Social Identity Theory Perspective:an Investigation Of The Effects Of Identity And Status On The Adaptability And Adjustment Of Low-Status Expatriates(LSE)

The costs associated with failure of an expatriate assignment remain to be significant challenges for many multinational companies in the current era of globalization.While previous studies sustained the opinion that the results of an expatriate assignment was linked to the expatriate's ability to adjust to the unaccustomed environment,and the adjustment process was influenced by the relationships between the expatriate and the several other actors in the expatriate assignment,this present study intents to investigate the role of status and identity of an expatriate in regards to their successful expatriation and suggests that status and identity do matter.Little attention has been given in the scholarly works towards investigating whether the expatriates identity and status are crucial towards attaining their objectives despite the acknowledgement in recent studies stating that expatriates do perceive their identities have a greater impact on the response they receive from host nationals.Also,there exist few studies that investigate the role of host government towards successful expatriation,despite the great impact it has towards expatriate's commitment.Therefore,this study first examines whether status and identity have significant impact on the important factors on which the successful expatriation depends upon in expatriates currently working in China.Secondly,it explores and addresses the question whether the perception of the expatriates on the host government contributes towards their success.We employ a quantitative research approach in this study,in which we use Structural Equation Modelling to(SEM)to analyse and test the goodness fit of research models in order to explore the significance of the relationships proposed.By use of survey web-based links,we collected data from 420 expatriates currently working in different multinationals companies located in different provinces of China,among which 366 were found to be correctly filled and hence used for the analysis,representing an 83%response rate.To achieve the main objective of this study,the respondents were mainly from low-status expatriates originating from developing countries especially Africa and Asia.Using the responses we were able to test the hypothetical relationships within our theoretical model.The results generated provided empirical evidence that,expatriate's status and identity matter especially in regards to their socialization aspect which is an important factor that significantly affects the adjustment process.However,this study suggests that the challenges linked to the change of status and identity,can be addressed by self-cognitions,specifically,it was found that the domains of state self-esteem significantly mediated the relationship between perceived prejudice and expatriate's work:attitudes.Moreover,the findings from this study provided evidence that general trust in the host government,age and the education level attained by the expatriates assist them to remain committed and focus on their assignment by negatively moderating the effects caused by the unfavourable change of status and identity.The insights from this research provide a more holistic outlook of challenges faced by expatriates associated to their perceived identity and status.The theoretical propositions used in this study were drawn from Social identity theory(SIT)and basing on the significance of the results we posit that the theory provides better theoretical lens to assist in understanding the low-status expatriates.This fulfils an acknowledged gap basing on the recent research calls to scholars in the field of global human mobility to provide studies addressing the best theories to help in understanding low-status expatriates.