THE ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE IN THE HOST COUNTRY’S LANGUAGE: A UNIVERSAL SKILL REQUIREMENT FOR ENHANCING CONFIDENCE AMONG EXPATRIATE ACADEMICS

This paper highlights the association of language use skills with self-confidence as a contributing factor to the determination of expatriate self-adaptability in a foreign cultural environment. The objective of this study was to examine whether the skills of using the local language of the host country are considered as a universal skill requirement for improvisation and self-skills among expatriate academics in Malaysian Public Universities. Utilisation of qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews on 35 lecturers with international staff status in four Malaysian Public Universities which were subsequently processed by inductive analysis for dominant and subdominant thematic classifications. The findings prove that the informants utilised language proficiency as a backup to recognise their ability to respond to external stimuli, thus producing positive value to themselves. The proactive process is done by trying to find answers to change and self-transformation while in a foreign country. Studies linking the elements of confidence and self-identity skills among expatriates are often highlighted, but the approach taken is to put the advantage to be utilised on the part of the organisation and not expatriates as the subject of the study. Therefore, the results of this study fulfil the search for answers regarding their identity as an expatriate, including exploring foreign cultures, releasing the culture of the country of origin, developing a network of contacts and assessing their potential and ability to deal with the challenges of life abroad. The direction of future research refers to the addition of value in the expatriate management literature by making basic concepts of interaction such as language proficiency as an element capable of increasing self-confidence and sketching the career development of self-initiated expatriates.

Expatriate Management of Emerging Market Multinational Enterprises: A Multiple Case Study Approach

Expatriate management has evolved through the practices of developed economy multinational enterprises (DMNEs), with the aim of improving expatriate adaptability, cross-cultural adjustment, and performance. However, most of these studies focus on expatriates from developed countries and try to help DMNEs instead of emerging market MNEs (EMNEs). In a turbulent global economy, how EMNEs manage their expatriates when conducting business through their outward foreign direct investment (FDI) is understudied. This empirical study aims to address this research gap by utilising a qualitative approach and a multiple case study. It has conducted semi-structured interviews with expatriates, executives, and middle managers of Chinese MNEs in 2014. It contributes as one of the few to systematically examine expatriate related issues in the context of EMNEs with first-hand empirical evidence. The findings show that EMNEs are leapfrogging with their internationalisation and hence their expatriate policies are often ad hoc without systematic planning. Moreover, this study has contributed to practice, especially to EMNEs, regarding the way they need to improve their expatriate policies and practices.

Pidgin play: Linguistic subversion on Chinese-run construction sites in Ethiopia

The Chinese-run construction sites that have emerged across the Ethiopian landscape over the past two decades have given rise to a pidgin—a contact language that facilitates communication between Chinese managers and the Ethiopian labourers under their direction. By unravelling the nature of this pidgin, including its lexicon, syntax, and semantics, this article discusses the power dynamics in Ethiopian–Chinese encounters through the lens of language. A prototypical contact language at first blush, the pidgin spoken on Chinese road projects in Ethiopia is different from pidgins that emerged in colonial Africa. Its structure and use reveal that power relations between Chinese management and Ethiopian rank and file are less asymmetrical than often portrayed. As a site of contestation as much as collaboration, pidgin has in fact become one of the domains in which power is negotiated. By hijacking words and manipulating their meanings, Ethiopian workers play with pidgin in an attempt to confront expatriate management and challenge the sociopolitical asymmetries that the growing Chinese presence in their country has brought forth.

Challenges Faced by the Repatriates and their Subsequent Impact on Repatriates’ Satisfaction

Objective: Through decades repatriation has been the most ignored and a problematic phase of the Expatriate Management Cycle (EMC). Expatriates when returning back to their home country are referred as Repatriates and this returning phase is known as Repatriation phase of the Expatriate Management Cycle. This Repatriation phase is mainly the unplanned stage where organizational managers make the mistake. They certainly believe that the repatriates are returning back to their home and wrongly assumes that there will be no complications or challenges for these repatriates on their arrival back to home country. This strategic lack results in the immense dissatisfaction of these repatriates soon after arrival to the home county. Our aim is to provide a detailed study on the process of repatriation by identifying the challenges that are faced by the repatriates on their arrival to the home country and to oversee their subsequent impact on their job performance. Methodology: Data was collected through primary means using convenience sampling method through various organizations and of 300 respondents 186 were filtered out to be analyzed using different statistical techniques on SPSS. Result: There exist a significant negative relationship between all the identified challenges faced by the repatriates and their job satisfaction level Implication: At the end of the research some recommendations were also proposed for the organizational managers to overcome these challenges. This piece of research can not only be used by the researchers for their research work but can also be based by the organizational managers to formulate their repatriation strategies.

When does emotional intelligence function better in enhancing expatriates' cross-cultural adjustment? A study of Japanese PCNs in Malaysia

PurposeAs globalization expands opportunities for foreign investments, the role of expatriates is becoming important for business success in host countries. Cross-cultural adjustment (CCA) of expatriates is considered significant in determining business success in host countries. This study investigated the issue among Japanese expatriates in Malaysia. The purposes of this study were to unravel the influence of emotional intelligence (EI) on CCA and clarify the facilitating role of cultural intelligence (CI) on the relationship between EI and CCA.Design/methodology/approachA survey was administered to 107 Japanese parent country nationals (PCNs) working at Japanese subsidiaries in Malaysia.FindingsThe findings show that EI positively influences the subdimensions of CCA, namely, CCA–general, CCA–social and CCA–work. A notable finding is that CI facilitates the positive effect of EI on CCA–social.Research implicationsThe findings advance the existing studies on expatriate management by delving into the CCA issue with two culturally distinctive countries that have rarely been studied in this research domain, Japan and Malaysia. This study further contributes to prior studies by clarifying a boundary condition in which EI functions better in enhancing expatriates' CCA.Practical implicationsThe findings provide Japanese multinational corporations (MNCs) valuable directions and strategic ideas in the realm of expatriate management. Such insights can contribute to business success in host countries.Originality/valueDiverting from the conventional West–East approach in expatriate management studies, this study took an East–East orientation and explored the relationships among EI, CI and CCA. By proving that CI stimulates the positive effect of EI on CCA, this study underlines the significantly interactive effects of two distinctive individual capabilities on enhancing expatriates' CCA. It further highlights that CI should take on importance in attempts to understand CCA, even in seemingly culturally similar East–East nations.

Expatriate management in hostile environments from a multi-stakeholder perspective – a systematic review

PurposeThe successful management of business expatriates and their families in hostile environments (HE) is a current concern for academics and human resources (HR) practitioners alike. Terrorism and other forms of violent crime have become salient topics on the public agenda, and international organizations are increasingly affected. Hence, scholarly interest in the HR implications for organizations sending staff to HEs has recently grown, and a nascent research area has emerged. This paper is the first systematic review synthesizing emerging literature in the field of expatriate management in HEs and its theoretical foundations, applying a multi-stakeholder perspective.Design/methodology/approachFollowing accepted review procedures, systematic searches were conducted across three major databases. Manual search in target journals provided additional scrutiny.FindingsAfter analysing 28 articles, four main stakeholders were identified as follows: environments, expatriates, assigning organizations and the expatriates' social networks. Findings reveal the ways of how all stakeholders can affect expatiation success or be affected so that the success of the assignment is jeopardised.Originality/valueOur paper illustrates how these diverse articles can be linked within a comprehensive multi-stakeholder framework and provides avenues for future research. We also shift attention to neglected theoretical perspectives that might further improve the understanding of expatriates in HEs while offering actionable guidance for managerial and organizational practices.

Experimental research in expatriation and its challenges: A literature review and recommendations

Via a systematic literature review, this article draws attention to the alarming scarcity of experimental studies and the ensuing shortness of evidence for causality in the field of expatriate management. Only 17 articles could be identified, published over more than 20 years, which utilize randomized experiments or quasi-experiments on topics of expatriation. Moreover, these articles show specific patterns, such as dealing exclusively with pre-departure and on-assignment issues, or, in their majority, sampling individuals who interact with expatriates rather than expatriates themselves. This lack of experimental studies is problematic, as it is difficult to establish causality between different variables without conducting experimental studies. Yet many critical issues in expatriation are precisely questions of causality. Hence, in this article, we provide resources to help move the expatriation field toward a more balanced use of different research methodologies and, thus, a greater understanding of the many relationships uncovered in past research. First, we identify four main challenges unique to conducting experimental research in the context of expatriation: Challenging data access, global sample dispersion, restricted manipulability of variables, and cultural boundedness of constructs and interpretations. Second, we provide strategies to overcome these challenges, based on studies included in the review as well as taking ideas from neighboring fields such as cross-cultural psychology. The article concludes with a discussion of how experimental research can take the field of expatriation forward and improve the decision-making process of practitioners managing international assignees.

Cultural and Emotional Intelligence: It’s Role in the Cross-Cultural Adjustment of Filipino Expatriates in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

With the rise of globalization, labor migration is estimated to increase in the future as developed countries will experience shortages in skills of certain age brackets of the working population, thus, requiring more migrant labor in order to address this gap. Filipinos represent a considerable number of expatriates around the world. By 2018, there were 2.3 million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), and 24.3 % (558,900) of them worked in Saudi Arabia. These expatriates pursue economic opportunities in the Kingdom due to better job prospects and higher earning potential despite the cross-cultural adjustment challenges. This study aims to explore the influence of Cultural and Emotional intelligence in the cross-cultural adjustment of Filipino expatriates in Saudi Arabia. A survey was conducted on 483 male OFWs, both descriptive and correlational research methods were used to test the hypotheses. Correlation results showed the significant positive associations with moderately strong correlations between cultural intelligence (CQ) and the cross-cultural adjustment of Filipino expatriates in Saudi Arabia. Behavioral and motivational CQ could significantly predict the cross-cultural adjustment of Filipino expatriates. Emotional intelligence (EQ) and the expatriate Filipino’s cross-cultural adjustment in Saudi Arabia showed significant association, with Appraisal and Recognition of Emotion in Others as its strongest predictor. The Filipino expatriates’ status, first time or seasoned, significantly moderated the association between EQ factors and their cross-cultural adjustment degree. This study suggests that high CQ and EQ levels along with previous experience with the host country could serve well as important considerations in international careers. This paper contributes a new perspective to the literature on Filipino expatriate management and cross-cultural adjustment.