Host country nationals' attitudes toward expatriates: development of a measure^†

Abstract

A measure assessing host country nationals' (HCNs) perceptions of attitudes and behaviors of the expatriates (ATEX) was developed and validated in two studies. For the first study, interviews were conducted to generate items. A questionnaire involving these items was filled out by 198 HCNs and 26 items were eliminated. For the second study, 228 HCNs filled out a questionnaire that included ATEX and scales for constructs such as personality and attitudes toward diversity. Final version of ATEX was reduced to 24 items loading onto five factors. Examination of the relations between ATEX and several constructs provided support for construct and criterion-related validities of the measure.

Keywords::

• attitudes
• expatriates
• host country nationals

Notes

^1. All questionnaires used for data collection, except for the interviews with the expatriates, were administered in Turkish. The final version of ATEX consisting of 24 items was translated to English for the present manuscript. In addition to the translation and back translation procedure, 16 bilingual graduate students responded to both versions two weeks apart, to compare their responses to Turkish and English items. In both questionnaires, the items were presented in random order for any participant. Results of paired samples t-test revealed that the total scores of English and Turkish versions of ATEX were not different, t (15) = 1.536, p = 0.15.