Psychological Availability between Self-Initiated Expatriates and Host Country Nationals during Their Adjustment: The Moderating Role of Supportive Supervisor Relations.

Milad Jannesari,Boyang Zheng,Jacob McCall,Zhongming Wang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02049

Milad Jannesari, Boyang Zheng + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02049

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Abstract

This research examined the role of psychological availability as a means of psychological engagement between self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) and their host-country nationals (HCNs) colleagues during their work and interaction adjustment. To reveal this process, this study presented the concept of psychological availability, which refers to an individual’s belief that they are physically, cognitively, and emotionally ready or confident to engage the self with their colleagues, as a mediator between proactive personality and adjustment. Also, it investigated the relationship between proactive personality and psychological availability and how it was moderated by supportive supervisor relations. We hypothesized, this relationship would be weakened/strengthened when SIEs and HCNs received low/high level of support from their supervisor. This study was conducted as a quantitative study, data was used from 342 SIEs and 342 HCNs working in mainland China. Our finding supported the hypothesis that psychological availability mediated the relationship between proactive personality and their adjustment to an international work environment; in addition, the relationship between proactive personality and psychological availability would be stronger when the level of superiors relations support is high between SIEs and HCNs. This study demonstrated the value of proactive personality as an antecedent effect and supportive supervisor relations as a moderating effect, and investigated how these factors can lead to a sense of psychological availability and boost psychological engagement between SIEs and HCNs in order to improve the adjustment between them.

Highlights

Due to the increasing globalization of work environments and enhanced competition between global organizations, the spread of expatriates’ assignments to enable global growth is increasing among global organization (Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2016)
We found the indirect effect of proactive personality on work adjustment through psychological availability from self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) samples was (Effect = 0.29, Boot SE = 0.07, 95%CI [0.168, 0.475]), (Sobel z = 4.39, p < 0.00), indicating a full mediation; We found indirect effect of proactive personality on interaction adjustment through psychological availability (Effect = 0.37, Boot SE = 0.08, 95%CI [0.217, 0.548]), (Sobel z = 5.12, p < 0.00), indicating a full mediation
We found the indirect effect of proactive personality on work and interaction adjustment through psychological availability host-country nationals (HCNs)’s samples was (Effect = 0.24, Boot SE = 0.10, 95%CI [0.094, 0.525]), (Sobel z = 2.84, p < 0.00) and (Effect = 0.25, Boot SE = 0.13, 95%CI [0.032, 0.573]), (Sobel z = 2.20, p < 0.01), respectively

Summary

Introduction

Due to the increasing globalization of work environments and enhanced competition between global organizations, the spread of expatriates’ assignments to enable global growth is increasing among global organization (Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2016). One of the areas that has caught the attention of international human resource managers is the adjustment of Psychological Availability and Adjustment their expatriates to their new situation (Zhang and Dodgson, 2007; Fee et al, 2013; Ren et al, 2014) They are coming to realize how they should develop relationships during the adjustment between their expatriates and their local personnel to maintain their competitive advantages (Chen et al, 2002; Toh and DeNisi, 2005; Luo, 2016). A SIE is defined as a person who independently chooses to expatriate (Suutari and Brewster, 2000) Their expatriation experiences are riskier than corporate expatriates who are sponsored by organizations to take an international assignment for a specific time and prepared for better interaction with their HCNs colleagues who are from different cultural backgrounds (Peltokorpi and Froese, 2009). Another reason to focus on SIEs is that they are more vulnerable during their adjustment with their local colleagues than traditional organizational expatriates who are selected and trained by headquarters to be ready for this adjustment to their new cultural work situation (Doherty and Dickmann, 2013)

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