Predicting intercultural adaptation of expatriates within a South African context

Abstract

Expatriates often face challenges when trying to adjust to the working conditions, and social and cultural environment of their new host country. In this thesis a tentative model is formulated to predict the intercultural adaptation of expatriates in South Africa. The research is founded on the notion that positive self-efficacy is an important explanatory construct in the expatriate context, and that together with other psychological and socio-cultural constructs, it helps to explain why some expatriates find it easier to adapt to the host country than others. The research was conducted using a survey-based research design and entailed the development of a psychological instrument involving a number of subscales, notably Sherer’s General Self-Efficacy Scale, The Cultural Intelligence Scale, The Profile of Emotional Competence, and The Perceived Cultural Distance Scale. The questionnaire was submitted online via the MyEcho platform to two samples of participants, representing two different population groups. One sample, labelled the pilot group (n=506), consisted of expatriates living outside South Africa, and a second sample, designated as the study group (n=909), comprised expatriates residing in South Africa. The response data were statistically analysed in two stages. In a first stage, the subscales and composite scales of both samples were evaluated for reliability and validity, and the two samples were also compared. This yielded some insight into the type of individuals that form the immigrant population in South Africa, and the unique circumstances and challenges they have to face in this country. In a second stage, a mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis was conducted using the PROCESS computational tool and model templates developed by Hayes (2022). This analysis was applied to explore different models of relationships between self-efficacy as the main variable, and cultural intelligence, perceived cultural distance, and emotional intelligence, as the moderating, mediating, or conditional processing variables. Intercultural adjustment was the dependent variable in these analyses. The main conclusions emerging from the research are surprising. Ability-based skills are not the primary drivers of positive intercultural adaptation – external circumstances, such as the welcoming nature of the host country nationals and support, are more important. The theoretical implications of the findings, and practical solutions to address expatriate failure are discussed, and a partial predictive model is suggested of what a positively adjusted expatriate resembles. Future research could fill out this model, but even in its current form it may provide researchers and employers with a baseline for screening potential expatriates.