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Cosmopolitanism, Assignment Duration, and Expatriate Adjustment: The Trade-Off between Well-Being and Performance

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Author Info
Amir Grinstein (Guilford Glazer School of Business and Management, Ben Gurion University of the Negev)
Luc Wathieu (ESMT European School of Management and Technology)
Abstract

This paper questions the notion that expatriates should adjust to their host country, by showing that adjustment and its consequences are affected by cosmopolitanism and expected assignment duration. A study of 260 expatriates in the U.S. reveals that cosmopolitans expecting shorter (longer) assignments adjust more (less) to both work and non-work aspects of their host country, and that this is associated with increased well-being. In contrast, for non-cosmopolitans, more well-being occurs when longer (shorter) expected assignments are accompanied by increased (decreased) work and non-work adjustment. Further, from the findings emerges a clash between two aspects of successful expatriation - well-being and professional success: while non-work adjustment is not always associated with well-being, work adjustment is positively related to assignment performance across conditions and subjects.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by ESMT European School of Management and Technology in its series ESMT Research Working Papers with number ESMT-08-011.

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Length: 24 pages
Date of creation: 09 Dec 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:esm:wpaper:esmt-08-011

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Related research
Keywords: Expatriates; international assignment; cosmopolitanism; crossculture adjustment; multinational corporations; preference persistence; assignment duration; survey method;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D23 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations - - - Organizational Behavior; Transaction Costs; Property Rights

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This page was last updated on 2009-12-2.

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