Introduction

Abstract

The rapid economic surge of China at the beginning of the twenty-first century has meant that intercultural interactions between people from China and the rest of the world have been deepened and broadened. Intercultural business communication in China is no longer confined to negotiations or business visits. More and more people from other countries are working in China, some in multinational or Sino-foreign companies, some in indigenous Chinese institutions or organizations, some sent by their organizations on overseas assignments, and some on self-initiated expatriation (Doherty et al., 2013). Borrowing Richardson and McKenna’s (2002) definition, ‘expatriates’ are defined as management professional and technical staff who live and work in a foreign country on a temporary basis, but normally for more than one year. This study originates in an indigenous but also multicultural workplace in China. The expatriate participants in this study were all working in this Chinese organization at the time of data collection, either on self-initiated expatriation or on overseas assignment sent by the organization’s business partners. Expatriates working in the indigenous organizations may have very different experiences than those working in multinational and Sino-foreign equivalents. This may not be surprising as workplaces will bear deep marks of the unique social, economic, and political systems as well as the rich historical and cultural legacy of the country.