Domains of Expatriate Adjustment with Special Emphasis ... - CiteSeerX

Domains of expatriate adjustment with special emphasis on work

Arno Haslberger Webster University Vienna, Austria & Ashridge Business School, UK (corresponding author) Berchtoldgasse 1 1220 Vienna Austria +43 676 9211794 [email protected]

Chris Brewster Henley Management College, UK & University of Reading, UK

Paper presented at the Cadiz University’s VI. International Workshop on Human Resource Management, Jerez, Spain, May 2007

Ashridge Business School

http://www.ashridge.org.uk

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INTRODUCTION

The continuing expansion of international trade has been accompanied by a growth in the number of expatriate assignments. Recent reports from consultancies (GMAC, 2006; Mercer, 2006) show substantial persistent growth in the numbers of people sent abroad by their organization. A key issue in the literature devoted to understanding the situation of these employees is their adjustment to their new environment.

Expatriate adjustment has typically been conceived of as involving three domains: adjustment to the overseas workplace, adjustment to interacting with host nationals and adjustment to the general overseas environment. These three facets of adjustment formed the core around which Black, Mendenhall and Oddou (1991) developed their model of international adjustment. The model was very successful and triggered numerous studies that used it as the theoretical underpinning. A 2003 meta-analytic review of 42 studies was based on the three-facet conceptualisation of adjustment (Hechanova, Beehr, & Christiansen, 2003). In 2005 a meta-analytic review of 66 studies found support for the Black et al. model and suggested some extensions to incorporate newest findings in expatriate research (Bhaskar-Shrinivas, Harrison, Shaffer, & Luk, 2005).

Despite the huge advance that has been made in our understanding of expatriate adjustment by this body of work, it has been suggested that these factors are not theoretically discrete or coherent and were, indeed, developed statistically rather than theoretically (Hippler, 2000; Stahl & Caligiuri, 2005; Suutari & Brewster, 1999;



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Thomas & Lazarova, 2006). Others have suggested that other factors need to be included: for example, Janssens (1992) suggested that emotional adjustment is missing from the Black et al formulation. This paper explores the notion of expatriate adjustment and argues for a more comprehensive view of the topic.

This paper, therefore, proposes a systematic structure to analysing adjustment domains and discusses the implications of such a structuring of domains. It focuses on work as an especially important domain of expatriate adjustment. The paper addresses, first, the link between adjustment and performance; second, the difficulties and considerations to be taken into account when defining “good performance”; and third, perceptual and interpretive issues in expatriate performance appraisal arising from country- and organisation-cultural differences of assessors. A model of this more comprehensive theory is proposed and propositions for empirical research are suggested.

ADJUSTMENT DOMAINS

We need to start with a brief word on definitions. Adjustment, adaptation, and acculturation are often used interchangeably in the literature to mean the process and result of change induced in individuals by the move into an unfamiliar cultural environment (Aycan, 1997; Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005; Black & Mendenhall, 1990, 1991; Church, 1982; Evans, Pucik, & Barsoux, 2002; Grove & Torbiörn, 1985; Kim, 1988; Kim & Gudykunst, 1988a; Schütz, 1944; Taft, 1977; Ward, Okura, Kennedy, & Kojima, 1998; Yamazaki & Kayes, 2004). Acculturation implies the wholesale adoption of another culture which, in the time they spend in any particular country, is unlikely to



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happen to expatriates. We can make a distinction between adjustment, resulting in minor changes to cope with new situations, and adaptation, which indicates large-scale change and major re-alignment following a serious crisis (Patterson, 1988; 2002). Most expatriates will manage to cope with the changes an international move entails. Only a small number will suffer a crisis resulting major re-alignment. Hence we will use adjustment as the standard term.

The adjustment literature, following Black and Stephens (1989) distinguished three facets of interaction, general and work adjustment. Recently, researchers using this structuring of domains have renamed the general adjustment facet as cultural adjustment “to better reflect the variable’s reference to host-country cultural conditions” (Harrison & Shaffer, 2005: 1457). The distinction of different facets is important because each of the facets is related to different sets of variables, some of which overlap whilst others are unique. Some variables are directly related with adjustment, while others mediate. Similarly, the adjustment facets are related to different outcome variables such as performance, commitment and intent to leave (see: Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005; Hechanova et al., 2003 for meta-analytic evidence).

People play different roles in different domains. An individual expatriate may be a senior VP of a subsidiary, but they may also be a wife, a mother, a junior member of a sports club or a choir. In each of the domains people have multiple roles (Marks & MacDermid, 1996). The question arises as to how fine-grained the distinctions should be to provide enough analytical power while preserving parsimony. The three facets common in the expatriate literature are empirically derived, based on Black’s (1988)



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measurement approach, and may be an artefact of the scale used (Stahl et al., 2005; Suutari et al., 1999; Thomas et al., 2006). While the use of three facets has served expatriate research well, it is time to use a more systematic structuring of domains.

We therefore apply a structure that has been used successfully in immigration research. Navas et al. (2005; 2007) distinguish six domains relevant in the acculturation of immigrants: politics and government (we call this systems of public order to reflect rules of conduct such as traffic laws); work; economic, including consumption of goods and services; social relations; family relations; ideology, which includes two subdivisions: ways of thinking, principles and values on the one side and religious beliefs and customs on the other (we call this culture because it includes much of what culture indicators measure (Hofstede, 1984; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004)). One of the goals of this article is to show that this more refined structuring of domains helps our analytical understanding of expatriate adjustment and thus helps to guide research in this area. Adjustment approaches of immigrants differ by domain. “The division into domains of acculturation provides a richer, more precise perspective of the way in which immigrants face their own acculturation process, compared to the classical models” (Navas et al., 2007: 83) The six domains are listed in order of increasing resistance to change. Immigrants are most likely to assimilate to the system of structuring public life and public order and are least likely to adjust their religious beliefs and value systems, i.e. they try to remain separate from the host society in these domains (Navas et al., 2007). The ordering of domains by difficulty has also been found in studies using the three common facets (Takeuchi, Yun, & Russell, 2002). An increasing resistance to adjustment by domain also implies that adjustment may happen



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at differing speeds such that expatriates will adjust quickest and deepest to systems of public order and slowest to ideology, such as ways of thinking. The latter falls into the realm of underlying assumptions (Schein, 1984), i.e. things that are hard to articulate yet are deeply ingrained and influence how we approach other people. Hall (1966), for example, provides an illustration how people’s intuitive relation to space differs considerably by culture. Adjustment in this area may be all but impossible during the relatively short duration of an expatriate assignment.

The following discussion explores the domains and links them to the three Black et al. facets.

Systems of public order (politics and government) Parts of the systems of public order domain, such as involvement in politics and government, may appear to be of little relevance for most expatriate employees. Still, expatriates are subject to other parts of the system of public order such as rules of conduct or traffic ordinances and will, in all likelihood, adjust without much resistance or any serious difficulty. Adjustment to the system of public order is largely a question of knowing how to act and behave. There are exceptions to exclusion from the political system: within the European Union, for example, expatriates from other EU countries are eligible to vote in local elections and therefore potentially involved. In some countries, expatriate executives have high-level government contacts, people who they can influence and who sometimes even ask for advice in setting economic policies. Diplomats, finally, are expatriates whose job entails participation in the political sphere. prima facie, this domain would appear to be included in the general adjustment facet in



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the business literature, but a closer look at the items in Black and Stephens’ (1989) scale reveals that this is not the case. This domain, therefore, is not reflected in most existing research on expatriate adjustment.

Work We will discuss the work domain in some detail later. This domain is captured by the three items of Black and Stephens’ (1989) work facet. School attendance is the equivalent of work for children of expatriates.

Economics Navas et al. (2005: 28) include in this domain “sharing goods produced, economic transactions and consumer habits (e.g., items purchased, money spent and saved, ways of managing income, etc.).” For expatriates the sharing of goods produced has different relevance than for immigrants. Expatriate employees may do this as part of their job. Therefore, for them the sharing of goods would be covered as part of the work domain. For accompanying partners, the selling of own goods may be relevant. Sometimes partners set up an independent business or work on a free-lance basis. One of the most common professional activities for native English speakers is to offer language lessons, for example. Other economic activities are relevant for all expatriates. Two areas gain particular importance early on: one concerns daily transactions such as shopping for groceries. Issues may arise around store opening hours, availability of staple or familiar items, or “learning new ways of shopping for goods and obtaining services” (Gilly, 1995: 506). Gilly (1995) mentions, for example, that Americans in Madrid had to get used to more frequent grocery shopping trips, partly because there was less room for



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storage and partly because of the perishability of food items. The second area is related to restaurants. Standard meal times and restaurant practices vary considerably. Many a European on a first visit to an American restaurant felt rushed and unwelcome when the waiting staff put their bill on the table shortly after serving the meals. While visitors to some continental European restaurants had to learn patience because getting the bill can take considerable time, even after the meal is finished and everybody is ready to go. For the most part, adjustment to the economic area meets with little resistance because it is not near and dear to people’s hearts. But adjusting to changed meal times or an altered frequency to grocery shopping is probably harder to accept than not to jay walk, which belongs to the domain of public order. The literature on daily hassles covers some of the challenges encountered in this domain (Braun, 1989; DeLongis, Folkman, & Lazarus, 1988; Reich, Parrella, & Filstead, 1988; Ruffin, 1993; Wu & Lam, 1993).

The economic domain overlaps with parts of the general adjustment facet. It also includes activities that are covered by Black and Stephens’ (1989) interaction adjustment.

Social relations The domain of social relations is separate from day-to-day activities. Here the focus is on the establishment of networks, neighbourhood contacts and friendships. Cultures differ on how to establish friendships and the meaning attributed to various steps in the process. Americans are more likely than Europeans to invite people over to their homes. For Europeans such an invitation may indicate a developing friendship, while for Americans it may just be the polite thing to do. Missing one’s friends from back home



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is one of the defining elements of culture shock (Oberg, 1960). Navas et al. (2007) show that immigrants were reluctant to assimilate or integrate into the host society, even while they did so relatively easily in the first three domains. Immigrants tended to follow a separation strategy, i.e. to maintain their original society’s approach to forming social relations.

Black and Stephens’ (1989) scale includes one item in interaction adjustment referring to this separate domain. As a result, the social relations domain is poorly covered by existing research on expatriates.

Family relations Family relations is not included in the business literature as a separate domain, but is researched in terms of crossover among expatriate and partner adjustment (Takeuchi, Yun, & Tesluk, 2002; Van der Zee, Ali, & Salomé, 2005) and as spillover (Caligiuri, Hyland, & Bross, 1998; Takeuchi et al., 2002). Inclusion as a separate domain allows the consideration of schooling and child rearing practices, e.g. how much control are parents expected to exert over their children in public, how should they discipline their children or what extra-curricular activities are available for children. It also allows a more systematic inclusion of work-family/family-work conflict, the role of the partner in business events such as evening entertainment (Nash, 1969) and gender roles in general. In line with Navas et al.’s (2007) findings for immigrants, expatriates will probably resist adjustment to the local norms. This is possible in most circumstances within the home and under some circumstances outside. The extent to which it is possible in public depends on the tolerance of the host society for deviations in accepted



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behaviour (Triandis, 1980). Some countries have strict rules about the public interaction among the sexes that can hardly be avoided. A restaurant dinner with children in a place where “children are to be seen but not to be heard” can be a challenge.

Culture (ideology) The two sub-domains in the ideological domain refer to elements of culture. Values are at the heart of the main operationalisations of culture in business studies (Hofstede, 1984; House et al., 2004; Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987; Trompenaars, 1993). For expatriate studies ideology as a single domain will suffice, since the relatively short duration of expatriate assignments will not lead to any adjustment differences in the two subdomains. Expatriation studies do not identify culture as a separate domain. Harrison and Shaffer’s (2005) suggestion to rename the general adjustment facet cultural adjustment recognizes the value of a separate domain. But doing so based on Black and Stephens’ (1989) scale confounds rather than clarifies the picture because general adjustment cuts across several of the domains identified here. In addition, studies using the scale normally identify cultural novelty as an independent variable (Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005; Ward, Bochner, & Furnham, 2001) that influences adjustment to the three facets. Since results for cultural differences as a variable in expatriate studies are mixed, inclusion of culture/ideology as a separate domain will lead to increased clarity.

The culture domain as defined here is likely to be most difficult to adjust to because it involves the deeper layers of culture (Schein, 1984), which makes it hard to observe, learn and control, and because people are least likely to want to change in this respect. A study of mono- and bi-cultural Americans and Germans living in both countries



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found that the bi-cultural subjects more strongly identified with their own nationality than the mono-cultural ones and saw themselves as more different to the other nationality (Kosmitzki, 1996). Evidence from immigrant studies shows that people’s values converge over time with the majority culture (Kincaid, 1988). But this convergence is not a simple process of successively replacing original value structures with the new majority ones. Rather, an complex integration takes place that results in a third value structure that does not lie on a straight line between original and new culture (Szalay & Inn, 1988).

As stated earlier, Takeuchi et al. (2002) found an ordering of facets by difficulty using the Black and Stephens (1989) scale. In their study interaction adjustment was most difficult and general adjustment easiest for participating Japanese expatriates. This is in line with the ordering of the domains presented here. But it disagrees with Harrison and Shaffer’s (2005) renaming of the general facet into cultural.

Utilizing the domains Studies on expatriate adjustment have recognized that some variables affect all the facets of adjustment whilst others affect only one or a few. A theory of expatriate adjustment that uses the domains described here will have to define which independent variables are salient for adjustment to each. Given the salience of different variables and the varying pace of adjustment to the different domains, it is understandable that the socalled “U-curve” hypothesis has found little support in research (Black et al., 1991; Ward et al., 1998; Ying, 2005). It is common knowledge that individuals going through important transitions tend to follow an adjustment pattern suggesting a U-curve



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(Bridges, 2004). Common knowledge, of course, is often wrong (Burger & Starbird, 2005). In the absence of a purely logical case against a U-curve and in recognition of the shortcomings in the theoretical basis and empirical measurement of expatriate adjustment, it seems appropriate to attempt to refine our theoretical picture before abandoning the idea altogether. The domain perspective offered here might be a way forward.

SPILLOVER BETWEEN DOMAINS

Some of the salient variables influencing the adjustment process differ by domain. Domain-specific variables and adjustment outcomes spill over from one domain into another. Takeuchi et al. (2002) found that general adjustment of expatriate employees was significantly related to work adjustment, which in turn was related to interaction adjustment. Similarly, Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al. (2005) found in their meta-analysis that work variables such as role clarity, role discretion, and co-worker support had mild effects on non-work adjustment domains. The expatriate literature has investigated the spillover1 among work and family domains (Caligiuri et al., 1998; Shaffer & Harrison, 1998; Shaffer, Harrison, Gilley, & Luk, 2001; Takeuchi et al., 2002). This is based on an extensive literature of work-family and family-work interference (Adams, King, & King, 1996; Bacharach, Bamberger, & Conley, 1991; Crouter, 1984; Edwards & Rothbard, 2000; Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985; Thomas & Ganster, 1995). The recent emphasis in domestic research on mutual enrichment of work and family domains

1

There is an extensive literature on crossover among expatriate and accompanying partner. Considerations of crossover are excluded from this article



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(Geurts et al., 2005; Greenhaus & Powell, 2006; Rothbard, 2001) has not been reflected yet in the expatriate literature.

The systematic analytical distinction of the six domains suggested here helps in the development of research questions and hypotheses and ensures that all aspects of expatriate adjustment are covered. A few clarifications are necessary before we can focus our discussion on spillover effects. First of all, spillover has to be distinguished from crossover. Spillover takes an individual and investigates how adjustment levels in different domains are interrelated and how variables resident in one domain influence adjustment outcomes in another. Spillover links domains. Crossover, on the other hand, links two or more people (see Figure 1). Crossover research focuses on how adjustmentrelevant variables or adjustment outcomes of one individual within a shared domain influence adjustment outcomes of another.

Domain A (separate)

Domain B (separate) SPILLOVER

EXPATRIATE

PARTNER

SPILLOVER

Domain C (shared)

Domain C (shared)

CROSSOVER

Figure 1: Spillover versus crossover



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Domains may be shared by partners to differing extents. The family domain is shared to a large extent. The domain of social relations is shared to some extent among partners but includes separate social circles as well. The work domains of partners working in different companies are probably completely separate. In reality, cross- and spillover go hand in hand in many cases. The term “spillover” is used here as a catch-all for linkages between domains. This is in line with the expatriate literature. But it must be pointed out that the literature linking work and family has developed a more fine-grained picture. Edwards and Rothbard (2000) in a detailed analysis of linking mechanisms have identified the following general categories: spillover, compensation, segmentation, resource drain, congruence, and work-family conflict. The authors distinguish direct, indirect and spurious relationships, each of which may be intentional or unintentional. These distinctions will be useful for researchers developing models for expatriate adjustment in different domains. At this point, we want to give only a few examples of how the six domains may be linked. Table 1 shows some adjustment-enhancing and restraining links from each domain into each other. Note that these spillover effects are not necessarily restricted to expatriate assignments. The linkages may be in the behavioural, cognitive or affective dimension. For example, effective behaviours for interaction with members of the host society learned at work and fostering work adjustment may be applied in the economic domain, thus enhancing adjustment to that domain as well. Knowledge and cognitive confidence gained from interactions with local neighbours may enhance adjustment to working with local staff members. Positive emotions and moods from successful adjustment to the new family role may make an accompanying partner more receptive to the differing value sets and ways of thinking prevalent in the local culture. Of course, these linkages work not only for the



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enhancement but also for the restraint of adjustment. The examples given represent positive relationships with good adjustment in one domain improving adjustment in another. There are also negative linkages, for example if good adjustment to work leads to a shift of attention and time resources from family to work impairing adjustment to the former (Edwards et al., 2000). A detailed analysis of all linkages in Table 1 will uncover effects that are relevant only for some expatriates or members of an expatriate family and not for others. Two obvious ones are the absence of the family domain for a single expatriate or of the work domain for a non-working partner. Children’s domains are different, too, since their “work” domain is school with its own unique spillover linkages. Domains may not be equally important and therefore influential for different people. For some expatriates, shopping for familiar items is more critical than for others. Personality variables will influence the salience of domains. Similarly, the characteristics of the host society will have an influence. For example, the level of tolerance for deviations from standards differs from country to country. The system of public order gained considerable importance for American and British expatriates in Germany, when they learned that there are strictly enforced quiet times during the day, for example restricting the times when the lawn mower could be operated on weekends.2 This fact made adjustment to public order more difficult and also linked to cultural adjustment because it made the affected expatriates less willing to look favourably on German value sets in general.

2

Personal example based on the experience of one of the authors.



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Effect on Public order Cause Public order

---

Work

Enhanced knowledge about rules / company practices counter to public order

Economics

Negligible

Social

Enhanced knowledge about rules / among expatriate community mutual reinforcement in breaking rules not shared

Family

Negligible

Culture

Deep knowledge of public order / questioning of and resistance to rules

Work

Economics

Social

Family

Culture

Enabler for adjustment in other domains, e.g. driving, getting around, standing in line / potentially serious consequences, if poorly adjusted i.e. breaking the law --Company Increased Work-family Increased / support network / enrichment / decreased measures competing for inference willingness for helpful in time (extensive value finding goods literature in convergence and services / existence) poorly designed remuneration packages undermine obtaining needed goods and services Improved --Improved / Enhanced / Influences effectiveness in reduced ability decreased experienced work-related to entertain and ability to fulfil magnitude of restaurant visits build network certain family cultural etc. / roles differences; distraction, if improves / difficulty reduces obtaining availability of desired goods comfort zones and services Informal Enhanced ---Relief from Positive coaching on knowledge family issues / contacts with work issues / about product partner missing hosts reducing reinforcement availability friends as perceived of stereotypes trigger for cultural about local staff arguments distance / expatriate community distancing itself from local culture Family-work Reduced / Improved / --Increased / enrichment / increased reduced ability decreased interference pressure to find to build openness to get (extensive familiar networks exposure to literature in products culture existence) Enhanced Increased / Improved Increased / --interaction with decreased ability to build decreased local contacts / satisfaction local networks / family strain clashes with with available remain in depending on local staff products expatriate how other environmental members adjust bubble to culture

Table 1: Some possible spillover effects

The different domains may vary in character and, therefore, in how they influence others: the family domain may be more affective, enhancing or restraining adjustment in other domains by way of overall mood. Other domains such as work or social relations may be more balanced between affective, cognitive and behavioural dimensions.



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These are some of the considerations necessary before theorizing on domains of expatriate adjustment and their linkages can commence. The extensive literature on the interface between work and family shows the many possibilities. Some of the cells in Table 1 may, after careful reflection, remain left blank or at least only specified in rough terms because they are not sufficiently relevant to warrant further detailed investigation.

Expatriation researchers may also find that other domains not included in Table 1 are relevant. Relations to the home office, for example, might be conceived as a separate sub-domain in work. The issues of dual allegiance and extent of adjustment to the host society are important (Black & Gregersen, 1992; Brewster, 1993, 1995) and could be analyzed from such a perspective.

WORK

Adjustment and work performance Work is a domain that warrants special attention. It is the reason for the expatriate assignment in the first place. The expectation is that highly adjusted expatriate employees perform well at work (Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005). Yet, some scholars find that the relationship is weak and sometimes non-existent (Thomas et al., 2006). Empirical research on the link between adjustment and performance is scant and the relationship moderated by other variables such as job satisfaction, organisational commitment and strain (Hechanova et al., 2003). Results sometimes depend on the conceptualization of both adjustment and performance, and their facets. Kraimer,



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Wayne, and Jaworski (2001), for example, found that work adjustment influenced task performance while interaction adjustment influenced contextual performance, i.e. the cross-cultural aspects of the expatriate’s job. With the same data set Kraimer and Wayne (2004) performed further analyses, which show that a conceptualization of adjustment as one-dimensional rather than by domains has less analytical power. The authors found that an adjustment measure that combined work, interaction and general adjustment had no significant impact on either task performance or contextual performance. It only had a marginally significant (p < .05) influence on the intention to quit the assignment, a measure that was not reported on in the earlier article (Kraimer et al., 2001). In a study that confirmed outcome measures via supervisor and spouse ratings Harrison and Shaffer (2005) found intricately mediated effects of adjustment facets on performance variables. The authors offer a simplified summary of their results that suggests that general/cultural adjustment is related to early return and return cognitions; work adjustment influences task completion via task neglect and avoidance; and interaction adjustment impacts relationship building mediated by interactions with subordinates and the time to get proficient on the job. In a rare longitudinal investigation, Takeuchi, Wang and Marinova (2005) found that self-rated work adjustment was positively related to performance ratings by supervisors a year later. General adjustment, on the other hand, had no significant impact. Psychological strain at work had strong significant relationships with both work and general adjustment. Strain also had a non-linear relationship with performance such that performance was highest at medium strain levels and lowest at high levels of strain.



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The link between adjustment in various domains and work performance has not been investigated much and results so far do not indicate easily interpretable or predictable links. The reason for this is rooted first in the fact that the science of performance measurement is still developing. This shows in a multitude of models with many different dimensions (Viswesvaran & Ones, 2000). Second, measurement models of necessity have to balance generality of application against exactness of fit. The less-job specific the model, the less precise performance measurement can be. Third, adjustment as a concept is still developing and measurement of adjustment is still in its infancy. Fourth, we do not have a theoretical understanding of how and why variables mediate or moderate the adjustment-performance link. So far, all we have are empirical results showing that intervening variables exist. Fifth, dimensions used in domestic performance ratings might be confounded with what are regarded as adjustment outcomes in expatriate studies. A meta-analytic study of performance ratings, for example, used the following ten dimensions, which were derived from 486 performance measures in the literature: overall job performance, productivity, quality, leadership, communication

competence,

administrative

competence,

effort,

interpersonal

competence, job knowledge, compliance with or acceptance of authority (Viswesvaran et al., 2000; Viswesvaran, Ones, & Schmidt, 1996). At the very least, communication competence and interpersonal competence are linked with cross-cultural adjustment. One might even argue that adjustment equals performance in these dimensions. There is a need to develop a model of expatriate performance that is comprehensive on the one side, yet makes clear the role of adjustment on the other. It might be best to go back to the basic definition of work performance as a function of abilities, opportunity and motivation (Boxall & Purcell, 2003). Abilities and motivation are inherently linked to



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adjustment; and opportunity may be. If the definition of work performance as an effective one holds for expatriate employees, adjustment plays a role. If, as some authors appear to suggest, expatriate adjustment outcomes and work performance are unrelated, then the definition of work performance in general, domestic or abroad, requires a revision.

Further challenges in the measurement of expatriate performance arise from difficulties in defining what constitutes good performance, and from perceptual differences based on cultural differences of raters, even if performance objectives are set. These two issues are explored next.

“Good” performance Defining “good performance” is notoriously difficult (e.g. Milkovich & Boudreau, 1997; Milkovich & Newman, 2005). It normally involves the setting of objectives via agreement between employee and superior. But employees as well as managers complain about the subjectivity of the process. The link between individual performance ratings and organizational outcomes is often tentative. Since performance ratings are tied to a variety of rewards, any shortcomings in the setting of performance goals may have unwanted effects as implied by the phrase: “you get what you reward.”

The definition of good performance varies with the purpose of the assignment. There are different classifications of assignments by purpose (e.g. Edström & Galbraith, 1994; Evans et al., 2002). Expatriates may be assigned to fill an immediate organizational need of limited duration such as providing expertise lacking locally for the duration of a



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project, solving a problem or crisis, developing one’s own or local talent, setting up a local operation, or integrating an acquisition. There are also open-ended reasons for the expatriate

presence

abroad

such

as

exerting

corporate

control,

facilitating

communication, transferring knowledge and developing global mindsets within the organization. This short listing of assignment purposes indicates the myriad of possibilities of what might constitute good performance. Different purposes may even lead to opposing definitions. When setting up a local operation, full identification with and adjustment to it may be the optimum, although not necessarily so. If the purpose of the assignment is corporate control, good performance may require a certain distance to the local operation and strong allegiance with the head office (Brewster, 1993, 1995). In the first case, “going native” may be quite effective and indicative of good performance, in the second case in would indicate poor performance, perhaps even total failure in the assignment. It is evident that these two different work performance requirements will also relate to different expectations regarding the other domains. In the former case, for example, the expatriate would have to develop social relations with members of the host culture in service of a better understanding of local conditions and increased effectiveness in setting up the operation. In the case of corporate control, a wellperforming expatriate might largely restrict social relations outside of work to the expatriate community. Similar considerations apply to the other domains.

Perception of “good” performance In the global arena, cultural differences influence not only the definition of good performance but also how a given type of work behaviour is perceived, i.e. whether it is seen as an indicator of good or poor performance. One or two dimensions of cultural



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differences refer to the individualism-collectivism continuum (Hofstede, 1984; House et al., 2004). Societies high on collectivism are more likely to appreciate team performance, while those high on individualism value individual effort. Therefore, the perception of a given performance by an expatriate may vary by individual assessor depending on his or her cultural background. Variation in individual perspectives is, of course, an issue in performance appraisals in general (Viswesvaran et al., 1996). But it is even more pronounced and difficult to manage when cultural differences and varying allegiances of the assessors come into play. For example, an expatriate’s performance may be appraised by a home office executive of the same nationality as the expatriate and by a local executive. The former’s allegiance is likely to be stronger with head office, while the latter’s likely to be stronger with the local operation. On top of that the two executives may also view performance outcomes differently because of organisation-cultural differences. Expatriate studies that include performance variables are rare; ones that use performance ratings by supervisors are even rarer. But to gain a valid picture of expatriate performance we need to go even a step further: we need to capture the cultural background of the assessors and, ideally, have multiple raters from various cultures. This is a high order. But until then, we cannot be sure about our findings regarding the link between expatriate adjustment and work performance.

CONCLUSION

Research on expatriation has so far failed to establish a comprehensive picture of adjustment and been unable to link adjustment to performance. Given the complexity of defining and measuring performance, it may well be that it is impossible to research the



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antecedents of performance. A key issue is that in most cases organizations will be expecting their expatriates to meet several different objectives. Research on the performance issue may have to concentrate on partial or proxy measures.

It will not be possible to link adjustment to even those partial or proxy measures of performance without a more comprehensive understanding of adjustment. Future research in this area will need to be cognizant of a fuller range of domains of adjustment than research has managed hitherto. It will be important to develop measures for adjustment in these various domains. It will also be important to ensure that those measures are applied on a temporal basis: adjustment is a process and not an event. The process will apply at different speeds in the different domains and the impact of spillover and crossover will complicate this picture even further.

We have probably got as far as we can with simple, single-point-in-time surveys of expatriate adjustment. If we are to get a fuller understanding of expatriate adjustment then we will need more complex, longer-term and closely observed research methodologies.



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