The Influence of Social Capital on Expatriates’ Adjustment: The Moderating Effects of Work-Role Demand and Work-Family Conflict

Abstract

Research related to the predictors of expatriate's adjustment and performance has been conducted extensively, nevertheless, expatriation remains a challenging job. Previous studies illustrated that approximately from 30% to 50% of expatriates are ineffective, or in other word, they are marginally effective. Among others, the issue of social capital, work-role demand, and work-family conflict are three of the most critical factors for the adjustment and performance of expatriation. This study also adopts the Takeuchi's stakeholder approach to identify the moderating role of work-role demand and work-family conflict that moderate the influence of social capital on cross-cultural adjustment. With a questionnaire survey approach, the data was obtained from 244 expatriates among Taiwanese multinational enterprises. The results of this study showed that (1) expatriate's social capital has a significant effect on the expatriates' cross-cultural adjustment; (2) work-role demand and work-family conflict serves as two moderating variables that will inhibit the influence of expatriates' social capital on cross-cultural adjustment. The results of this study are very beneficial to human resource manager in selecting, recruiting, evaluating, and managing their expatriates in the overseas marketplaces. These findings could also be very useful for academicians to develop further about theoretical foundation in expatriate management.