Study On Culturaladaptation Of Expatriates From Chinese-Invested Enterprises

With the development of globalization,more and more companies have started to develop international market.This phenomenon has urged Chinese enterprises to send expatriates to work overseas.China and Africa have always maintained a good friendship.Africa is rich in resources and has great potential for development.It has also attracted investments from Chinese-funded enterprises.Many expatriates have been assigned there.However,there are some differences between the African culture and the Chinese culture,the expatriate in international projects would experience a different culture.Expatriates may feel uncomfortable during the process of cultural adaptation,which could even lead to expatriate failure.Expatriate failure would not only bring economic losses to multinational corporations,but also cause various losses to individuals.Therefore,it is necessary for expatriates to adapt themselves to foreign cultures as soon as possible to shoulder the burden of tasks better.More attention should be paid to the cultural adaptation.As the main force going overseas,China No.15 Metallurgical Construction Group Co.,Ltd.(hereafter referred to as 15MCC)has been committed to overseas development.Located in central Africa,Congo(Kinshasa)is known as the heart of Africa.It is rich in mineral resources and has a low degree of resource exploration.Therefore,it has become one of the targets for 15 MCC to develop overseas markets.This research refers to Colleen Ward's Three Dimensions of Adaptation and Black's Three Dimensions of Adaptation.It is conducted by adopting qualitative research methods and quantitative research methods.The questionnaire is mainly based on Black and Stephen's(1989)14-item Scale and Black and Stephen's(1989)8-item Scale and Zung's(1965)Self-Rating Depression Scale(ZSDS).The author also has conducted interviews with 7 expatriates.Data collected from the questionnaire are analyzedwith SPSS.According to the interview,the status quo of cultural adaptation of expatriates is analyzed.This thesis takes the expatriate of RTR of 15 MCC in Congo(Kinshasa)as an example and analyzes the cultural adaptation of its expatriates.The purpose of this study is to learn about the cultural adaptation of expatriates in Africa and propose some effective suggestions to avoid the expatriate failure.This thesis has found that the working adaptation of the subjects in this study is closely related to their psychological adaptation and sociocultural adaptation.Cultural adaptation would affect job performance and tasks.Expatriates need to improve their ability to adapt themselves to different cultures,thereby reducing the risk of expatriate failure and ultimately achieving their goals.Respondents' working adaptation is generally good.In terms of general adaptation,respondents are satisfied with accommodation conditions but are not satisfied with their meals.As for the interactive adaptation,most expatriates tend to communicate with familiar local colleagues instead of unfamiliar colleagues or local strangers because of their personality traits,the public security in Congo(Kinshasa)and so on.Finally,some suggestions have been given to the company and expatriates in order to avoid the expatriate failure.This thesis provides the company and the expatriates with some suggestions.For example,in terms of the company,it should try to improve the living conditions and arrange some experienced employees to provide guidance to the inexperienced employees and the company could not ignore the experienced staff's cultural adaptation.For the expatriates,they should learn more about cultural knowledge and improve their language skills before the assignment.It is hoped that this article could be a supplement to previous research and provide Chinese companies and expatriates with useful and insightful guidance to solve some problems in the reality.