Expat Adjustment

Conceptually, an ‘expatriate’ is a voluntary, temporary migrant who resides abroad for a

particular purpose and ultimately goes back to his or her home country (Cohen, 1977).

‘Adjustment’ is the degree of a person’s psychological comfort with a variety of aspects

of a new environment (Black, 1988; Nicholson, 1984). Scholars use the term ‘expatriate

adjustment’ to refer to a process through which an expatriate comes to feel comfortable

with a new environment and harmonizes with it. One of the major challenges to

expatriate adjustment is overcoming cultural barriers. That is to say, an expatriate must

accommodate his or her attitudes/behaviours to fit into the new culture in order to

increase effectiveness.

The process of an expatriate’s adjustment to a new culture is complex, and it involves

a reduction of acculturative stress (Barry et al., 1987), a gradual amelioration of a deficit

in social skills (Furnham, 1987), a realignment of expectations to fit a new reality

(Earley, 1987), or even sometimes a personal odyssey culminating in a philosophical

shift in world view (Yoshikawa, 1987). Black and his colleagues (Black, 1988; Black and

Gregersen, 1991; Black et al., 1991) have proposed a three-dimensional view of

expatriate adjustment: (1) work adjustment – adjustment to job responsibilities,

supervision, and performance expectations; (2) interaction adjustment – adjustment to

socializing and speaking with nationals of the host country; and (3) general living

adjustment – adjustment to housing, food, shopping, etc. To date, Black et al.’s threedimensional

model has received much empirical support (e.g. Parker and McEvoy, 1993;

Shaffer et al., 1999). For instance, Shaffer et al.’s (1999) study provided evidence of the

three dimensions of adjustment and found that job factors are antecedents of expatriate

adjustment. Shaffer et al. argued that it was the role clarity of the international jobs that

facilitated expatriate adjustment. However, in...