Organizational expatriates and self-initiated expatriates: who adjusts better to work and life in Japan?

Abstract

Expatriates are often presented in the cross-cultural adjustment literature as a homogeneous, broad population. However, recent research that makes a distinction between organizational expatriates (OEs), those who are dispatched by their home companies to international posts, and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), those who themselves make the decision to live and work abroad, has identified differences between the two groups. The present study compares the cross-cultural adjustment of these two groups of expatriates. Survey results of 179 expatriates in Japan show that SIEs are better adjusted to general aspects of their host country and interactions with host-country nationals than OEs. Suggestions for practice are provided.

Keywords:

• cross-cultural adjustment
• Japan
• organizational expatriate
• self-initiated expatriate

Acknowledgements

We thank Ingmar Björkman for his comments on a previous draft of this study, and all those people who helped us to collect the data and participated in this study. Fabian Jintae Froese gratefully acknowledges financial support from Korea University (New faculty research grant, no. K0719081).

Notes

1. Overseas work experiences of self-initiated expatriates (Lee 2005) have been described in previous studies as overseas experiences (OEs) (Inkson et al. 1997; Inkson and Myers 2003; Myers and Pringle 2005; Vance 2005) and self-initiated foreign work experiences (SFEs) (Suutari and Brewster 2000).

2. In 2004, registered foreigners accounted for 1.97 million of Japan's total population of 127.4 million (Tezuka 2005). Most of these foreigners were special permanent residents (465,619), permanent residents (312,964), and long-term residents primarily from Chinese and Korean families that have lived in Japan for several generations. Only 145,570 foreigners were living in Japan with a working permit.

3. Perceived underemployment refers to an individual's perception that he is working in an inferior, lesser, or lower quality type of employment or in a situation where individuals feel that their skills and abilities are not fully utilized (Lee 2005).