Socializing Expatriates and Their Spouses: New Considerations for Expatriate and Spouse Adjustment through Organizational Onboarding

As international assignments are becoming an increasingly common and important business strategy, multinational organizations are in need of effective international human resource practices that can increase adjustment to international assignments and ultimately lead to expatriate success. This study advances the existing literature on adjustment by focusing on the post-arrival stage of expatriation and by considering social relationships between the expat, their spouse, and local host country nationals. Specifically, a theoretical model was developed and tested that includes organizational onboarding as an antecedent to the amount and type of social support expatriates and their accompanying spouses receive from host country nationals, which then is proposed to facilitate adjustment and expatriate performance. The study sample consisted of expatriates (N = 167) located in a variety of different host countries. Using structural equation modeling, the majority of study hypotheses were supported, indicating that organizational onboarding practices facilitated social support from host country nationals, which in turn, had positive effects on expat adjustment and expat performance as well as spouse adjustment. These empirical findings have implications for both future research and international human resource management in identifying best practices for onboarding expatriates and their spouses once they arrive in their new host country.