Changes in the world economy have made many companies change their businesses in an international context. Expatriates are used to share the knowledge from their country and make these businesses a success. Expatriates cost a lot of money, and because of this it is necessary to know who is and who isn’t suited to work abroad. Research has been done to which personality characteristics are important for a good performance by an expatriate, but does this theoretical background suit the reality?

At first four variables used in this research are four of the ‘Big Five personality dimensions’ (Costa & McCrae, 1992): extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Extraversion can be seen in two different dimensions: ambition and social capability. There are different intra individual factors that can be indicative for the emotional stability of a worker. Examples of these are concern, being depressed, anger, embarrassment, emotionality, anxiety and insecurity. Examples of characteristics following agreeableness are courtesy, flexibility, reliability, helping others, soft-heartedness and tolerance. Conscientiousness can be described with thoroughness, responsibility, being organised and the quality of plans.

Second the Cultural sensitivity that facilitates an understanding of the host country nationals. It was defined by Chen and Starosta (2000) as “an individual’s ability to develop a positive emotion towards understanding and appreciating cultural differences that promotes appropriate and effective behaviour in intercultural communication” (p. 409). As such, cultural sensitivity may be expected to positively affect expatriate job performance. (Mol et Al, 2005)

Third the international experience. Aycan (1997) states that “in [the] face of demanding circumstances (domestic or international), experience may be more valuable than knowledge to guide individuals in finding sound solutions to problems”. In addition, Torbiorn (1997) has suggested previous international experience to be important. Finally, Bell and Harrison (2002) proposed that expatriate adjustment would lead to further and future development of bicultural competencies. (Mol et. Al, 2005)

Arthur and Bennett (1995) identified flexibility as one of five factors perceived by expatriates to contribute to success. In fact, flexibility ranked second, surpassed in perceived importance only by family situation. Ronen (1989), in his review on expatriate selection and training, also identified flexibility as an attribute of success in overseas assignments. It was therefore hypothesized that flexibility, which for the purposes of this investigation is defined by Tucker, Bonial, and Lahti (2004) as “the capability to accept new ideas and see more than one’s own way of approaching and solving problems” (p. 230), would be predictive of expatriate job performance (Mol et. Al, 2005)

Previous research

The article of  Mol et Al. meta-analytically reviews empirical studies on the prediction of expatriate job performance. Using 30 primary studies (total N= 4,046), it was found that predictive validities of the Big Five were similar to Big Five validities reported for domestic employees. Extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were predictive of expatriate job performance; openness was not. Other predictors that were found to relate to expatriate job performance were cultural sensitivity and local language ability. Cultural flexibility, selection board ratings, tolerance for ambiguity, ego strength, peer nominations, task leadership, people leadership, social adaptability, and interpersonal interest emerged as predictors from exploratory investigations (K < 4). It is surprising that intelligence has seldom been investigated as a predictor of expatriate job performance.

As a Bachelors researcher in expatriate selection, David de Wit is currently in the process of applying the above and other considerations in a large-scale study that he is conducting via the internet.

If you would like to gain information from this survey please send an email to David.deWit@student.uva.nl after you have filled in the survey.

10 August 2007

[Copyright Expatica 2007]