Migrant Acculturation and the Workplace

Abstract

Berry's (1997; 2001) migrant acculturation theory has emerged as one of the more prominent theoretical frameworks to shed light on the patterned dynamics characterising the experience of migrants - regardless of country of origin or country of settlement. For Berry (2001, p. 621) ‘acculturation’ refers to the process of psychological change in a person (the migrant) resulting from contact and involvement with representatives of other cultures (usually and typically the host country culture). It invariably entails relinquishing elements of the person's culture of origin (‘culture shedding’) and adopting and internalising elements of the host country culture (‘culture learning’). Adjustment to the host culture is a function of those situations and incidents where the migrant interfaces with representatives of the host culture i.e. social contexts/settings. Acculturation, being a consequence of social encounters through which migrant integration and absorption into the (host) community is ‘achieved’, occurs when the migrant, for example, participates in sport, religious and/or other community-based activities. It is through these social encounters that the migrant becomes aware of (’learns’) about culture... own culture of origin and other or host culture and detects similarities and differences relative to his/her expectations about the host culture. It is also at this stage that unanticipated or under-acknowledged features of the host culture would induce ‘culture shock’. Drawing on the work of several scholars, Brown and Holloway (2008, p. 34) defines ‘culture shock’ as “…anxiety that results from losing the familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse, and their substitution by other cues that are strange” – a phenomenon therefor firmly rooted in the social more so than the physical context. In as much as the community and the neighbourhood (as social context) are primary drivers of migrant acculturation that may facilitate or constrain acculturation, so too does the work setting serve as a supportive or constraining social context. For those migrants who secure some form of employment relatively early in their settlement in the host country, the work setting becomes a proxy for ‘community’ by virtue of its social character and dynamics, with the difference that the focus and nature of social relationships are framed by the fundamental purpose of the institution, the nature of work to be performed, the dependence relationship between employer and employee, as well as the very clear power relationships (and power differentials) that characterise and inform organisational functioning and hence direct employee behaviour in the workplace. It is consequently a natural extension of acculturation theory to posit that the workplace would facilitate but potentially also constrain migrant acculturation and adjustment in his/her adopted country. It can be further argued that because of the heightened significance of work and working to the migrant (cf. Matejicek, 2008), the workplace will assume a far more prominent position as an acculturation context than may be generally acknowledged. Some support for this line of reasoning is suggested, for example, in work with expatriates that found that perceived organisational support directly impacted on expatriate adjustment and consequently expatriate performance (Kraimer et al., 2001).