Culture shock in China?: Adjustment pattern of western expatriate business managers

✍ Scribed by Jan Selmer

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 214 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0969-5931
• DOI: 10.1016/s0969-5931(99)00018-9

✦ Synopsis

Currently working on the Chinese mainland, Western expatriate business managers, mainly from the USA, France, Germany, Australia and Great Britain, participated in a mail survey regarding their degree of adjustment which was then mapped over time. The results showed that while the three dimensions of sociocultural adjustment; work adjustment, interaction adjustment and general adjustment, all showed a clear U-curve pattern indicating a typical culture shock experience, no such pattern was displayed in the case of psychological adjustment as measured by their subjective well-being. Implications for Western expatriate business managers on the Chinese mainland and for companies assigning Western expatriates there are discussed.