EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Stuck in a moment you can't get out of: the psychological effects of expatriates' coping with a crisis situation

Alexei Koveshnikov and Miikka J. Lehtonen

Journal of Global Mobility, 2024, vol. 12, issue 4, 648-668

Abstract: Purpose - We draw upon stress theory and utilize the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate how various coping strategies employed by expatriates affect their psychological stress, subsequently influencing their expatriation satisfaction and intention to withdraw from the host country. Design/methodology/approach - We utilize structural equation modeling to analyze a sample of 453 expatriates residing and working in the United Arab Emirates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings - Our analysis shows that the effects of different coping strategies on expatriates vary. Depending on the nature of the strategy, they can have either positive or negative effects. While coping via problem-focused and denial strategies decreases expatriates' stress, coping by distancing increases it. Social support-seeking is not found to be an effective stress-coping strategy. In terms of implications, the problem-focused strategy leads to the most positive outcomes, whereas distancing leads to the most negative outcomes. Originality/value - Our study provides significant theoretical and practical insights into expatriates' coping mechanisms within the context of natural crises.

Keywords: Coping strategies; Natural crisis; COVID-19; Expatriates; Psychological stress; Stress theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:jgmpps:jgm-11-2023-0082

DOI: 10.1108/JGM-11-2023-0082

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Global Mobility is currently edited by Professor Jan Selmer

More articles in Journal of Global Mobility from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:eme:jgmpps:jgm-11-2023-0082