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Zum Zusammenhang von Offenheit und Erfolg bei internationalen beruflichen Entsendungen [On the relation between openness and success in international work assignments]

Deller, J., Albrecht, A.-G., Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., & Paulus, F. M.
In J. Henze, S. J. Kulich, & Z. Wang (Eds.), Deutsch-Chinesische Perspektiven interkultureller Kommunikation und Kompetenz (pp. 165–184).
Springer Fachmedien
(2023)

Das Kapitel beschreibt die Ausgangslage und Methodik der iGOES Studie (international generalizability of expatriates success). Berichtet werden ausgewählte Ergebnisse in Bezug auf den Zusammenhang zwischen der Persönlichkeitsdimension Offenheit und ihren Facetten sowie der Anpassung, Arbeits- und Lebenszufriedenheit von Expatriates. Darüber hinaus werden Mittelwertsunterschiede in Offenheit zwischen den über 2000 interviewten Expatriates und der deutschsprachigen Normpopulation beschrieben. Entwicklungen und weiterhin offene Forschungsfragen im Bereich des Expatriate Management werden dargelegt.

Success among self-initiated versus assigned expatriates

Albrecht, A.-G., Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., Deller, J., & Paulus, F. M.
In B. M. Wiernik, H. Rüger, & D. S. Ones (Eds.)
Managing expatriates: Success factors in private and public domains (pp. 183–194).
Budrich
(2018)

This chapter compares the success outcomes of self-initiated and employer-initiated expatriates. Results show negligible to small differences between these groups on adjustment, job satisfaction, and job performance, though self-initiated expatriates do show somewhat better interaction adjustment. Results suggest that self-initiation is not a powerful determinant of expatriate success.

Tolerance of ambiguity: Relations with expatriate adjustment and job performance

Albrecht, A.-G., Ones, D. S., Dilchert, S., Deller, J., & Paulus, F. M.
In B. M. Wiernik, H. Rüger, & D. S. Ones (Eds.)
Managing expatriates: Success factors in private and public domains (pp. 71–82).
Budrich
(2018)

International assignments are strongly characterized novelty, complexity, insolubility, and unpredictability. In such environments, dispositional tolerance of (or even attraction to) ambiguity may be an important contributing factor to expatriate success. We use data from the iGOES project to examine the contributions of tolerance of ambiguity to expatriate outcomes. Results show that tolerance for ambiguity has only small positive benefits for expatriate locational and work adjustment, as well as for contextual and management/supervision performance. Tolerance of ambiguity-criterion relationships showed negligible variability across samples, suggesting that these weak relations are stable across differences in cultural distance and time on assignment. Results indicate that organizations selecting expatriates may realize better utility with constructs other than tolerance of ambiguity.

The impact of age and experience on expatriate outcomes

Albrecht, A.-G., Wiernik, B. M., Deller, J., Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., & Paulus, F. M.
In B. M. Wiernik, H. Rüger, & D. S. Ones (Eds.)
Managing expatriates: Success factors in private and public domains (pp. 131–148).
Budrich
(2018)

Age and international experience are widely believed to importantly impact expatriate success. These variables are believed to be proxies for variables such as job knowledge, adaptability, and trainability and have a strong influence on organizational expatriation decisions. In this chapter, we examine age and experience relations with expatriate success in the iGOES samples. We find that age and experience have weak relations with most criteria and suggest more fruitful avenues for future expatriate research and practice.

Expatriate training: Intercontextual analyses from the iGOES project

Kostal, J. W., Albrecht, A.-G., Dilchert, S., Deller, J., Ones, D. S., & Paulus, F. M.
In B. M. Wiernik, H. Rüger, & D. S. Ones (Eds.)
Managing expatriates: Success factors in private and public domains (pp. 209–224).
Budrich
(2018)

Cross-cultural training (CCT) is used to provide expatriates with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to function effectively in the cultural contexts of their host countries. Previous meta-analyses of the effectiveness of CCT have found that, while CCT is on average beneficial for expatriates, there is large variability in effectiveness across studies. We use data from the iGOES project to examine potential moderators of CCT’s effectiveness, including type of training, specificity of training to the host culture context, presence of a mentor in the host country, and length of training. In contrast to previous findings in this literature, we found that associations between participation in CCT and expatriate job performance, job satisfaction, and international adjustment were small, and sometimes negative.

Influence of family presence on expatriate adjustment and satisfaction

Mercado, B. K., Albrecht, A.-G., Paulus, F. M., Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., & Deller, J.
In B. M. Wiernik, H. Rüger, & D. S. Ones (Eds.)
Managing expatriates: Success factors in private and public domains (pp. 255–270).
Budrich
(2018)

The role of expatriate families in the success or failure of international assignments is often overlooked. Organizations often consider employees’ family status when making expatriate selection decisions, and as expatriates prepare for their travels, they must make important decisions about whether their partners and children will accompany them. In this chapter, we examine the impact of partner and children presence on expatriate outcomes. We find that family presence is generally beneficial, but note some important contexts where family may interfere with expatriate acculturation. We highlight implications for practice and areas for future study.

Lingua necessaria? Language proficiency and expatriate success

Wiernik, B. M., Albrecht, A.-G., Dilchert, S., Deller, J., Ones, D. S., & Paulus, F. M.
In B. M. Wiernik, H. Rüger, & D. S. Ones (Eds.)
Managing expatriates: Success factors in private and public domains (pp. 195–208).
Budrich
(2018)

Local language proficiency is often regarded as a key enabling factor for expatriate success. In this study, we use data from the iGOES project to examine how language proficiency contributes to expatriate outcomes. Language proficiency is negligibly to weakly related to most outcomes, but does show positive relations with interaction adjustment. Moderator analyses support the interpretation of this relation as reflecting increased comfort from being able to communicate effectively, rather than reflecting cultural engagement or social inclusion effects. Overall, results indicate that local language proficiency can contribute to expatriate comfort, but is not absolutely necessary for expatriate success.

Cognitive predictors and age-based adverse impact among business executives

Klein, R. M., Dilchert, S. Ones, D. S., & Dages, K. D.
Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 1497-1510.
(2015)

Age differences on measures of general mental ability and specific cognitive abilities were examined in 2 samples of job applicants to executive positions as well as a mix of executive/nonexecutive positions to determine which predictors might lead to age-based adverse impact in making selection and advancement decisions. Generalizability of the pattern of findings was also investigated in 2 samples from the general adult population. Age was negatively related to general mental ability, with older executives scoring lower than younger executives. For specific ability components, the direction and magnitude of age differences depended on the specific ability in question. Older executives scored higher on verbal ability, a measure most often associated with crystallized intelligence. This finding generalized across samples examined in this study. Also, consistent with findings that fluid abilities decline with age, older executives scored somewhat lower on figural reasoning than younger executives, and much lower on a letter series test of inductive reasoning. Other measures of inductive reasoning, such as Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices, also showed similar age group mean differences across settings. Implications for employee selection and adverse impact on older job candidates are discussed.

Openness as a factor underlying successful expatriation: A brief report of project iGOES

Deller, J., Dilchert, S., Ones, D. S., Albrecht, A.-G., & Paulus, F. M.
In X. Dai & G.-M. Chen (eds.),
Intercultural communication competence (pp. 356-365).
Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
(2014)

Organizations that conduct business globally feel an increasing need to send employees on international assignments. Such international assignments are a challenge both for the organization and its employees. Reports from the applied and also the scholarly community reveal that reliable, valid, and easily applicable methods for selecting, preparing, and developing expatriate workers are crucial to the success of international assignments in general. This chapter provides an overview of project iGOES (international Generalizability of Expatriate Success Factors), which investigates the relevance of demographic variables, background characteristics, and individual differences traits in predicting expatriate adjustment and success. The most comprehensive project of its kind, iGOES systematically investigated whether relevant success factors differ across world regions expatriates are active in. The chapter illustrates the usefulness of the approach by focusing on and summarizing results for the personality trait of openness.

Openness in cross-cultural work settings: A multi-country study of expatriates

Albrecht, A.-G., Dilchert, S., Deller, J., & Paulus, F. M.
Journal of Personality Assessment, 96, 64-75.
(2014)

Openness plays an important role in determining what kind of experiences individuals seek out not only in their personal lives, but also in work environments. The objectives of this study were (a) to examine the influence of openness and its facets on the decision to work abroad and (b) to study whether employees’ openness relates to cross-cultural adjustment as well as job and life satisfaction. We investigated these questions among a sample of 2,096 expatriates. In addition to self-reports of openness and cross-cultural adjustment, ratings of subjects’ adjustment were also obtained from 928 knowledgeable others. The openness facets of actions, ideas, and values appear to be good predictors of acceptance of international assignments. In addition, global Openness and its facets Openness to actions and feelings relate to self- and other ratings of cross-cultural adjustment.