Managing work-life balance abroad is considered as one of the key challenges associated with expatriation. That is particularly true when the enactment of the work-life boundaries of expatriates' home and host countries diverge. Drawing from boundary theory, we investigate whether and how expatriates experience cross-cultural challenges in terms of their work-life boundaries abroad. We interviewed 28 German expatriates in South Korea because both cultures differ substantially in terms of their preferred work-life boundaries. Our study shows that perceived worklife boundary pressures in the foreign environment and willingness to adjust to the local work-life boundary culture vary substantially among expatriates. Based on a function of these two forces, we develop a typology of four work-life boundary adjustment styles and relate them to work-life balance satisfaction. Furthermore, we identify individual and organizational factors that influence expatriates' work-life boundary adjustment styles. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Purpose -The family and specifically, the partners of expatriates are unfortunately the major cause of expatriate maladjustment. Drawing from and extending the concept of relational demography, the purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the nationality of expatriates' partners, conceptualized as host, home or third country nationality, on expatriates' cross-cultural adjustment. Design/methodology/approach -Survey data from 299 expatriate academics in China, Japan and South Korea were analysed. The authors used confirmatory factor analyses to validate the scales and ANCOVA to test the hypotheses. To further understand the interactions effects the authors conducted simple slopes analysis. Findings -Results show that differences in expatriate academics' cross-cultural adjustment are not per se based on the different nationality of their partners, but are mainly due to an interaction effect of partner nationality and length of stay in host country. Expatriates with host country national partners perceived the highest increase in cross-cultural adjustment over time, followed by those with third country national partners, whereas those with home country partners did not experience any increase in cross-cultural adjustment.Research limitations/implications -The study was based on a cross-sectional survey of expatriate academics in Asia. Thus, longitudinal, multisource data from various contexts would increase validity and generalizability of findings. Despite these limitations, the study provided new and intriguing findings. The theory and empirical evidence underscore the importance of expatriate partner nationality and thereby, relational demography between expatriate partners and expatriates. Practical implications -The research aims to emphasize the important role that expatriate partners can play concerning the success of expatriate cross-cultural adjustment. Greater attention should be paid to the adjustment processes of expatriates and their partners to facilitate expatriate cross-cultural adjustment. Originality/value -The authors are among the first to study the influence of nationality, conceptualized as host, home country or third country nationality, of expatriates' partners on expatriates' cross-cultural adjustment by applying the concept of relational demography. Moreover, the authors look at the role that time in the host country has on the partner's influence on expatriate adjustment.

Despite the prominence of cross‐cultural adjustment in expatriate research, recent literature has criticized the theoretical foundation and dimensionality of this construct. Building on person–environment fit theory, we empirically investigate a multidimensional conceptualization of cross‐cultural adjustment in the work domain, considering expatriate abilities and needs as well as environmental demands and supplies. We conduct polynomial regression analysis on a sample of 175 expatriates in South Korea. Results show that job satisfaction increases as perceived organizational support exceeds expatriates’ need for organizational information. In a similar vein, job satisfaction increases as expatriates’ cultural skills exceed workplace social exclusion. We visualize the identified relationships using response surface analysis. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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