Psychological barriers to adjustment of Western business expatriates in China: newcomers vs long stayers

Abstract

A mail survey was directed towards Western business expatriates currently working on the Chinese mainland. Two sets of psychological barriers to adjustment and their association with the extent of sociocultural and psychological adjustment were examined. The results of this exploratory study show that both perceived inability to adjust and unwillingness to adjust among newcomers seem to affect some aspects of sociocultural adjustment, but not expatriates' psychological adjustment. However, these effects do not seem to be stable over time as there are no such effects in the case of long stayers in China, suggesting that in the long run both inability and unwillingness to adjust may be of little importance. Potential implications for selection of expatriates for assignment in China are discussed in detail.

Keywords:

• Expatriates
• psychological barriers
• adjustment
• China

Acknowledgement

This study was funded by a Faculty Research Grant from the Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong. Valuable comments of Richard Peterson and Joseph Cheng on an earlier version of this paper are gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

Jan Selmer, Department of Management, School of Business, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, PRC (tel: [phone]; fax: [phone]; [email protected]).