The role of regulatory focus and its influence on the cultural distance –

Adjustment relationship for expatriate managers

Avi Silbiger a , Bradley R. Barnes b , Ron Berger c,d,* , Douglas W.S. Renwick
Journal of Business Research

This study attempts to evaluate the relationship between expatriate adjustment and
cultural distance by drawing upon the theory of regulatory focus. The findings of the
research indicate that the relationship between cultural distance and expatriate
adjustment is more technical and intricate as it otherwise may seem to appear. As this
study uses the regulatory focus to explain the relationship between the two, the RF is
found to be moderating the relationship.

The study is carried out by collecting the data from 223 expatriate Israeli managers
working in 34 different countries. In particular, the findings disclose that promotion-
focused expatriates appear to manage interaction adjustment better than prevention-
focused individuals and the effect of cultural distance on general adjustment is not
significant for promotion-focused expats. Practical implications for RF theory and
expatriate management practices are gathered from the study and several possibilities
are recommended for future research.
When do host country nationals help expatriates? The roles of identification with
the multinational enterprise and career development support by the subsidiary
Sachiko Yamaoa,⁎ , Toru Yoshikawab , Daejeong Choic , Soo Min Tohd

Various researches prove that the successful assignment completion by expatriates is

extremely vital for MNEs. One of the factors that lead to success or failure of expatriates
is the role of host country nationals (HCNs). HCN can play a crucial role in expatriate
adjustment by offering them local knowledge and social support leading towards better
job performance. This paper adapts a novel strategy of evaluating the role of HCN and
their attempt to help expatriates through the constructs of MNE identification and
subsidiary’s career development support.

This study has examined the roles of the host country nationals (HCNs)' identification
with the MNE and perceptions of subsidiary's career development support as key
factors in explaining the HCNs' decisions to provide help to expatriates. By drawing
upon social identity theory, the research shows that the HCNs identification with MNE
and subsidiary career development support are positively related to their extra role
helping behavior towards expatriates. The data is collected from the 572 HCNs working
in different MNEs of Australia, China, India and Singapore.
 The influence of individual, family, and social capital factors on expatriate
adjustment and performance: The moderating effect of psychology contract and
organizational support Li-Yueh Lee a,⇑ , Nurullaily Kartika b

This research is conducted to get more understanding about the antecedents and
consequences of expatriate adjustment. Expatriate adjustment is a very important factor
for the expatriate and for the organization. As prior studies have explained that family,
individual, and social capital factors significantly related to expatriate adjustment, but
these studies did not integrate the antecedents and consequences of expatriate
adjustment into a more comprehensive research model. Therefore, this study aims to
integrate relevant research streams into a more comprehensive model of expatriate
adjustment and empirically test the viability of the model. The results of this study
illustrated that expatriates with higher emotional intelligence, cultural intelligence, and
experience abroad can adjust more easily in the new work environment. Also, family
support and family adaptability have positive influence on expatriate adjustment.
Expatriates who had prior experiences on parental demand and family to work conflict
tend to be able to manage these problems more easily. Furthermore, social capital and
mentoring behavior are also important factors that can enhance the success of
expatriate adjustment which could further influence expatriate performance, innovative
work behavior, knowledge transfer, and organizational performance. Finally, this study
also identified that psychological contract and organizational support as two important
moderators that can enhance expatriate adjustment and success.
 Cross-cultural adjustment of expatriates: The role of emotional intelligence and
gender Alexei Koveshnikov a, *, Heidi Wechtler b , Cecile Dejoux c

The study evaluates the experiences of 269 French expatriates working in 133 countries
by testing the relationship between Emotional Intelligence (EI) on Cross Cultural
Adjustment (CCA) of expatriates. The research finds out a strong positive relationship
between EI and expatriates’ general living, interactional and work-related CCA. The
study reveals an interesting insight on the role of gender as a moderator between the
two variables i.e. EI and CCA.

EI has much more profound corresponding impacts than the two control variables and
gender taken together. In line with what we argued, the analysis confirmed our key
hypotheses, showing that high levels of all three adaptive abilities of EI appear to be
conducive to better general, interactional and work-related CCA. However, it also
revealed that, although all are significant, different abilities of EItend to be related to a
different degree to the three dimensions of CCA. For instance, utilization of emotions
seems to be positively and most strongly related to all three dimensions of CCA with the
largest magnitude. Overall, we conclude that the ability to utilize emotions for problem
solving is the most influential and universal EI ability in facilitating all three dimensions
of expatriates’ CCA. It means that flexibility, innovativeness, creativity, and motivation–
all qualities associated with the ability to utilize emotions – appear to be conducive to
better expatriate CCA. The other two dimensions were also found to be important but to
a lesser extent.
The roles of cross-cultural adjustment and social capital formation in the dynamic
capabilities development of multiunit organizations

There is little emphasis in the literature on the relationship between social capital and
dynamic capabilities (DCs) development, and little attention has been paid to how
cross-cultural adjustment and social capital affect DC development in multiunit
organizations. This study used a multiunit sample of 455 to examine the roles of cross-
cultural adjustment and social capital formation in DC development in multiunit
organizations. The results showed that two facets of cross-cultural adjustment (i.e.,
general adjustment and work adjustment) are important antecedents of social capital
formation among expatriate managers; moreover, social capital formation plays a
pivotal and essential role in DC development in multiunit organizations. This study
contributes to the literature in two important ways. First, it identifies a new central role of
social capital formation in enabling DC development. Second, it shows that general
adjustment and work adjustment are important antecedents to social capital formation
and to DC development in multiunit organizations.