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Introduction
One important consequence of globalization is the increased mobility of human resources, including those who venture abroad to pursue cultural, personal, and career development experiences (Lee, 2005). While adjusting to the environment of a new country, expatriates face multiple social and cultural challenges (ORC, 2007), including a new set of norms, possibly a new company and new position, as well as a new community. Extant research has mainly focused on the adjustment problems of expatriates (Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005). More recently, researchers have suggested that it would be beneficial to consider expatriates’ embeddedness in the larger community and its differential effects on career outcomes (Reiche et al., 2011). Therefore, in this study we bring forth the idea that community embeddedness may have a significant relationship with expatriate retention cognitions, which refer to the thoughts, plans, and intentions to stay on the international assignment (Shaffer and Harrison, 1998). Specifically, we ask “what is the role of community in expatriate experiences?”
Defined in terms of connections and compatibility with work groups, organizations and communities, embeddedness reflects the idea of being “situated or connected in a social web” (Lee et al., 2004, p. 712). Higher levels of embeddedness indicate stronger professional and personal ties and better fit with the organization and community, which has been demonstrated to be beneficial to a variety of job related outcomes, such as performance and turnover (Lee et al., 2004; Holtom et al., 2006).
It is suggested that when relocation is a consideration, employee’s community embeddedness may play a more important role in organizational outcomes (Allen, 2006). Therefore, in this paper, we consider the influence of expatriate community embeddedness on assignment retention cognitions. In doing so, we build on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Demerouti et al., 2001; Llorens et al., 2006). In particular, we focus on the motivational pathway outlined by the JD-R and propose that being socially embedded in the host country community serves as a motivational force that enhances expatriates’ intentions to stay on their assignment. We further test the interactive effects of resources, and propose that organizational identity, which serves as a personal resource in the organizational context, will further enhance this relationship.
This then raises the question of how expatriates...