Perceived organizational support and expatriate performance: understanding a mediated model

Abstract

What are the mechanisms by which multinational corporations (MNCs) can facilitate the effective performance of their expatriate staff in foreign countries? There is a substantial literature on expatriation, yet few studies have addressed how perceived organizational support (POS) may impact upon expatriates' work adjustment and affective commitment, and then on their job performance. We use data on 118 expatriates working at the German subsidiaries of Japanese MNCs, and demonstrate that career POS has a direct positive influence on work adjustment and affective commitment. Our results indicate that work adjustment fully mediated the relationship between career POS and task performance. We further discovered that both work adjustment and affective commitment play a pivotal role in mediating the impact of career POS on contextual performance. We discuss the practical implications of these findings and provide suggestions for future research.

Keywords::

• affective commitment
• expatriate performance
• international assignments
• perceived organizational support
• work adjustment

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Editor-in-Chief David Lepak and the anonymous reviewer for their detailed and helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the European International Business Academy (EIBA) Conference, University of Sussex, December 2012.

Notes

^1. We distinguished the two types of firms as follows: early responds were those who returned the questionnaires within three weeks after delivery while late responds were those who returned after receiving the first author's reminder telephone call or email.

^2. We thank the anonymous reviewer for bringing this point to our attention.