-term benefits that accrue to workers who spend significant time in a culturally distant environment, which may offset these short run costs. Indeed, international assignees in culturally distant countries may develop knowledge, skills, and abilities that enable them to be more effective throughout their time overseas, and perhaps more importantly, when they repatriate to their home country. Further, while it may be more challenging for the expatriate, it is also possible that the greater the cultural distance they confront, the more rapidly expatriates are able to develop the cross-cultural skills that may facilitate career success going forward.

Likewise, while Baum and Isidor note that subsidiaries in countries with low cultural distance tend to outperform subsidiaries with higher cultural distance, it would be interesting to explore the possibility that transnational organizations may be able to learn more from their culturally distant subsidiaries than from those that are less distant. The authors’ calls for thinking about cultural distance in new and different ways are on the mark. Cultural attractiveness is a key variable in their model that, to date, has received little research attention. Examining this construct in a thoughtful way and determining how cultural attractiveness can be integrated into existing models of expatriate (and repatriate) adjustment would also be worthwhile. Finally, it would also be useful to integrate the authors’ conceptual model with existing models of expatriate adjustment, such as Takeuchi’s (2010) multiple stakeholder model of expatriate adjustment. Doing so would provide a more complete understanding of how these variables may complement, contradict, or interact in affecting the adjustment of expatriates.