The Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Expatriate Adjustment: An Empirical Study

Abstract

The study examines the role of emotional intelligence (EI) in expatriate adjustment (EA) of expatriates on international assignments and survey collected based on a sample of 170 expatriates who are currently staying in Malaysia. Previous scholar defined EI as the recognise of non-cognitive psychological aspects intervening in human behaviour. Several researchers have identified a significant correlation between the cognitive and emotional components of people’s intelligence, and how its influence effectively on achieving all sorts of goals in any area of human behaviour. Thus, in majority, the successful of companies’ international business activities rely on the level of expatriates’ adjustment to the host country such as in physically and mentally way. Therefore, this study utilised multiple hierarchical regression to analyse the data and thereby to test the effects of EI on expatriate adjustment. The findings reveal that Self-Emotion Appraisal (SEA) of EI has a positive influence on expatriate adjustment. Secondly, ability of Others-Emotions Appraisal (OEA) also found a positive influence on expatriate adjustment. However, there was no positive influence for Use of Emotion (UOE) and Regulation of Emotion (ROE) on expatriate adjustment. Hence, the findings indicate the importance of EI practices as well as practical implication to international firms especially in selection and hiring of international candidates.