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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of Chinese expatriates’ adjustment in Pakistan through integrating the U-curve model and social identity theory. It has also highlighted the importance of engaging in strong social ties and their contribution in expatriates’ adjustment.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews from 30 Chinese expatriates working as directors, deputy directors, senior managers, managers and assistant managers in Chinese organizations in Pakistan. After verbatim transcription of all the interviews, data were analyzed using the NVivo software.

The findings of this paper indicate that expatriates’ identities somewhat changed in terms of their behaviors and work habits, while fewer changes were observed in their belief and value system. These changes were related to expatriates’ perceptions of host country groups, attraction to these groups and similarity in beliefs, which resulted in the development of interdependent beliefs and depersonalization. However, a few Chinese expatriates predominantly interacted among themselves at work, and their reduced socialization with Pakistanis lessened their chances of change.

The results of the study suggest that expatriates’ adjustment is a multi-stage process and social identity change is one of the powerful mechanisms through which they adjust in the host country’s environment; hence host organizations should facilitate expatriates in strengthening their bond with local people.

This paper has proposed a model that explains the mechanism of Chinese expatriates’ adjustment in Pakistan through improved interactions between expatriates’ and host country nationals, resulting in minor social identity changes, leading to further positive relationship building, and then major social identity changes.

This paper aims to examine the critical role played by cultural flow in fostering successful expatriate cross-border transitions.

The authors develop and test a model on the interplay among cultural intelligence, organizational position level, cultural flow direction and expatriate adaptation, using a data set of 387 expatriate on cross-border transitions along the Belt & Road area.

The authors find that both organizational position level and cultural flow moderate the relationship between cultural intelligence and expatriate adaptation, whereby the relationship is contingent on the interaction of organizational position status and assignment directions between high power distance and low power distance host environments.

Previous research has shown that higher levels of cultural intelligence are positively related to better expatriate adaptation. However, there is a lack of research on the effect of position difference and cultural flow on such relationship. Our study is among the first to examine how the interaction between cultural flow and organizational position level influences the cultural intelligence (CI) and cultural adjustment relationship in cross-cultural transitions.

The study explores African partners' experiences regarding Chinese expatriates' knowledge control practices in 29 Sino-African joint ventures in 12 countries. It provides insights into power dynamics and knowledge transfer (KT) from African partners' perspective.

The qualitative paper mobilized semi-structured interviews with Africans who worked with Chinese expatriates across Africa. The study focused on understanding the experiences of African partners when collaborating with their Chinese expatriate colleagues on assignments in joint ventures (JVs) in Africa.

Chinese expatriates employed five tactics, as described by African partners, to control knowledge based on power, behaviors and knowledge type. Particularly, through the lens of unofficial power, this study explains knowledge hiding tactics between knowledge-holding Chinese expatriates and host country knowledge-seeking locals. A new dimension of authority-based knowledge hiding is discovered.

The paper brings new insights into the analysis of power (official and unofficial) boundaries regarding knowledge control mechanisms in joint venture collaborations between employees from China and Africa. Unofficial power appeared as a major leverage for expatriates in monopolizing their strategic knowledge. The study recommends mobilizing African diaspora and repatriates from China to improve KT for Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by host country nationals’ (HCNs) collectivism and the interpersonal affect they develop toward expatriate colleagues, in determining the degree to which Chinese HCNs would be willing to offer role information and social support to expatriates from India and the USA.

The authors conducted a between-subjects simulation (n=402) with front-line, junior-level professionals in four global organizations operating in China, measuring their interpersonal affect toward a hypothetical expatriate colleague, and their willingness to offer role information and social support to the expatriate.

Results indicated the interpersonal affect felt by Chinese HCNs mediates the relationship between the collectivism levels of Chinese HCNs, and their willingness to offer role information and social support to expatriates.

It should be acknowledged that the authors used hypothetical “paper-people” to test the hypotheses. Future studies should investigate the impact of collectivism and interpersonal affect on HCN willingness to offer role information and social support by examining HCNs’ attitudes toward real-life expatriate colleagues.

While empirical studies examining HCN willingness to offer role information and social support have begun to emerge in the expatriate literature, only a couple of studies have included interpersonal affect as a key determinant. Given that interpersonal affect is a key determinant of individuals’ reactions to others, but also a complex construct, the findings confirm the need for organizations to examine how this impacts performance and co-worker interactions in the workplace.

This study aims to build on recent research, by investigating and examining how likely it is that Chinese locals (i.e. host country nationals (HCNs)) would offer support to expatriates from India and the USA.

Data were gathered from 222 participants in Chinese organizations, asking them to respond to questions about their willingness to offer support to expatriates.

As predicted, perceived values similarity was significantly related to higher dogmatism, which had a significant positive relationship with ethnocentrism. Further, ethnocentrism had a significant negative relationship with willingness to offer support.

All data were collected from the participants at one point in time, so the study's results are subject to common method bias. Also, it only included India and the USA, as the two countries of origin of the expatriates.

Given HCNs do not automatically offer support to all expatriates, organizations might consider sending expatriates who are culturally similar to HCNs, as they are more likely to receive support, which will help their adjustment and thus organizational effectiveness.

This study adds to the small, but growing, number of empirical investigations of HCN willingness to support expatriates.

This article examines the impact of expatriates' interaction adjustment and conducive work environment (i.e. trust, shared vision and intercultural communication) on the development of a common social identity between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs) using the social identity theory (SIT). It also investigates whether increased trust, shared vision and intercultural communication mediate the relationship between expatriates' interaction adjustment and development of a common social identity.

Dyadic data were collected from 93 Chinese expatriates and 239 Pakistani HCNs using a three-wave time-lag design. A multilevel model was estimated using Bayesian estimation technique in the Mplus software.

Empirical evidence suggests an inverse relationship between expatriates' interaction adjustment and the development of a common social identity between expatriates and HCNs. Further, trust and intercultural communication led to a positive impact on the group memberships between expatriates and HCNs. However, no support was found regarding the mediating role of trust, shared vision and intercultural communication in this empirical research.

The existing literature focuses mainly on change experiences of expatriates during international assignments. However, the current study goes beyond this and investigates the individualized change experiences of HCNs. Further, empirical evidence in this research found a negative relationship between expatriates' interaction adjustment and the development of a common social identity between expatriates and HCNs, which needs to be examined further.

Integrating the literature on trust building and cultural intelligence, the purpose of this paper is to understand how expatriate managers build trust with their host country nationals (HCNs) in China.

Qualitative data collected via extensive interviews with 12 expatriate managers and 34 HCNs from seven multinational companies in Shanghai.

The authors find that expatriate managers and HCN managers build trust via competence/ability at the onset. The trust relationship becomes stronger over time with the development of affect-based trust via cultural intelligence of the expatriate managers.

Implications for theory and practice following the results are discussed.

This study used the cultural intelligence perspective to understand the trust building process. In addition this study interviewed both sides to the trust dyad; the expatriate manager and the HCN manager. Hence, it provides perspectives from both sides of the trust building process, one of the first studies to do so.

As China attracts more and more foreign enterprises today, it is getting more important to consider how to enhance the organizational commitment (OC) of host country employees. This paper aims to examine the differences in the relationship between OC and rewards among Chinese managers and Japanese expatriates who work for Japanese manufacturing companies in China.

Hierarchical regression analysis was used to analyze survey data gathered from 539 Chinese managers and 354 Japanese expatriates working for a total of 19 Japanese manufacturing companies in China.

The findings reveal that, for Chinese managers, role clarity had a stronger influence and autonomy had a weaker influence on OC than for Japanese expatriates. A possible reason is the ethnocentric culture of Japanese companies that leads to Japanese expatriates not sufficiently empowering local human resources. Moreover, there was no difference between senior- and junior-level Chinese managers in the association of any kind of reward with OC.

The most significant limitation concerns its generalizability. The authors recommend that future research use other nations' expatriates as reference groups to objectively clarify the characteristics of Chinese workers, thus testing the validity of this research.

The results of this research may be used to reshape future human-resource-management practices in several types of the company located in China to facilitate attracting and employing the employees most able to make long-term contributions to the company.

Although previous research has elucidated OC–rewards relation in particular countries, it has not met the potential requirements of the expatriates who face the difference in OC–rewards relation with host country national managers. In this sense, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research was the first attempt to tackle this theme by contributing to the literature.

Within the expatriation subset of the wider IB literature, the focus of research has been on contemporary contextual factors. The purpose of this paper is to link the present to the past by investigating how the individual expatriate experience may be affected by a colonial legacy between host and home countries.

Given the exploratory nature of this study, a qualitative interview-based approach eliciting thick, detailed descriptions of the practical experiences of seven Japanese expatriate managers working in Malaysia was adopted. These were supplemented by additional interviews with three host-country nationals who work alongside some of the expatriates. The data were analysed through a two-stage coding process.

The expatriate respondents were largely unanimous in their view that the colonial past between the two countries had no negative impact on their experiences in Malaysia, and the Malaysian interviewees corroborated this. On the contrary, the majority of the expatriates actually spoke positively about their experiences. This was especially true for expatriates in both the tourism and education/research field whose work was linked in some way to the period of Japanese occupation.

The small, single-context nature of the investigation limits generalisation. There are also many particularities in this study (the nature of Japanese-Malaysian postcolonial relations, cultural values of the Malaysians and Japanese, and so on) that are perhaps not easily relatable to other contexts. Having said this, qualitative research is not always geared towards generalisability but rather towards contextual intricacies and nuances.

While most of the extant literature on expatriation has examined largely contemporary factors, this paper explores the impact of more historical events on the expatriate experience. Although such events may seem distant from an expatriate's current activities, this study suggests that in certain circumstances, they may have a lingering effect.

The purpose of this paper is to offer an employer perceptive on the employability of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) by contrasting SIEs with other identified staffing groups available for the staffing of MNC subsidiaries in China.

This qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews with 24 Westerners with direct staffing responsibilities in subsidiaries of western MNCs located in China. The employability of each identified staffing group was assessed using the person-to-environment fit approach from four-fit perspectives (person-to-job and to-group, organisation and cultural context).

The study revealed how from the employer perspective SIEs do not form a heterogeneous group, but instead there are two groups with different fit profiles. The study illustrates how western SIEs are an uncommon and under-used staffing group in cross-cultural staffing settings in China due to their low employability in comparison to alternative staffing groups. The study also revealed the prevalent bipolarity (the Westerners vs the Chinese) and heterogeneity within the identified staffing groups.

The study recognises the lack of employer perspective in SIE literature and also that SIEs are an under-represented group in the staffing literature.

The findings help explain how MNC staffing is culturally bound and how the staffing process should incorporate more than just an assessment of job-related qualifications. The findings also help explain the challenges SIEs can experience in cross-cultural career settings.

The study is one of the first to provide an employer perspective on SIE careers and contrast SIEs to the other alternative staffing groups available to MNC subsidiaries in China.