Promoting expatriates’ acculturation: the three-way interactive effect between cross-cultural training, repatriation practice and leadership consideration

Abstract

Acculturation is important in predicting expatriation success, especially for Chinese expatriates. Given the inconsistent findings regarding the effectiveness of cross-cultural training (CCT) on expatriate acculturation, this study adopts the ‘internal fit’ perspective, which indicates that managerial practices jointly influence employees. Specifically, we investigate how CCT interacts with other internally aligned managerial components, including repatriation practice and leadership consideration, to affect expatriate acculturation. Two survey studies were conducted to test our hypotheses. We gathered cross-sectional data from 178 Chinese expatriates from three multinational enterprises in study 1 and time-lagged data from 230 Chinese expatriates from more than 200 multinational enterprises in study 2. Results demonstrate a positive relationship between CCT and expatriates’ acculturation, with repatriation practice strengthening that relationship. Moreover, CCT, repatriation practice and leadership consideration promote expatriates’ acculturation in a synergistic manner. This study contributes to the literature on Chinese expatriates and provides practical implications.