Fostering assigned expatriates' thriving at work through cultural intelligence and local embeddedness: The role of relational attachment

Abstract

Past research has noted that assigned expatriates (AEs) face challenges that often lead to premature termination when dispatched by the parent organisation to live and work abroad. However, recent statistics show that most AEs have no knowledge on how to overcome these cultural challenges prior to sending them abroad. Guided by the socially embedded model of thriving at work, we explain how cultural intelligence leads to local embeddedness and the latter's effect on AEs thriving at work. Further, the relationship between local embeddedness and AEs' thriving at work differs across varying levels of relational attachment. Our unique three-month time-lagged data from 234 AEs in eight multinational corporations (MNCs) with subsidiaries in Ghana offered support to our hypotheses. Cultural intelligence promotes local embeddedness, which, in turn, stimulates AEs thriving at work. Additionally, higher levels of relational attachment prompt AEs to leverage their local embeddedness to learn novel things that make them feel alive, energized, and awake at work. Implications for theory and practice, limitations and future research directions are discussed.