Cross-Cultural Competence and Expatriate Adjustment in Multinational Assignments

Abstract

The growing internationalization of organizations has increased the importance of expatriates. They contribute to knowledge transfer, know-how, and a global perspective, and facilitate the coordination of diverse activities. At the same time, there is a risk that expatriates may encounter challenges while living and working in a country with different cultural values, practices, and expectations. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of cross-cultural competence in influencing job performance and other outcomes of interest. The variables of interest include an expatriate's work and interaction adjustment and a general level of adjustment in the host country. The study operationalized cross-cultural competence as a combination of cultural awareness, intercultural communication, cultural adaptability, and behavioral flexibility. The above variables were subjected to both descriptive and inferential analysis in a study that used a survey questionnaire as the research instrument. Specifically, the contribution of cross-cultural competence was assessed using reliability testing, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that all aspects of cross-cultural competence have a positive influence on the outcome measures. Cultural adaptability recorded the strongest relationship with expatriate adjustment (r = 0.71) and the highest regression coefficient (β = 0.31, p < 0.001), followed by intercultural communication (r = 0.68; β = 0.29, p < 0.001), cultural awareness (r = 0.62; β = 0.24, p < 0.001), and behavioural flexibility (r = 0.65; β = 0.18, p = 0.002). The results demonstrate that cross-cultural competency is relevant in facilitating expatriate adjustment and have practical implications for multinational organizations in the areas of selecting expatriates, preparing expatriates prior to departure, cross-cultural training, and job support for expatriates during the assignment.