In Part I of this two-part series, Stefan Mol looks at defining expatriate success. In this second part, he discusses recent developments on the predictor side of the equation.

In Part I of this two-part series, Stefan Mol looked at the meaning of expatriate success and concluded that it should be defined in terms of job performance. In this second part, he discusses recent developments on the predictor side of the equation.

As opposed to the multitude of studies that have examined predictors of expatriate adjustment, spousal adjustment, and other factors related to the expatriates' adaptation to living and working in a foreign country, relatively few studies have examined the predictors of job performance within the expatriate context.

Within the domestic personnel selection context, however, predictability of performance is crucial to establishing the utility of selection variables such as conscientiousness, cognitive ability, or work sample tests.
Although a discussion of how this state of affairs came to be is beyond the scope of this article, it is important to note that selecting an expatriate based on predictors that have not been validated against performance is irreconcilable with the best practices within the domestic selection literature, and may in fact be unlawful depending on the country at hand. (A free service on uniform selection guidelines is available at www.uniformguidelines.com.

The 'big five' personality characteristics

Within the domestic context, some of the most commonly studied predictors of job performance include the so-called 'big five' personality characteristics.

Research aimed at identifying the underlying dimensions of personality has consistently found confirmation for a five-dimensional model consisting of the following variables: conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness to experience.

A recent comprehensive survey of both published and unpublished studies on the prediction of expatriate job performance resulted in 25 studies.

By subsequently aggregating the results of these studies using the statistical technique of meta-analysis, Mol et al. (2005 ), were able to show - based on research that has been conducted up until this point - conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, and agreeableness are predictive of expatriate job performance while no support was found for the expected relationship between openness to experience and expatriate job performance.

Of the expatriate-specific variables that were assessed within this meta-analysis, cultural flexibility and cultural sensitivity turned out to be the most promising predictors. Thus from what is known up until this point, these variables should be included in any assessment of a candidate's suitability for overseas assignment.

Previous expatriate experience not always a plus

The meta-analysis also revealed that prior international experience is negatively related to expatriate job performance. The most likely explanation for this finding is that perhaps expatriates who are on their second or even third tours expend less effort on their adaptation to the new culture which limits their ability to perform effectively within it. Having spent a lot of energy on learning local languages and cultural intricacies in the past, they now realize that the benefits of these painstaking labours are only short lived.

Meta-analysis, although extremely useful for conveniently summarising the findings of a large number of empirical studies into a certain phenomenon, is necessarily limited in the sense that one has to play the cards that one was dealt.

That is, meta-analysis, because it is based on previous research, leaves no room to assess the predictive validity of variables that have never been studied. Especially in the case of the previously discussed meta-analysis, this is a major issue because it was based on a relatively small number of studies.
There are numerous variables that, despite their success in predicting domestic job performance have never been studied within the expatriate context.

Cognitive ability: a successful predictor in domestic situations

Examples of such variables are cognitive ability (one of the most successful domestic predictors) and core self-evaluations.

Dr. Stefan Mol is assistant professor in Organizational Behaviour at the Amsterdam Business School of the University of Amsterdam. He was previously affiliated with the same university as a student and received his Master's degree in psychology upon the completion of a thesis validating the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) among both expatriate and international student populations while living in Taiwan. Upon returning to the Netherlands he worked as a research consultant with GITP International BV, but returned to academia in 2002 when he started his PhD in psychology at the Institute of Psychology of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. Stefan obtained his PhD in December 2007. His dissertation consists of four studies investigating expatriate selection practices and one study aimed at assessing the performance of police trainees in South-Africa. His research collaborations have appeared (or will appear) in the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology (in press), the International Journal of Knowledge and Learning (in press), Human Performance (2009), the International Journal of Selection and Assessment (2009), the International Journal of Intercultural Relations (2005), the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (2005), and the Asian Journal of Social Psychology (2003). In addition he has co-authored several book chapters.