A Study Of The Stress And Coping Of Cross-Culture Adaption For Foreign Executive Of Multi-National Corperation In China

Multi-national corporations (MNCs) are the major power of economic globalization nowadays. With MNCs’ entry to China today, the volume of top managers in MNC relocated in China grows. Gradually, they became a particular group in the society of China.That’s why they cannot avoid facing the stress of cross-cultural adaption after they arrive China. According to previous researches, we discover that most of pervious studies focused on cross-cultural adaptation of foreign students, but few on expatriate top managers’. What’s more, fewer studies for the cross-cultural adaption of expatriate top managers. The limited studies almost based on theories to carry out theoretical models. Despite the fact, from limited empirical researches, we still can find out expatriate top managers in China need to renew and adjust their job roles to fit into new circumstances. Stress coping strategy has influence on their job efficiency and satisfaction of life in China.In perspective of cross-cultural adaptation, the present study is to investigate foreign executives of MNCs in China about stress condition, resources of stress, effect of stress, and their present stress coping strategies. We try to explore the solution to assist them to release the stress, improve their capacity of cross-cultural adaptation. Forecast from mental stress conditions of foreign executives in MNCs, estimate for the investment strategy of MNCs in China and the expense of manpower to China market, to increase the possibility of success. In the meantime, we can also provide valuable information to the company belonging to China for their business development in the global market in the future.The present study discussed the cross-cultural adaptation and stress coping strategy to the foreign executives in MNCs. It includes four sections:The first section provided a review:the history and current situation of researches, the definition of Multi-national Corporation and foreign executives in China, and introduction of the method of qualitative research. On the base of which, we presented the purposes.The second section was the study method, including quantitative and qualitative. We used the questionnaire built by ourselves, integrating three parts:(1) gross stress condition of the participants; (2) resources and structure of stress; (3) stress coping strategies. Based on quantitative research, we set up the factor structure and items of questionnaire. Qualitative was based on semi-structural interview, combing the results of quantitative, the major details involved (1) the basic information of participants; (2) the job experiences of participants; (3) the degree of stress and resources of stress of participants on cross-cultural adaptation; (4) the strategy and efficiency of interviewers of coping stress.The third section was the general discussion. Based on the results, we had a further discussion and gave some suggestions and opinions on improving adaption of foreign executives in MNCs in China. Furthermore, based on the process of the study, we found out some insufficient and prospect of future study. The topic mainly focused on the cross-cultural adaption of the foreign executivers in MNCs and the qualitative observation and the preliminary quantitative analysis; therefore, it was not an instrument of scale. That was why the major point was the analysis of the reality. Besides, the study had an idea of the cross-cultural adaption of the foreign executives in MNCs in China, but as an applied research, we still needed a further empirical measure of the reliability of the instrument. The future study needs to focus on the mechanism of the adaption of the foreign excutives in MNCs and the intervention of the individuals, so that we can improve the adaption of the foreign executives in MNCs in China, which can improve their mental health.The forth section was the conclusion. The conclusions based on quantitative and qualitative research were:the stress from job was the major factor of foreign executives in China; the source of their stress are mainly from their family, human relation and the circumstances of policy; with regard to the coping strategy, positive coping strategy was most highly correlated, which was the most acceptable and selected, but support system are the major requir from their stree release; CEO and CFO have similar stress from cross-cultural adaption, the coping strategies are close between both of them; the stress of CTO is not as strong as that of CEO and CFO, and CTO’s coping strategies can be execute are more than that of CEO and CFO; the stress and coping strategy from Japanese, Korean, and Hongkongness, Taiwanness, all of them are close to the western style, but different stress and coping strategy between Japaness, Korean and Hongkongness, Taiwanness are larger than between Japaness Korean and western style; the age of foreign executives in China are positive related to the stress of cross-cultural adaption, the stress getting larger when they getting older; the period they stay in China are negative related to the stress of cross-cultural adaption, the longer they stay, the less stress they can feel.