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The unprecedented challenges brought about by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic affected people's lives worldwide. The purpose of this study is to propose a conceptual model to explain how natural crisis events, such as COVID-19, cause stress and influence the psychological well-being (PWB) and performance of expatriates.

The model presented in this conceptual paper is based on Bader and Berg's (2014) two-stage stress emergence and outcome model developed to study expatriates' performance in terrorism-endangered countries. The authors apply their model to natural crisis events and provide propositions to explain the postulated relationships.

The proposed model delineates the stressors that emerge from psychological and situational factors, and how they impact the PWB and performance of expatriates. The article emphasizes how resilience, social network, and support from the organization, supervisor, and family can help mitigate the adverse effects of stress on the PWB of expatriates. Furthermore, keeping in mind the prevailing situations due to COVID-19, the authors shed light on the indispensability of virtual collaboration in ameliorating expatriates' performance in challenging times.

Implications are discussed for organizations in devising plans and strategies to deal with unforeseen crisis events.

This study extends the expatriation literature to the events of natural crisis by incorporating the stress emergence-outcome model. In doing so, the authors identify the factors relevant to natural crises and apply them to understand how they could impact expatriates in such times.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of expatriate’s social capital and knowledge sharing on multinational companies’ (MNCs) financial performance, with a specific focus on the influence of trust, commitment, organizational support and the four elements of balanced scorecard (BSC).

A quantitative questionnaire survey was conducted using expatriates of MNCs in Taiwan as the respondents.

Trust and organizational support are significant predictors of knowledge sharing and social capital, which further facilitate their influence on learning and growth, customer satisfaction, internal process improvement and financial performance of MNCs. Besides, social capital serves as an accelerate agent to promote the influence of trust on knowledge sharing, and customer satisfaction serves as a catalyst on the influence of learning and growth and internal process on a firms’ financial performance.

This study provides a clear articulation of the role of knowledge sharing on the financial performance and its moderation effect on the elements of BSC. Trust and organizational support are essential for knowledge sharing and expatriates’ social capital. The roles of social capital and knowledge sharing are critical for expatriates to be success in the overseas market places.

Since the evidences regarding expatriate performance rarely integrate the variables of social capital, knowledge sharing and BSC into a more comprehensive framework, the results of this study can be an important reference for academicians to do further validation. These results are also critical for practitioners to develop dispatching policies for the expatriates in the oversea market places.

To introduce the presumed cultural similarity paradox as a possible explanation for the findings that adjusting to a culturally similar country is just as difficult as adjusting to a culturally dissimilar country. We provide a conceptual framework, enabling further understanding and research into this phenomenon.

Expatriates moving to a country that shares common characteristics may presume more cultural similarity and easier adjustment than is actually the case. During their stay abroad, expatriates may find that these expectations are not met. While the smaller cultural distance may facilitate adjustment, the undermet expectations inhibit adjustment and performance.

A first preliminary test compared Dutch expatriates in Belgium (culturally similar) and in China (culturally dissimilar). The expectations of cultural similarity and adjustment difficulty of the expatriates in Belgium were significantly more undermet than those of the expatriates in China and this had a negative influence on affective adjustment. The larger cultural distance of China was negatively related to intercultural adjustment. Better adjustment, both affective and intercultural, led to better job performance.

Future research should try to replicate and extend our findings to other cultural contexts.

Expatriates and their employers must consider and prepare for the increased chance of undermet expectations and the negative consequences this can have on adjustment and job performance, when moving to a culturally similar country.

Expatriates and their employers must consider and prepare for the increased chance of undermet expectations and the negative consequences this can have on adjustment and job performance, when moving to a culturally similar country.

This paper conceptualizes and provide a theoretical framework that should allow future research to empirically test the psychological process that occurs in this paradox, accommodate the contrasting effects of cultural distance and met expectations of cultural similarity and investigate which characteristics of countries lead expatriates to presume more cultural similarity than is the case.

The impact of expatriates on recipient staff may be highly significant in technology transfer. However, the impact may vary according to the behavior pattern of expatriates as well as factors contingent upon the situation. Utilizing leadership theory under a contingent framework, the development of recipient staff was predicted in this study from the expatriate behavior characteristics. Several hypotheses on the performance improvement of recipient staff suggest the main effects of expatriate's consideration and structural characteristics, and moderating effects due to expatriate's language capability and recognition by the local staff. Data for testing these hypotheses were collected by administering a questionnaire. The results of basic multiple regression analysis indicated the influence of both consideration and structural characteristics of expatriates on performance improvement of the recipient staff. Also, results of the moderated multiple regression analysis suggested that the expatriate's consideration characteristics are highly effective in ameliorating possible negative effects of a low recognition for performance improvement of the recipient staff even when the expatriate is a poor communicator.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of cross‐cultural training and career attitudes for expatriation career move in the context of China, whether cross‐cultural training is perceived necessary, and the consequence of providing such cross‐cultural training.

Data were collected from 82 expatriates from a Chinese firm, some of whom were expatriated to a foreign country and others who were expatriated from foreign countries to China.

Expatriates adjusted well, and having a protean career attitude was a decisive factor. While the impact of cross‐cultural training prior to departure was not statistically significant, it was well received and considered important.

A limitation is the limited sample size. Implications are presented for conducting cross‐cultural training.

Developing cross‐cultural training programs could add value to the firm and its people.

Using a particular Chinese firm the paper highlights the value and necessity of cross‐cultural training for successful expatriation.

Drawing on Herzberg's motivation-hygiene perspective, this study examines the factors affecting expatriate adjustment and the relationship between expatriate adjustment and subsidiary performance of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs).

Using structural equation modeling, this study tests a proposed conceptual model based on a matched dataset collected from 38 EMNEs.

The findings reveal that perceived organizational support (POS) and family adjustment are positively associated with expatriate adjustment, while remuneration and job burnout have no significant relationships with expatriate adjustment. In addition, expatriate adjustment is positively associated with the foreign subsidiary performance of EMNEs.

This study contributes to expatriate adjustment research in the EMNE context by distinguishing motivators and hygiene factors in affecting the expatriates' attitudes toward international assignments. Empirical evidence of expatriate adjustment-subsidiary performance relationship also enriches the authors’ knowledge of EMNEs' expatriation practices.

Despite being one of the most used dependent variables in expatriate management research, no clear-cut understanding exists of what expatriate success means. Thus, this study aims to propose an integrative definition of expatriate success by providing an overview of expatriate success's dimensions, antecedents, and their interplay.

A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted to achieve the purpose. A total of 249 empirical studies (quantitative 111, qualitative 50, mixed-methods 17), literature reviews (67) and meta-analyses (4) on expatriate success were reviewed from Web of Science and Scopus databases published from 1990 until December 2021. The study selection criteria followed the PRISMA flowchart steps, and then descriptive and network analyses were performed to identify expatriates' success dimensions, antecedents and their interplay.

The findings show the interplay among antecedents and dimensions of expatriate success across three levels (individual, interpersonal and organisational) to clarify the concept of expatriate success. Also, the study offers a comprehensive definition of expatriate success based on the dimensions identified.

The suggested definition of expatriate success elucidates the “atheoretical”, multidimensional and socially constructed nature of the construct and hence, calls for more “theoretical”, multidimensional and subjective considerations of the term to ground human resource management practices addressed to attain expatriates' success.

This paper provides an integrative definition of expatriate success, giving greater insight into the construct, in addition to critically reflecting on it.

An expatriate is a person living outside their native country and is physically mobile across international borders for professional or personal reasons, whether for a short or long time, whether organizationally sponsored or not. In the competitive and globalized world, expatriation helps organizations to sustain international competition. Based on the social capital theory, performance theory and organizational support theory, this study aims to explore the impact of intraorganizational social capital (IOSC) and perceived organizational support (POS) on expatriate job performance (EJP) along with the intervening role of Islamic work ethics (IWE).

Data are collected from Expatriate employees working in UAE for at least three years among various knowledge-based industries. A total of 268 filled responses were received using the convenience sampling technique. Structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results indicate that POS and IOSC positively influence most EJP dimensions except demonstrating effect dimension and IWE acts as a partial mediator. The study adopted a cross-sectional research design, and the respondents are white color expatriates working in the knowledge-based industries across the United Arab Emirates. Various other business sectors, such as tourism, hospitality, manufacturing, oil and energy can be considered in the study context and longitudinal research designs can be adapted to generalize the findings.

The study adopted a cross-sectional research design, and the respondents are white color expatriates working in the knowledge-based industries across the United Arab Emirates. Various other business sectors, such as tourism, hospitality, manufacturing, oil and energy, can be considered the study context and longitudinal research designs can be adopted to generalize the findings.

Human resource managers need to formulate their company policies so that a recruit is given orientation and training the existing workforce on the benefits of IWE, as it can be seen as developing employee morale and ethical behavior. Onboarding an expat from different regions is an expensive initiative for the organization. The organization should consider both tangible and intangible costs that go into the recruitment, selection and onboarding of an expat.

Very few studies have explored the role of IWE with a second-order EJP construct with the respondents from the knowledge-based industries of the UAE.

We review 25 years of research on expatriate experiences concentrating on expatriate adjustment as a central construct, and relying on a general stressor-stress-strain framework. First, we consider who expatriates are, why their experiences differ from domestic employees, and what adjustment is. Conceptualizing (mal)adjustment in terms of stress, we next review the stressors and strains associated with it. Consolidating the wide range of antecedents (anticipatory and in-country) that have been studied to date, we note major patterns of effects and their implications for how HR managers can facilitate adjustment. Although relatively less research has focused on the consequences of adjustment, enough evidence exists to establish a bottom-line impact of poor adjustment on performance. To stimulate future efforts to understand the experiences of expatriates, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of continuing down this road of research.

Besides ensuring traditional project objectives, expatriate construction professionals (EXCPs) working on international projects face challenges adapting to unfamiliar environments with varying construction standards, work practices and cultural values. This puts them at a high risk of job burnout. Thus, this study aims to investigate the antecedents and outcomes of EXCPs' job burnout in the international construction industry.

Based on the Job demands-resource model (JD-R), a theoretical framework was developed. Industry-specific stressors and expatriate management practices were identified using a literature review and interviews. The authors then used a questionnaire survey to collect data from Chinese EXCPs. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were then utilized to test hypotheses.

The findings indicate that early-career EXCPs experience the most severe levels of job burnout. The paths analysis proved the direct and indirect mitigating effects of expatriate management practices on job burnout, and EXCP's job burnout was associated with poor job performance and decreased intention to stay in the international assignment.

While prior research has explored job burnout among construction professionals working on domestic projects, little attention has been given to EXCPs and their unique challenges. This study aims to fill this critical gap in the literature by offering a unique perspective on the antecedents and outcomes of job burnout among EXCPs in international contexts and presents a significant contribution to understanding and addressing occupational health issues faced by EXCPs.