Expatriate Cultural Antecedents and Outcomes

• Author: Bruce Swanson,William Ritchie,Joshua Logsdon,Brent I. Brantley,Marshall Pattie
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21128
• Date: 01 March 2015
• Published date: 01 March 2015

325

N M  L, vol. 25, no. 3, Spring 2015 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21128

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Correspondence to: William Ritchie, James Madison University College of Business, Harrisonburg, VA 22807.

E-mail: ritchiwj@jmu.edu.

From the Field

Expatriate Cultural Antecedents

and Outcomes

AN ASSESSMENT TOOL FOR NONPROFIT MANAGERS

William Ritchie,1 Brent I. Brantley,2 Marshall Pattie,1

Bruce Swanson,3 Joshua Logsdon4

1James Madison University, 2Oxford Graduate School, 3University of Phoenix,

4College of William and Mary

This field note is based upon a case study of US expatriates working for a multinational

nonprofit organization in North and Central Africa. The purpose of this study was to

examine expatriate culture adjustment from two vantage points. First, the study tested the

impact of three organizational conditions on expatriate culture adjustment. Second, the

study examined the relationship between an expatriate’s culture adjustment and (1) their

intention to prematurely leave the international assignment and (2) their effectiveness in

host country relationships. In the first phase of analysis, the study found that the expatri-

ate’s alignment with organizational mission and values, level of team esprit-de-corps, and

job satisfaction were significant predictors of national cultural adjustment. In the second

phase, the study found that higher levels of expatriate cultural adjustment (1) yielded lower

levels of employees’ premature turnover intention and (2) enhanced the expatriate’s ability

to work with host country nationals and their organizations. The validated survey instru-

ment in this study provides managers with a tool to measure the organizational conditions,

expatriate’s level of cultural adjustment, turnover intention, and relationships with host

-country nationals. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Keywords: international, nonprofit management, expatriate adjustment, organizational

fit, Africa

Nonprofi t Management & Leadership DOI: 10.1002/nml

326 RITCHIE, BRANTLEY, PATTIE, SWANSON, LOGSDON

NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS (NPOS) have played a critical role in social and economic

development internationally (Brown and Moore 2001; Kerlin forthcoming; McCleary and

Barro 2008). With more than 5,600 NPOs in the United States conducting operations interna-

tionally and representing more than $17 billion in total revenues, 75 percent of these organiza-

tions provide international development and assistance (Kerlin and Thanasombat 2006). For

many large, globally engaged NPOs such as the Red Cross or World Vision, their own domes-

tic-based employees are often deployed as expatriates to accomplish mission- critical fieldwork.

For clarity, the term expatriate in this study refers to an employee’s time-limited move to a

country beyond the borders of his or her home country, with the intent to return at the conclu-

sion of the specified assignment (see, for example, Andresen, Bergdolt, and Margenfeld 2013).

To achieve a global impact, these NPOs allocate significant resources to prepare their expatriate

employees for field assignments. Despite their global reach, research relating to NPO expatriate

attributes and outcomes in the field is scarce (Jackson 2009; Patel and Wilson 2004; Zhu and

Purnell 2006). However, there is a well-developed stream of research along these lines in the

for-profit management literature that can inform the NPO field and enhance related theory.

Mainstream expatriate literature suggests that the number of short-term and long-term inter-

national assignments is growing (Benson and Pattie 2009; Brookfield 2012) and that suc-

cessful expatriation depends upon support from the home organization (Gregerson 1992).

Organizations such as the National Foreign Trade Council estimates employer costs associated

with sending an experienced employee abroad for a three-year assignment at more than $1

million (PR Newswire 2001). However, despite these significant investments in recruiting

and training, statistics indicate that expatriate failure rates range between 10 and 80 percent

(Okpara and Kabongo 2011), and between 20 and 40 percent of expatriate employees leave

their assignments prematurely (Kim and Slocum 2008). Other studies show that only 32

percent of expatriates report that they were well prepared for their field assignment (Maitland

2001). To address these issues, organizations that deploy expatriates face the challenging task

of accurately assessing the diverse cultures in which work is performed and offering supportive

work conditions that facilitate cultural adjustment. The purpose of this study was to examine

NPO conditions that lead to expatriate success in terms of expatriate cultural adjustment.

The term culture is used to explain a wide variety of phenomena, including ideologies, art,

technologies, and beliefs (Kuper 2000). Adding to the complexity of this concept is the fact

that there are multiple “levels” of culture, such as country (Dorfman and Howell 1988); organi-

zation (Cameron and Quinn 2011; Deal and Kennedy 2000a, 2000b; Sørenson 2002); and

team levels (Ritchie et al. 2012). Drawing on Black, Mendenhall, and Oddou’s (1991) seminal

work as well as Bhaskar-Shrinivas’ et al. (2005) meta-analysis, cultural adjustment in this study

is defined as “the degree of comfort or absence of stress associated with being an expatriate . . .

comfort associated with various non-work factors such as general living conditions, local food,

transportation, entertainment, facilities, and health care services in the host country. . .” (257).

The data in this study were collected from a global NPO, where US expatriates were

deployed in North and Central Africa. The conceptual model presented in this study was

developed using case study methods (Stake 1995; Yin 2003) and posits that the level of expa-

triate cultural adjustment is influenced by the organizational conditions: (1) alignment with

the organizational values and mission, (2) team esprit de corps (referring to the morale of

the individual’s group), and (3) job satisfaction (Figure 1). In a post hoc analysis, this study

explores the relationship between cultural adjustment and expatriate withdrawal intentions

(Caligiuri 2000) and effectiveness of relationships with other host country entities (Figure 2).