The impact of expatriate personality traits on cross-cultural adjustment: A study with expatriates in Japan

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Abstract

While regarded as among the most important factors affecting expatriate cross-cultural adjustment, little focused research with a broad array of personality traits has been conducted. This study draws from the cultural fit hypothesis and the socio-analytic theory to examine the impact of expatriate personality traits through the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire on the general-, interaction-, and work-related facets of cross-cultural adjustment among 181 expatriates in Japan. The results show positive relationships between the personality traits of Open Mindedness and interaction adjustment, Emotional Stability and Cultural Empathy and general adjustment, and Social Initiative and work adjustment.

Highlights

► This study examines the impact of expatriate personality traits on cross-cultural adjustment through the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). ► The theoretical framework is drawn from the cultural fit hypothesis and the socio-analytic theory. ► The hypotheses tested with 181 expatriates in Japan show positive relationships between the personality traits of Open Mindedness and interaction adjustment, Emotional Stability and Cultural Empathy and general adjustment, and Social Initiative and work adjustment.

Introduction

Personality traits – relatively stable, enduring patterns of how individuals behave, feel, and think – are regarded as among the most important antecedents of expatriate cross-cultural adjustment (Shaffer, Harrison, Gregersen, Black, & Ferzandi, 2006). For example, personality traits are argued to be more important determinants of cross-cultural adjustment than skills, knowledge, and abilities (SKAs) (Leiba-O'Sullivan, 1999) because they enable expatriates to cope with stress and make sense of their environment (Caligiuri, 2000a). However, surprisingly few scholars have used established psychometric scales to examine the influence of expatriate personality traits on cross-cultural adjustment (for exceptions, see e.g., Huang et al., 2005, Shaffer et al., 2006, Van Oudenhoven et al., 2003). In previous studies, expatriate personality traits are often measured through the Five-Factor Model of Personality (Big Five) (McCrae & Costa, 1987).

This study contributes to research on expatriate personality traits in three ways. First, we use the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) (Van der Zee & Van Oudenhoven, 2000) to examine the influence of expatriate personality traits on cross-cultural adjustment. We use the MPQ because the Big Five is alleged not to capture the specifics of cross-cultural adjustment (Hough, 1992, Ones and Viswesvaran, 1997, Schneider et al., 1996). The MPQ is based on the Big Five factors but narrowed to cover traits relevant to multi-cultural success (Van der Zee & Van Oudenhoven, 2000). Second, we respond to the calls to extent MPQ research from students to expatriates (Leone et al., 2005, Van der Zee and Van Oudenhoven, 2000). Finally, in comparison to previous studies in this domain (e.g., Caligiuri, 2000a, Huang et al., 2005), our sample is larger (181 expatriates) and presents a broader set of expatriate nationalities (25 countries). The broader presentation of expatriate nationalities improves the generalizability of findings because national cultures can influence the single nationality study findings. In contrast to limits imposed by the small sample sizes in previous studies, the data also enables the use of confirmatory factor analyses to validate the personality scale and control for factors that can bias the results.

The rest of this study is organized as follows. The second section reviews the literature on cross-cultural adjustment and expatriate personality. The third and fourth sections draw on the cultural fit hypothesis, the socioanalytic theory, and related literature to link the MPQ traits with expatriate cross-cultural adjustment in Japan. The sample, control variables, measures, and statistical procedures are presented in the fifth section. The sixth section discusses study findings, and concludes with implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research.

Section snippets

Literature review

Cross-cultural adjustment, defined in early studies as the degree to which expatriates are psychologically comfortable and familiar with different aspects of foreign environment (Black, 1988), is more recently described to cover the degree of ease or difficulty expatriates have with various issues related to life and work abroad (Takeuchi, Marinova, Lepak, & Liu, 2005). As a process, cross-cultural adjustment involves uncertainty reduction and change through which expatriates start to feel more

The present study

Taking into account the weaknesses in the Big Five, we use the MPQ to examine the impact of expatriate personality traits on cross-cultural adjustment. The cultural fit hypothesis (Ward and Chang, 1997, Ward et al., 2004), which posits that it is not the personality per se that predicts cross-cultural adjustment, but the cultural fit between expatriate personality traits and host country culture, is also taken into account in hypothesis development. What counts for the expatriate adjustment

Cultural Empathy

Cultural Empathy, also known as cultural sensitivity (Hawes & Kealy, 1981), refers to expatriates ability and sensitivity to read the feelings and thoughts of people from other cultural backgrounds (Van der Zee & Van Oudenhoven, 2000). Expatriates empathetic to other cultures are more accepting of cultural differences rather than seeing them as good or bad, right or wrong. Cultural Empathy thus is the opposite of ethnocentrism, or the propensity to view one's own cultural traditions and

Sample

Data were collected from expatriates working in the greater Tokyo area (including the prefectures of Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, and Tokyo) due to a high concentration of foreign subsidiaries and expatriates in this area (Japan Institute of Labor, 2002). International surveys are identified to have low response rates that bias their results (Harzing, 1997). To prevent this potential problem, we drew on personal contacts to collect data, similarly to other expatriate adjustment studies (e.g.,

Results

The data were analyzed with SPSS statistical software package. We first conducted confirmatory factor analyses on the cross-cultural adjustment and the MPQ scales. The cross-cultural adjustment scales achieved satisfactory model fittings after discarding one item of the interaction adjustment scale [χ2 = 121, d.f. = 61, p < 0.01, Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI) = 0.91, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.94, Root-Mean-Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.07]. To investigate the discriminant validity between

Discussion

This study, by examining the impact of expatriate traits on cross-cultural adjustment through the MPQ, is important for three reasons. First, most research in this domain has been conducted with the Big Five, alleged not to capture the specifics of cross-cultural adjustment (Hough, 1992, Schneider et al., 1996). Second, we extended the MPQ from studies conducted mostly with students to expatriates. In addition to the socioanalytic theory (e.g., Hogan and Shelton, 1998), we also used the

Practical implications

This study has practical implications. First, this study indicates that personality traits should be taken into account in expatriate selection to reduce problems associated with poor cross-cultural adjustment such as suboptimal performance, damaged relationships with local employees, suppliers, and customers, and premature return (Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005). As expatriates lacking certain personality traits are likely to fail their assignments (Caligiuri, 2000b), pre-assignment screening

Limitations and future research directions

This study also has limitations. First, all measures were collected via self-reports, which can artificially increase the strength of some relationships. To reduce potential common method biases, the cross-cultural adjustment and MPQ items were assigned in random order. Several of the MPQ items were also reverse-coded. Further, a manual check of the data did not show a compressed response range noted to appear in single-method studies (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). We also conducted a Harman's

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