Expatriate social interactions and psychological well-being are two underemphasized areas in expatriate literature. This paper revisits the expatriate adjustment construct and proposes a definition from interactive perspective for expatriate adjustment. Expatriate adjustment is defined, in this study, as a process in which the expatriate interacts with the social aspects of the local environment to obtain psychological well-being. In turn, an expatriate's psychological well-being at one point in time will influence his/her next interactions in the local environment. Based on the proposed definition of expatriate adjustment and supported by literatures of sociology and psychology, a research model and hypotheses are developed. The research model predicts that expatriate network structural characteristics will influence expatriate perceived social support and further influence expatriate psychological well-being and performance. The influence of social support on expatriate psychological well-being and performance is predicted to be moderated by cultural distance, role characteristics and locus of control of expatriates. Spousal support is another immediate factor that will influence expatriate psychological well-being. In order to empirically test this research model, two pilot studies and one main study were conducted. The purpose of Pilot Study 1 was to develop network structural characteristic measurement and social support measurement. Pilot Study 2 was conducted to test the measurement developed in Pilot Study 1 and check the workability of the whole questionnaire. The main survey was conducted in China. Expatriates from North America, Europe, and other countries and regions in Asia were sampled to complete the questionnaire. The data collected were analyzed to test the hypotheses. The results show significant support for the proposed model. Expatriate network structural characteristics have both direct and indirect influence on expatriate psychological well-
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.37912 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Wang, Xiaoyun, 1964- |
| Contributors | Jaeger, A. M. (advisor), Kanungo, R. N. (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Faculty of Management.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001846774, proquestno: NQ75685, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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