Expatriate Academics Research Articles

Managing Faculty in Transnational Higher Education: Expatriate Academics at International Branch Campuses

The purpose of this research is to identify the challenges and issues associated with managing expatriate academics at international branch campuses, and to analyze the strategies that have been, or could be, implemented to overcome these challenges and issues. The data used in this study came from an online survey questionnaire that was completed by 14 individuals holding a senior or middle management position at an international branch campus. The survey participants unanimously reported that expatriate academics tend to be highly motivated and committed, and that they are largely satisfied with their jobs. However, many individuals do have issues with adjustment to the new country, to work differences, and to interacting with others. The participants offered a range of suggestions and recommendations that may help institutions to better support expatriate academics employed at international branch campuses. The suggested actions need to be implemented prior to the new recruit’s arrival in the host country, during the induction period, and on an ongoing basis.

Measuring Multicultural Effectiveness among Self-Initiated Academic Expatriates in Malaysia

Being an academic entity, universities offer a distinct environment with different missions and work tasks as compared to business organizations. Thus far only a minimal amount of investigation has embarked on self-initiated expatriates in the academic field. Therefore, the main aim of the research is to investigate the adjustment of this group of expatriates by focusing on the relationships between multicultural personality skills and the academic expatriates’ personal, professional and social adjustment by utilizing the multicultural personality scale (MPQ). The MPQ consists of five dimensions - cultural empathy, open-mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability and flexibility. Besides MPQ constructs, the study also examines the relationship between language ability and the expatriates’ personal, social and professional adjustment. One-hundred and one questionnaires were distributed to self-initiated academic expatriates (N=101) attached to various academic departments in UUM. Results revealed that open-mindedness and flexibility are significantly related to the expatriates’ personal adjustment, while cultural empathy, emotional stability and flexibility are significantly related to social adjustment. Flexibility is the only dimension of MPQ that predicts academic expatriates’ professional adjustment. Language skills on the other hand, do not show any significant relationship with all three types of adjustments. Apart from the results, the discussions and limitations of the study are also presented in the paper. Keywords: Cross-cultural adjustment , expatriate adjustment, organizational expatriates, self-initiated academic expatriates, multicultural personality questionnaire.

Expatriate academics and managing diversity: a Korean host university’s perspective

Interest in the careers of expatriate academics has rapidly grown in recent years. The specified organizational and cultural norms to which a host-university expects expatriate academics to conform, however, have been left largely unexplored. A conjoined question, too, is whether or not the university is successfully managing for diversity. The present research therefore examines input from six senior managers at a leading Korean university, finding that it has its own expectations for expatriate academics although these expectations are not formally codified. The case university does not expect outstanding research from them because of acknowledged limitations in the research environment. Managers are satisfied with the teaching of expatriate academics with caveats, but their participation in service activities is a perceived challenge. This, language deficiency, and absences over paid term breaks diminish ‘we-ness’ and positive perceptions of expatriate faculty. Change, however, may come in time. For now, some colleges and departments may be defending the status quo rather than pursuing true ‘Leadership Practices for Diversity,’ but there are nonetheless positive developments in some academic units; expatriate academics are making their way up the ranks, and university level initiatives suggest that more change could be around the corner.

Expatriate academics in Malaysia: motivation, adjustment, and retention

PurposeExisting studies on expatriate academics (EAs) are primarily set in advanced-country settings, thus overlooking the EA experience in developing and emerging markets. With this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the motivating factors behind EAs taking up jobs in Malaysia, and their adjustment and retention experiences in their host country.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 EAs working in four public universities in Malaysia.FindingsAmong the chief motivating factors for expatriation were familiarity with the country, the perceived desirable cultural/religious environment, and favourable research environment. Adjustment-wise, there was something of a mixed experience, with most adjusting well socially, but many citing disappointment with work. Such sentiment has contributed to reducing retention plans among several of the respondents.Originality/valueThe study explores the EA experience in the context of an emerging market. At present much of the literature focuses on EAs working in advanced economies. This paper indicates that the motivation, adjustment, and retention cognition of EAs in emerging markets may not be entirely consistent with what previous studies have suggested.

Inclusive management in international organizations

PurposeA growing number of academics relocate abroad to work as expatriates in the university sector. While this employee group seems to have a highly constructive influence on the performance of university organizations, some problems in relation to effective inclusion of these individuals have been noted. In order to further advance the theoretical understanding regarding integration efforts in international university organizations, the purpose of this paper is to explore how two types of inclusive management, empowering management (identity-blind) vs English management communication (identity-conscious), affect local and expatriate academics.Design/methodology/approachUsing responses generated from a survey of 792 local and 620 expatriate academics, this paper assesses the effects of inclusive management on job engagement and stress among the two groups.FindingsThe results show that one type of inclusive management, empowering management (identity-blind), has a favorable influence on job engagement and stress in both subsamples. The other type, English management communication (identity-conscious), increases stress for local academics but has no effect on the expatriates. These findings are useful for theory development in relation to employee inclusion in international organizations.Originality/valueThe authors have little knowledge about how inclusive management functions in international organizations. Testing the effect of identity-blind and identity-conscious inclusive management practices among two different groups of local and expatriate academics provides new insight to this area. In particular, the use of English management communication provides new knowledge on the integration of majority and minority groups in international organizations.

Factors affecting Happiness of Expatriate Academicians and Expatriate Non-Academicians in Dubai.

The research measures the levels of happiness of expatriate academicians in selected Dubai universities and compares them with happiness levels of non-academic people.
 A face to face interview followed by a cross-sectional survey was used as a method to collect data from teaching staff from different universities in Dubai and also from the random public working in different business sectors in Dubai.?
 Happiness is significanlty related to the other factors. There is no significant relationship between knowledge sharing and happiness of academics and well as non-academics.
 The sample size of the academic group and the study targeted at the population of Dubai city only.
 The discoveries of the research give helpful recommendations to the administration of Universities to provide better knowledge sharing opportunities among their teaching faculty to improve their happiness levels. It will also provide recommendations for a developmental purpose to University of Dubai and UAE’s “Happiness and Positivity program”.
 There is no known research that studies the determinants of happiness for academics with non-academics in the UAE.
 Keywords: Happiness, Expatriate Academics, Job Satisfaction, Life Satisfaction

The Impact of Cultural Similarity and Social Network Characteristics on Re-Expatriation Intention Among Self-Initiated Academic Expatriates

<p>This conceptual paper sheds light on re-expatriation intention among self-initiated academic expatriates who have completed their international assignments, and returned their home country and then intended to re-expatriate to have another experience in the host country by their own initiatives. Cultural similarity and social network characteristics which involve size, closeness and frequency appeared to have a significant impact on the expatriates' decisions to move abroad for the first time. Therefore, these variables are predicted in the study to be associated with their intentions to re-expatriate. Push-pull theory is utilized in this paper to better understanding the impact of cultural similarity and social network characteristics on re-expatriation intention among academic SIEs. Thus, this study contributes to fill the gap in literature by addressing the influence of cultural similarity and social network characteristics on re-expatriation intention.</p>

Using narratives to understand the motivational factors and experience of being a self-initiated academic expatriate in South Africa

Orientation: A growing movement of foreign nationals is settling in South Africa. Given this, there is a need to understand not only those factors influencing foreign nationals to settle in South Africa but also their lived experiences as a basis for individual career development.Research purpose: To investigate the expatriation motivational factors and experiences of selfinitiated academic expatriates in South Africa.Motivation for the study: Calls have been made within the careers literature for more empirical focus on understanding career development using some of the neglected sample groups.Research approach, design and method: The interpretive paradigm was adopted to understand the main purpose of the study. Guided by study objectives, unstructured interviews were conducted using a sample of foreign academics working in South Africa (n = 25).Main findings: Individual stories and narratives highlighted that academics relocated for the following reasons: (1) individual preference, (2) economic meltdown and (3) political conditions. Furthermore, the lived experiences of the expatriates reflected discrimination within the workplace and the community of residences in South Africa.Practical and managerial implications: Research findings indicate that the human resources (HR) function can come up with interventions that positively influence the lived experience and career development of foreign academics working in South Africa.Contribution: The expatriate experience framed in this study provides a picture of the career development processes of neglected sample groups in the extant literature. Such an understanding is key in advancing literature and proposing interventions. All this is important given the global trend on labour and skills movement added to the role South Africa plays in the international arena.

Job resources and demands for expatriate academics

PurposeWhile there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teachers with daily contact to local students seems to have been largely ignored when examining their adjustment and work outcomes. Based on the job demands-resources model the authors predict that good teacher-student relations, as a supportive job resource, will have a positive effect on expatriate academics’ job satisfaction. This effect, however, will be even stronger for individuals experiencing high job demands and challenges in terms of intercultural job adjustment. In other words, expatriate academics that have difficulties adjusting will benefit more from the social support that can originate from good relations to their students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors surveyed expatriate academics adjusting to a university position in China by use of 124 responses from foreign university employees.FindingsThe authors found that teacher-student relations had a positive association with job satisfaction and that positive teacher-student relations increased job satisfaction more for individuals being slow to adjust.Originality/valueThis is one of the few papers to explore the impact that students can have on expatriate academics and treat this relationship as a potential resource for universities to capitalize upon in socializing their new foreign academic staff members.

The role of motivation and adjustment in selection of expatriate academics in China: an intensive study of a Chinese university with one of the largest foreign faculty staffs

Throughout the world, numerous universities seek foreign faculty to meet their annual staffing needs for both English-speaking academic lecturers and oral English teachers. Recruiting and selecting quality foreign teachers are a great challenge for many learning institutions, including universities. Although there is ample research on adjustment and selection practices in international business operations, there is a lack of research for academic expatriates (Selmer and Lauring, 2011). This paper concentrates on a 25,000 student university located in central China. Although its location is less developed, pay is minimal, and pollution is significant, this university manages to boast a significantly large population of foreign faculty. This study shows a relationship between the expatriate faculty's motivations for coming to SIAS and their adjustment to living abroad and expands on this relationship's implications on selection of the best candidates.

The role of motivation and adjustment in selection of expatriate academics in China: an intensive study of a Chinese university with one of the largest foreign faculty staffs

Throughout the world, numerous universities seek foreign faculty to meet their annual staffing needs for both English-speaking academic lecturers and oral English teachers. Recruiting and selecting quality foreign teachers are a great challenge for many learning institutions, including universities. Although there is ample research on adjustment and selection practices in international business operations, there is a lack of research for academic expatriates (Selmer and Lauring, 2011). This paper concentrates on a 25,000 student university located in central China. Although its location is less developed, pay is minimal, and pollution is significant, this university manages to boast a significantly large population of foreign faculty. This study shows a relationship between the expatriate faculty's motivations for coming to SIAS and their adjustment to living abroad and expands on this relationship's implications on selection of the best candidates.

Intention to Leave among Self-initiated Academic Expatriate in Public Higher Education Institution

This study seeks to investigate the intention to leave among self-initiated academic expatriate in the public universities in Malaysia. Objectives of this study are threefold. Firstly, to identify the difference in perception of human resource practices, organizational commitment and intention to leave based on demographic background. Secondly, to examine the relationship between human resource practices and organizational commitment with the intention to leave. Finally, to identify the most significant human resource practices that influences the intention to leave. Questionnaire data were collected from public higher education institutions in Malaysia. The subjects are 88 self-initiated academic expatriates attached to various public universities in Malaysia particularly in the Klang Valley. Test of difference and multiple regression analysis methods are used to test the hypotheses. Findings indicated that intention to leave is strongly associated with human resource practices, followed by organizational commitment. The analysis also suggested that training and career development, and challenging opportunity are two elements of human resource practices contributing to intention to leave. The findings implicates the importance of rewards, recognition and job growth opportunities in order to retain the self-initiated academic expatriate. These were some highlights that could be used in strategizing internalisation among public universities in Malaysia.

Academic Mobility and Immigration Trends in South African Higher Education Institutions

This paper seeks to offer an insighton the subject of academic mobility into South African Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s). This is done by examining the current academic landscape in South Africavia a comparisonbetween the profile of South African (SA) academics andexpatriate academics. Currently, SA is facing major skills and staffing shortages locally in terms of Science, Engineering and Agriculture. The Departmentof Higher Education and Training as well as SA universities have advocated to run programmes in scarce skills disciplines through the recruitment of expatriate academics. The research reported in this paper adopted a non-experimental research design of ex post facto type, using a correlational approach. The data used are the statistical records of all academics in South African higher education for the 2005/2010/2014 academic years as provided by the Higher Education Management Information Systems (HEMIS) of SA. Descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics were also used to analyze the data. The results revealed that there were no significant differences in age between SA and expatriate academics nationally over the three years. A comparison of the academic qualifications of SA and expatriate academics over the three years indicates that expatriate academics are more highly qualified than their SA colleagues, as the majority of the former hold a doctoral degree. The majority of expatriate academics are recruited from SADC countries as well as other African countries. Interestingly enough, the next most frequent major supply region of expatriate academics to South Africa is Europe. WITS and UCT were consistently ranked first and second in terms of the number of expatriate academics employed over the three years. Both are among the leading five higher education institutions in South Africa in terms of their research outputs as well as the number of PhDs per member of staff.

The professional lives of expatriate academics

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide clarity around the notion of the expatriate academic (EA), a construct that is increasingly essential to theories of expatriate management and higher education management. A review of the literature on academic mobility showed that terms such as “international academic” and “foreign faculty” provide highly variable definitions and results, while those papers that self-consciously used the term “EA” were more likely to provide consistency across definition and findings. This allowed for analysis of the characteristics of this unique group.Design/methodology/approach– This study appropriates a meta-narrative approach to literature review, analysing 23 papers about EAs to develop a more comprehensive conceptualisation of this term and to identify key-related themes.Findings– By reviewing 23 papers identifying with the term, a carefully constructed definition of the EA is provided, distinguishing EAs from other types of internationally mobile academic and demonstrating characteristics that EAs display in their professional lives. Recommendations are made to researchers, universities and EAs themselves for how these findings may affect the EA employment cycle. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.Originality/value– This is the first paper to aggregate the results of literature on EAs, putting forward a clear definition and description to aid future research and clarify the research stream.

Attitudes towards culture in the new home: self-initiated expatriate academics in Turkey

The main question of this paper is ‘What are the attitudes of self-initiated expatriate academics towards their host culture?’ This question was explored in terms of whether the expatriates view themselves as separate from or part of the new cultural environment. The question was examined empirically with a qualitatively structured study.. Eighteen participants from 13 countries who are expatriate academics living and working in Turkey were interviewed, and thematic analysis was used to interpret the qualitative data. Communication, religion, food culture, daily life, social relations and structure are the main cultural themes that directly influence the expatriates. The results reveal that participants’ attitude towards each cultural issue can be categorized as being adjusted, exploring or missing home. Self-initiated expatriate academics who feel at home, those who learn new things from the host culture and those who have difficulties, feel themselves as a native, an explorer or a stranger, respectively.

Work engagement and intercultural adjustment

While engagement seems to have promising prospects for predicting organizational behavior in domestic organizations, few scholars have included this in cross-cultural management research. We use survey results from 640 self-initiated expatriate academics in Greater China to study the relation between work engagement and intercultural adjustment. We focus on expatriates in Greater China because in terms of economy, this is a fast-growing area and because, with regard to language and culture, this region deviates substantially from the Western countries that most expatriates there come from. This is not least in relation to age perceptions. Contrary to the dominating theoretical position, we found that the different dimensions of work engagement, namely, vigor, dedication, and absorption, have different effects on intercultural adjustment. Moreover, we found that the effect of job dedication on reducing time to proficiency was stronger for older expatriates.

Context matters: Acculturation and work-related outcomes of self-initiated expatriates employed by foreign vs. local organizations

Research on various outcomes of foreign assignments has seldom involved the specific organizational context. This study examines the acculturation of self-initiated expatriates in local and foreign-owned organizations. Based on the choice-within-constraints framework in new institutional theory, we propose that self-initiated expatriate academics in local organizations are better adjusted to general life and interaction with host country nationals than their counterparts in foreign-owned organizations. We also suggest that, due to limited available human cognitive capacity, the adjustment of expatriate academics with regard to general life and interaction in the two types of organizations has different consequences for work-related outcomes. Specifically, we hypothesize that for expatriates in foreign organizations, general adjustment is positively associated with work-related outcomes while, for expatriates in local organizations, interaction adjustment is instead positively associated with their work-related outcomes. Based on 210 self-initiated expatriate academics in China and Taiwan, our findings generally provide support for these hypothesized relationships. By demonstrating the role of organization type in expatriate adjustment we contribute to the use of social learning theory in this area) arguing that acculturation should not be perceived to occur in a vacuum. Rather the adjustment patterns of expatriates are affected by the social and institutional context.

Burden or support? The influence of partner nationality on expatriate cross-cultural adjustment

Purpose– The family and specifically, the partners of expatriates are unfortunately the major cause of expatriate maladjustment. Drawing from and extending the concept of relational demography, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the nationality of expatriates’ partners, conceptualized as host, home or third country nationality, on expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustment.Design/methodology/approach– Survey data from 299 expatriate academics in China, Japan and South Korea were analysed. The authors used confirmatory factor analyses to validate the scales and ANCOVA to test the hypotheses. To further understand the interactions effects the authors conducted simple slopes analysis.Findings– Results show that differences in expatriate academics’ cross-cultural adjustment are notper sebased on the different nationality of their partners, but are mainly due to an interaction effect of partner nationality and length of stay in host country. Expatriates with host country national partners perceived the highest increase in cross-cultural adjustment over time, followed by those with third country national partners, whereas those with home country partners did not experience any increase in cross-cultural adjustment.Research limitations/implications– The study was based on a cross-sectional survey of expatriate academics in Asia. Thus, longitudinal, multisource data from various contexts would increase validity and generalizability of findings. Despite these limitations, the study provided new and intriguing findings. The theory and empirical evidence underscore the importance of expatriate partner nationality and thereby, relational demography between expatriate partners and expatriates.Practical implications– The research aims to emphasize the important role that expatriate partners can play concerning the success of expatriate cross-cultural adjustment. Greater attention should be paid to the adjustment processes of expatriates and their partners to facilitate expatriate cross-cultural adjustment.Originality/value– The authors are among the first to study the influence of nationality, conceptualized as host, home country or third country nationality, of expatriates’ partners on expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustment by applying the concept of relational demography. Moreover, the authors look at the role that time in the host country has on the partner’s influence on expatriate adjustment.

Job engagement and work outcomes in a cognitively demanding context

Purpose– Job engagement has attracted much attention recently. However, very little research distinguishes between how the context may affect different engagement dimensions differently. Based on a theory of resource exhaustion, the purpose of this paper is to focus on a cognitively demanding work context in order to explore variations in effect of different engagement dimension and different expatriate work outcomes.Design/methodology/approach– The authors use survey results from 102 expatriate academics in Singapore to study the relations between job engagement and expatriate work outcomes. Contrary to most studies, the authors examine physical, emotional, and cognitive engagement separately.Findings– The authors found that for expatriate academics, the different dimensions of job engagement have different relationships with work outcomes such that physical engagement and emotional engagement are positively associated with various work outcomes while cognitive engagement is negatively related or not associated at all with the same work outcomes. The authors explain the variation in results by drawing on recent developments in social cognitive neuroscience.Originality/value– This is one of the first empirical studies to examine job engagement in an international setting and the application of a social cognitive neuroscience provides a novel perspective. An engagement theory of resource exhaustion could enhance theory building as well as facilitate the understanding of the association between job engagement and work outcomes in varying contexts.

Expatriate Adjustment: Validating Multicultural Personality Trait among Self-initiated Academic Expatriates

This study looks at the adjustment of self-initiated academic expatriates working at one of the public universities in Malaysia. The main aim of the research is to investigate the relationship between Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) and the expatriate's personal, professional and social adjustment. The MPQ consists of five dimensions - cultural empathy, open-mindedness, social initiative, emotional stability and flexibility. One-hundred and one questionnaires were distributed to self-initiated academic expatriates attached to various departments at the university. Results show that the MPQ predicts all three types of adjustment. Apart from the results, the discussions and limitations of the study are also presented in the paper.