SIE identity strain, job embeddedness and expatriate outcomes: within-domain and spillover buffering effects of off-the-job relationship building

Abstract

Self-initiative expatriates (SIEs) are increasingly important to the global talent pool. However, they are vulnerable to identity strain due to their self-initiative status and tendency to maintain their previous identity during temporary stays in the host country. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, we establish a resource-based model to examine the indirect effects of SIEs’ identity strain on expatriate outcomes (performance, work withdrawal, repatriation intention) through on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness, with off-the-job relationship building as the boundary condition. With a two-wave research design, we collected data from 103 Chinese visiting scholars at 48 American universities in 2017. The results show that identity strain has indirect effects on all three expatriate outcomes through on-the-job embeddedness and an indirect effect on repatriation intention through off-the-job embeddedness. Off-the-job relationship building buffers the indirect effects of identity strain on expatriate outcomes via on-the-job embeddedness rather than off-the-job embeddedness.

Keywords:

• SIEs
• identity strain
• on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness
• off-the-job relationship building
• expatriate outcomes

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Associate Editor Vesa Suutari and two anonymous reviewers for their instrumental feedback during the review process. We are grateful to Chao C. Chen, Zhen Zhang, Riki Takeuchi and Minyan Huang for their generous suggestions and feedback on earlier versions of our manuscript. This work was supported by the Fulbright Scholar Program (2016 ∼ 2017) and the Chinese National Science Foundation under Grant 72071129.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, J. Chen, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 The Fulbright Program was funded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946 and is one of the most widely recognized and prestigious scholarships in the world. The Chinese Fulbright program, which had been jointly sponsored by the State Sponsored Study Abroad Programme (SSSAP) in China and IIE in U.S., ended on 14 July 2020.

2 Based on the results of explorative factor analysis with promax rotation, on-the-job relationship building items loaded on a single factor with the eigenvalue of 2.31, with 77% of the variance explained, and a Cronbach’s α of 0.85. Off-the-job relationship building items also loaded on a single factor with an eigenvalue of 2.14, with 71% of the variance explained, and a Cronbach’s α of 0.80.

3 Based on the results of explorative factor analysis with promax rotation, on-the-job embeddedness items loaded on a single factor with the eigenvalue of 5.48, with 50% of the variance explained, and a Cronbach’s α of 0.90. Off-the-job embeddedness items also loaded on a single factor with an eigenvalue of 4.89, 49% of the variance explained, and a Cronbach’s α of 0.88.