<p>In a world where the economies of more countries interact with each other, many companies are depending on produc-tion, sales and R&D outside their national boundaries. In line with this, the performance of expatriates has become crucial. Foreign postings for executives are, however, costly undertak-ings for multinational corporations, especially when they fail. Hence the acculturation of an expatriate to the host country is a highly relevant topic. The research on expatriate accultura-tion to a host country has changed substantially over the past few years. Yet to date, the majority of research has been focus-ing on male expatriates. The purpose of this paper is to exam-ine whether there are any differences between male and female expatriates, and the impact of partner accompaniment on their adjustment to the host country. An exploratory multiple-case study has been made and data has been collected through a survey of the expatriates of three major multinational corpora-tions. Five propositions have been formulated and verified. The contribution of this paper is to illuminate the presumptive differences between male and female expatriation.</p>

The present study proposes a significant role for host country nationals (HCNs) in the expatriate adjustment process. Based on self-categorizaton theory, newcomer socialization research, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) research, and models of expatriate adjustment, I present a model proposing how social categorization processes influence HCNs' willingness to engage in adjustment-facilitating organizational citizenship behaviors (AOCBs). I further propose that these behaviors have a significant impact on expatriates' adjustment and in turn, other important job-related outcomes of the expatriate. Hypotheses were tested on 115 expatriates and 53 HCNs. Expatriates were contacted directly or via an organizational contact. HCNs were either contacted directly or nominated by their expatriate counterpart to participate in the study. Results reveal support for the main tenets of the model. The willingness to engage in AOCBs was related to outgroup categorization, collectivism, and perceptions of justice. Social support provided by HCNs was found to significantly relate to HCNs' perceptions of their expatriate co-worker's adjustment. Expatriates, however, indicated that spousal adjustment and language ability were more important for their own adjustment. Adjustment was related to other key expatriate outcomes. The research and managerial implications of these results are discussed.

In a world where the economies of more countries interact with each other, many companies are depending on produc-tion, sales and R&amp;D outside their national boundaries. In line with this, the performance of expatriates has become crucial. Foreign postings for executives are, however, costly undertak-ings for multinational corporations, especially when they fail. Hence the acculturation of an expatriate to the host country is a highly relevant topic. The research on expatriate accultura-tion to a host country has changed substantially over the past few years. Yet to date, the majority of research has been focus-ing on male expatriates. The purpose of this paper is to exam-ine whether there are any differences between male and female expatriates, and the impact of partner accompaniment on their adjustment to the host country. An exploratory multiple-case study has been made and data has been collected through a survey of the expatriates of three major multinational corpora-tions. Five propositions have been formulated and verified. The contribution of this paper is to illuminate the presumptive differences between male and female expatriation.

This study investigates which out of seven predetermined factors influence the social adjustment of expatriates at a decentralized EU institution. Much of the existing literature that deals with expatriate adjustment departs from the assumption that the expatriates are entering an organization which is greatly influenced by the culture and customs of the country in which it is located, and that the expatriate is in minority in terms of nationality. In the decentralized EU institutions on the other hand (1) the culture of the organization and host country are markedly different from each other, and (2) the organization consists of mostly expatriates rather than host country nationals. Three sources of data are used; secondary sources, questionnaires and interviews. The results show that all seven factors which were investigated to some extent influenced social adjustment. The unique nature of the decentralized EU institutions could be the reason to why organizational cultural novelty was perceived as more important for interaction adjustment and general cultural novelty more important for general adjustment. The unique nature also could also be the reason to the negative relationship between spouse adjustment and general adjustment, possibly because the expatriate families are more inclined to live in an international "bubble" when both work and social connections are multicultural.

This paper investigates how expatriates experience that their knowledge gained from international assignments is transferred and exploited by the MNC. The results from 93 expatriates from eleven Large Cap companies suggest that knowledge is not exploited trough formal mechanisms. Instead informal mechanisms of knowledge transfer such as networks and own initiatives seem to be a more common way of transferring and exploiting knowledge in the investigated MNCs. The findings indicate that the knowledge that the expatriates that failed their mission abroad gained is not exploited to the same extent as the expatriates that successfully completed their assignments.

Denna uppsats undersöker de rums- och identitets(re)konstruktioner som sker i mötet med De Andra. Semistrukturerade djupintervjuer med elva personer som har erfarenhet av arbete i postkolonial miljö – i detta fall Tanzania - samt platsobservation av ett så kallat ”expatriate community” ger empiri som analyseras med en dekonstruktiv intersektionell ansats. Studien visar att identitetsmarkörer korsas och skapar identitets(re)konstruktioner. Processen framkallar det objekt som inte tillhör det egna Jaget och skapar ett Dem – samtidigt som det sker omförhandlingar beträffande hemlandet och dess invånare. Det uppstår både ett avståndstagande och ett närmande till det som ses som ”svenskt” eller ”skandinaviskt”. Representationer skapas och förhandlingar sker mellan lokalbefolkning och expatriates men även inom den vita gruppen, baserat på faktorer som utbildning, ålder, inkomst, familjekonstellation, tid i landet och yrkestillhörighet. Detta påverkar rummet – i form av sociala rum såväl som konkreta platser. En slutsats är att intersektionalitet är ett användbart instrument för att se hur olika identitetsmarkörer (re)konstrueras i tid och rum – att vara ”vit” och ”svensk” är inte samma sak ”här” som ”där”. Den svenska kolonin i Tanzania kan inte ses som en homogen grupp, varvid denna studie bidrar till ökad förståelse för den diversitet som präglar den privilegierade transnationella arbetskraften – expatriates.

In an era of increasing competition, many organizations seek growth through expansion into foreign markets. And it means there is more and more growth in need of the organizations to transfer skills and develop organizational staff. The use of expatriate is an important human resource option which enables skill transfer and the development of new market. There are more interactions between Taiwan and Mainland China with the rapid growth economics in Mainland China in the recent years. It still has the difference in designing the expatriate compensation compared to the western theory due to the similar history background, culture and language. This study is to explore how the design of the expatriate compensation affects the willingness of expatriation in the case of the Taiwanese expatriates to Mainland China. It tends to understand the company and employee¡¦s view through the questionnaire in the design of the expatriate compensation. Furthermore, it will try to understand the future trend and development of the expatriate compensation from Taiwan to Mainland China.

Becoming Expatriate Entrepreneurs: A Phenomenological Exploration of Entrepreneuring in Taiwan The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of an important but under-researched domain of expatriate entrepreneurs¡¦ lived-experience. Heideggerian existential-phenomenology of being-in-the-world was explored as an alternative, departing from the dominant mainstream economic, personality, and behavioral perspectives in entrepreneurship and migration research. Through the phenomenological inquiry, four themes emerged from the expatriate entrepreneurs cases in Taiwan. These intriguing themes are a) adapting and engaging in the local context by enterprising, b) entrepreneuring as brokering in diverse contexts, c) the mutuality of business ventures: Co-creating with the localpreneurs, and d) constructing an entrepreneurial identity, which contribute to both migration and entrepreneurship research. Furthermore, it is proposed that the expatriate entrepreneurial becoming could be understood as situated entrepreneuring which illustrates connecting past and present, connecting to the new context, and also connecting to the material world. Finally, Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications, as well as potential areas for the pursuit of a wide array of further inquires in the field of expatriate, migration and entrepreneurship, are identified. . Keywords: Expatriate Entrepreneur, Migration, Phenomenology, Lived Experience, Situated Entrepreneuring, Taiwan

This study discusses an activity competency model (ACM) which was utilized to investigate the perceived importance of managerial activities and skills/knowledge required of three management levels of Multi-national Corporation (MNC) under cross culture working environment in Middle Eastern area country. The 177 samples of this study collected mainly on different level of mangers from seven oil; petrochemical manufacturing industries and six service industries such as financial companies; bank and trade companies. Many quantitative methods, including factor analysis, one-way ANOVA, t-test, data correlation were utilized to test the hypothesis of this research. The major findings of this study are summarized as following: (1) the importance of MNC managerial activities varies significantly for both different levels of management and different industries. (2) the most important managerial three skills; communication, persuasiveness and coordination skill; planning and organizing skill; leadership skill are all identical in each management level and industry type as well. (3) it is very diversity in terms of cross-relationship between managerial skill and activity. (4) it is more concern on diversity of culture for lower management level than for upper level due to frequent personal contact and communication. The results of this study have implications for MNC management development, training, and management career planning. They can also serve as a guideline for recruiting or dispatching the capable expatriate manager for international business enterprise.

With the intensified competition in the world¡¦s economy, the globalization of business has become the only way to ensure its growth. At the same time, expatriates actually play a very important role. Moreover, as global operations increase, so does the emphasis on adaptability outside the home country for expatriates. Experience has indicated that the problem of adaptability for expatriates is Work-Family Conflict. The fact reveals the important of research on expatriate¡¦s leadership and effectiveness. Over the last decade and a half, transformational leadership with its emphasis on vision, development of the individual empowerment and challenging traditional assumptions has become a popular model of leadership in business organizations. It means that transformational leadership in organizational settings has undergone a significant evolution in terms of both theory development and empirical investigations. In the area of transformational leadership, much attention has been given to Bass and Avolio¡¦s research. Bass and Avolio proposed that transformational leadership comprises four dimensions ¡V the ¡§Four I¡¦s¡¨ ¡G1.Charismatic Leadership 2.Inspirational Motivation 3.Intellectural Stimulation 4.Individualized Consideration. Transformational leadership is different from the traditional command-and-control approach (transactional leadership). Transactional leadership is based on bureaucratic authority and legitimacy within the organization. Transactional leaders emphasize work standards and task-oriented goals. In addition, Transactional leaders tend to focus on task completion and employee compliance, and these leaders rely quite heavily on organizational rewards and punishments to influence employee performance. On the other hand, transformational leaders motivate followers by appealing to higher ideals and moral values. Transformational leaders must be able to define and articulate a vision for their organizations, and the followers must accept the credibility of the leader. In the managerial practices, a transformational leader must: 1.Setting a good personal example, move quick and decisively. 2.Develop and communicate a vision and a plan. 3.Releasing the potential of everyone involved in the change to help them to rise to the challenge. 4.Create productive working conditions, provide employees continuous skill development and encourage them rapid learning and adaptation. Another important article of organizational behavior is organizational commitment. Organizational commitment has been seen as one of the most important variables in the study of management and organizational behavior in the last three decades. One of the key reasons is that organizational commitment is highly correlated with turnover intentions, which have an important effect on employees¡¦ behaviors. Therefore, both organizational commitment and turnover intentions are important employee attitudes in maintaining a productive workforce. In addition, many researches have indicated that job satisfaction and organizational commitment are all significant correlates of organizational citizenship behavior. Today¡¦s competitive business environment demands employees who are good citizens- individuals willing to extend themselves to help coworkers and their employers. Organizational citizenship behavior is expressed in actions that show an unselfish concern for the welfare of others. A recent study found that the extent to which employees engage in ¡§good organizational citizenship behavior¡¨ is just as important as their productivity in advancing their careers. Good behavior includes: 1.altruism 2.courtesy 3.civic virtue. In this study, we use transformational leadership as independent variables, organizational commitment as intermediate variables and organizational citizenship behavior as dependent variables. The purpose of this research is mainly to find out the relationship and difference among transformational leadership, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. Using a sample of multinational companies who have subsidiaries operating in Taiwan, we test a set of hypotheses among the variables. Then, the effective questionnaires have been analyzed by factor analysis, descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and Pearson correlation. The results of this research indicated that: 1. Individual variables do have significant difference on transformational leadership, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. 2. Transformational leadership has positive relation with organizational commitment. 3. Transformational leadership has positive relation with organizational citizenship behavior. 4. Organizational commitment has positive relation with organizational citizenship behavior. 5. Transformational leadership and organizational commitment have positive relation with organizational citizenship behavior. The organizational commitment is the important key to enhance the positive relation between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. According to the results, some suggestions are made for both industries and further researchers in this field. 1. To the industries: Leaders must emphasize the transformational leadership¡¦s skill, in order to increase employees¡¦ organizational commitment and present organizational citizenship behavior. 2. To the further researchers: ¡]1¡^To research the relationship between ethics and transformational leadership. ¡]2¡^To research the relationship and difference of cross-culture among transformational leadership, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior. Key word: Expatriate, Transformational Leadership, Organizational Commitment, Organizational Citizenship Behavior.