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Purpose: The issue of whether participation in online peer-support communities has positive or negative impacts on the psychological adjustment of cancer patients warrants further explorations from new perspectives. This research investigates the role of personality traits in moderating the impact of online participation on the psychological adjustment of cancer patients in terms of their general psychological well-being and cancer-specific well-being.

Methodology: Study participants consisted of adults diagnosed with leukemia. Questionnaires were collected from 111 participants in two leukemia-related forums in China, Baidu Leukemia Community and Bloodbbs. Information regarding the personality traits, online participation, and psychological adjustment were collected using an online questionnaire. A linear regression model was used to test the moderation effect of personality traits on the relationship between online participation and psychological adjustment.

Findings: The main effect of participation in online support communities on psychological adjustment was not statistically significant. Importantly, two personality traits (i.e., emotional stability and openness to experience) moderated the relationship between online participation and psychological adjustment to cancer. Leukemia patients with high emotional stability and high openness to experience reported better psychological adjustment as they participated more in the online community. However, this was not the case for patients with low stability and low openness, who reported worse psychological adjustment as their participation in the online support community increased.

Value: This study introduces two personality moderators into the discussion of how participation in online support communities influences the lives of cancer patients. The moderation effects help to explain why there have been contradictions in the findings of previous studies. In addition, this study adds to the current literature on online support communities as little research on this topic has been conducted outside of the US and Europe. Practically, this study not only highlights the need to evaluate the personality traits of patients who are recommended to participate in online communities, but also underlines the necessity of intervention in these communities.

This paper aims to propose an expatriate psychological adjustment model that postulates expatriate mental health as an antecedent to psychological adjustment. It presents novel predeparture and post-arrival international human resource management (IHRM) expatriate management mental health supportive interventions.

This paper critically reviews theoretical frameworks in the IHRM domain around expatriate psychological adjustments such as the U-Curve Adjustment Theory (Lysgaard, 1995), the Framework of International Adjustment (Black et al., 1991), the Dimensions of Expatriate Adjustment (Haslberger et al., 2013) and the Stress Outcome Model (Bader and Berg, 2014), in a quest to develop a new conceptual framework. This study presents a new conceptual framework along with propositions to take into consideration the relationship between mental health and expatriates' psychological adjustment.

The findings suggest that mental health is an antecedent paramount to psychological adjustment. The paper proposes mental health-supportive IHRM expatriate management interventions to address the potential failure of expatriates' psychological adjustment. The authors elaborate on the IHRM expatriate management policies and practices at the home and host country to ensure the mental health of company-assigned expatriates sent on international assignments.

The novel conceptual framework underpins mental health as the antecedent paramount to expatriate adjustment, taking into consid eration the elevated stress of situational events such as COVID-19, which had previously not received substantive formal consideration by research scholars in the IHRM domain. The conceptual framework encourages the inclusion of mental health as an antecedent in future research.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the psychological adjustment process of expatriates from Chinese multinational enterprises, including how their social capital affects this process.

This qualitative investigation was based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 26 Chinese expatriates. The grounded theory method was applied to guide the data collection and analysis.

The psychological adjustment process of Chinese expatriates includes three periods: crisis, self-adjustment and self-growth period. In addition, bonding capital (including organizational, family and co-cultural colleagues’ support) is more conducive to Chinese expatriates’ psychological well-being than bridging capital (e.g. host-nationals’ support). Finally, a separation acculturation strategy is more conducive to psychological adjustment, rather than an integration strategy.

This study focused on expatriates themselves. Future research should consider other stakeholders (e.g. organizations, family), and examine expatriate adjustment from new perspectives (e.g. strategic human resource management, work-family balance). This study had a small sample and focused on only one organization. Future research could usefully add other Chinese multinational corporations, and other Chinese expatriates to expand the generalizability of the current findings.

This study suggests the possible benefits of management practices for expatriates. Organizations can develop an “expatriate bubble” to help structure basic life overseas. Organizations could develop family-support programs and make them expatriate-supportive. Organizations should also strengthen the connections between expatriates and local colleagues.

Few scholars have elaborated on how different support groups (based on their cultural backgrounds) influence the psychological adjustment of expatriates. Until now, mainland Chinese expatriates have received little attention. In addition, this research takes a significant step forward by illuminating the psychological adjustment of Chinese expatriates from a social capital perspective.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of psychological contracts on the adjustment and organisational commitment of expatriates during international business assignments. The study also aims to investigate the influence of psychological barriers to expatriate adjustment.

A unique survey questionnaire was developed to collect data from 219 Taiwanese business expatriates during the first quarter of 2007. A LISREL analysis is used to test the hypotheses of the research framework.

The study finds that: perceived fulfilment of the psychological contracts of expatriates significantly influences both their adjustment to foreign situations and their organisational commitment; psychological barriers to adjustment have a negative influence on both socio‐cultural adjustment and psychological adjustment; and expatriate psychological adjustment has both a direct and an indirect influence on organisational commitment.

International managers should implement appropriate human resource measures to meet expatriates' expectations for their psychological contracts. Managers should ensure that expatriates receive adequate counsel and training to assist them in minimizing any psychological barriers they might have to adjustment in a foreign environment.

The study extends concepts from organisational behaviour theory and applies them to the process of international manpower management.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between cultural distance and psychological adjustment of expatriates in Nigeria and perceived social supports moderating the relationship.

The study used a cross-sectional survey research design. Data were collected through 236 validly filled questionnaires by expatriates working in different industries in Nigeria. The research variables were measured using appropriate validated scales developed by different experts. Data collected were analyzed using frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to establish the relationships among the variables.

The study found that the distance between expatriates’ home and Nigeria on each of the dimensions of cultural values: power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance cultural value, long-term orientation and indulgence negatively influence the psychological adjustment of the expatriates in Nigeria. The study demonstrated that the larger the distance between expatriates’ home and Nigeria's cultural values, the larger the difficulties in the psychological adjustment of expatriates in the country.

This study provides useful insights and a better understanding to both present and future global human resource practitioners, multinational organizations, international institutions and local organizations operating in Nigeria with a global mindset on the cultural profiles of expatriates that are critical to adjust to working, social interactions and living environments in Nigeria.

It provides practical guidance to global human resource practitioners and employers on dimensions of cultural values distance between Nigeria and the home countries of expatriates that should be considered when deciding on, searching for, selecting, recruiting and relocating expatriates to work and live in Nigeria.

International students with low proficiency in the English language remain at high risk of academic, social and psychological maladjustment. Using an acculturation theoretical framework, this study aims to show that acculturation stress and social support mediate the relationship between language proficiency and academic, social, and psychological adjustment among 675 international postgraduate students in Malaysian public universities.

Correlational research design was employed to gather data from 227 females and 448 males aged between 22–45 years belonging to Asian, Middle Eastern or African countries. Out of these, 292 students were enrolled in master's degrees, and 383 students were enrolled in Ph.D. Self-administered questionnaires were used which includes Student Adjustment to the College Questionnaire (SACQ) to measure students' academic adjustment, Kwak to assess students' English language proficiency, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) to assess perceived availability of social support from friends and Acculturative Stress Scale for International Students (ASSIS) to measure acculturation stress.

The hypothesized model was tested using path analysis with manifest variables in Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) 23.0. The findings suggest that language proficiency is a significant predictor of academic, social and psychological adjustment of international students, and this relationship is partially mediated by acculturation stress and social support.

The article concludes with implications and recommendations for international student offices and program organizers to ensure conditions for successful academic, social and psychological adjustment of the international students.

The manuscript has not been published or submitted elsewhere.

Academic adjustment is an important indicator which represents the students' academic achievements. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the fundamental role of academic adjustment for the success of student's by considering the influence of several psychological, motivational and behavioral factors that affect the academic adjustment of students in the university which then influences the students' academic achievements.

Data were gathered through self-administered questionnaires from 409 students enrolled in a Business degree program in an academic institution by using a convenience sampling technique. Structural equation modeling (SEM) technique has been applied for analyzing the data and the proposed hypothesis.

Results obtained from partial least square (PLS)-SEM analysis indicated that academic adjustment is affected by psychological, motivational and behavioral factors and in turn influences the outcomes of success. Moreover, the findings also showed that psychological and motivational factors, directly and indirectly via partial mediation of adjustment, and behavioral factors via full mediation of academic adjustment influences the outcomes of success.

The study implies that it is important for university policymakers that they should give great priority to fully exploiting its potential to facilitate student's effective adjustment to academic life. Universities should pay attention to enhancing the academic study skills of students which leads to gains in academic achievement. Furthermore, universities should integrate self-regulated skills and provides motivation to students which is the biggest contributor toward adjustment as well as this study broadens the understanding of psychological capital as a resource that enhances academic adjustment.

Very little attention has been given to examining the role of academic adjustment in the success of students. Therefore, the present study makes two contributions to this research. First, the study broadens the understanding of psychological capital with the potential to strengthen adjustment with academic life in domains, i.e. academic achievement and institutional adjustment. Second, the study identifies which motivational and behavioral factors affect academic adjustment and achievement.

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.