You're from where? The influence of distance factors on New Zealand expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustment |
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Authors: | Emma M Jenkins |
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Institution: | School of Marketing and International Business, Victoria University of Wellington , Wellington, New Zealand |
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Abstract: | This study empirically tests the influence of various distance factors on expatriate cross-cultural adjustment. Expatriate perceptions of home and host country differences, objective measures of distance and the accuracy of expatriate evaluations of host country distance were compared as predictors of expatriate adjustment difficulty in the host country. The results revealed that perceived distance, objective cultural distance and the expatriate's perceptual inaccuracy had a significant effect on expatriate adjustment difficulty for one's first assignment. However, on subsequent assignments all measures of distance were significant. Adjustment became more difficult as perceptual accuracy improved. The implications of these findings are discussed. |
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Keywords: | cultural distance expatriate adjustment objective distance perceptual accuracy psychic distance |
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