Cosmopolitanism, assignment duration, and expatriate adjustment: The trade-off between well-being and performance

Amir Grinstein and Luc Wathieu
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Amir Grinstein: Guilford Glazer School of Business and Management, Ben Gurion University of the Negev
Luc Wathieu: ESMT European School of Management and Technology

No ESMT-08-011, ESMT Research Working Papers from ESMT European School of Management and Technology

Abstract: This paper questions the notion that expatriates should adjust to their host country, by showing that adjustment and its consequences are affected by cosmopolitanism and expected assignment duration. A study of 260 expatriates in the U.S. reveals that cosmopolitans expecting shorter (longer) assignments adjust more (less) to both work and non-work aspects of their host country, and that this is associated with increased well-being. In contrast, for non-cosmopolitans, more well-being occurs when longer (shorter) expected assignments are accompanied by increased (decreased) work and non-work adjustment. Further, from the findings emerges a clash between two aspects of successful expatriation - well-being and professional success: while non-work adjustment is not always associated with well-being, work adjustment is positively related to assignment performance across conditions and subjects.

Keywords: Expatriates; international assignment; cosmopolitanism; crossculture adjustment; multinational corporations; preference persistence; assignment duration; survey method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2008-12-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab and nep-mig
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