Social Support and Life‐Domain Interactions among Assigned and Self‐Initiated Expatriates

Abstract

Based upon conservation of resources theory, this study is the first to explore (1) the relations between life‐domain support received by internationally mobile employees (IMEs) from their organization, supervisors, coworkers, and family and friends and their life‐domain conflicts and enrichments in two directions: work life → personal life (WL → PL) and personal life → work life (PL → WL) and (2) whether these links are different between assigned expatriates (AEs) and self‐initiated expatriates (SIEs). The questionnaire data were collected from 182 SIEs and 102 AEs. Results from multivariate analyses show that (1) the more IMEs perceive receiving life‐domain support from their family and friends and their organization, the less they report life‐domain conflicts and (2) the more IMEs perceive receiving life‐domain support from their coworkers, the more they report life‐domain enrichments. Finally, it appears that AEs' perceived life‐domain organizational support is positively related to their perceived WL → PL enrichments and that SIEs' perceived life‐domain coworker support is negatively related to their life‐domain conflicts in both directions.