“Be Happy” While You Can: How Expatriates’ Accomplishments Affect Their Subjective Well-Being and Job Satisfaction

Abstract

Drawing upon the “happy-productive worker” hypothesis and the Job Demands-Resources model, we examine whether expatriates’ well-being mediates the association between expatriates’ interaction adjustment and job satisfaction; and whether this indirect effect is moderated by expatriates’ perceived accomplishment of the organizational goals for the assignment. Based on responses from 148 assigned expatriates we confirmed the expected indirect influence of expatriates’ well-being and the moderated mediation of expatriates’ accomplishment of organizational goals. This study offers implications for scholars studying subjective well-being in the international work context and organizations aiming to increase their global competitiveness without jeopardizing workers’ well-being.

Expatriate Academics’ Positive Affectivity and Its Influence on Creativity in the Workforce Indigenization Context: Revealing the Role of Perceived Fairness

“…In the context of adversity, calls to leverage human capital and creativity to ensure organizational competitiveness are increasing, but not to the detriment of well-being (Bastida et al 2023;Caligiuri et al 2020). Since the Arab Spring, thousands of academics have left their home countries to seek a better quality of life.…”

“…Similarly, Amari et al (2023) state that expatriates who are in a fair working environment and have high levels of cross-cultural psychological attitudes are more predisposed to developing creative thinking. However, studies related to positive emotions (e.g., PA, happiness, and well-being) and creativity are rarely explored, particularly in the expatriation context (Bastida et al 2023;Stoermer et al 2020). This study aims to fill this gap.…”

“…This might also help expatriate academics capitalize on the positive outcomes of PA and thereafter enhance their work attitudes and subsequent behaviors. Additionally, providing training programs within host institutions reinforces cross-cultural interactions between expatriate academics (Amari et al 2023) and facilitates expatriates' understanding of how they can obtain psychological support from their host universities (Mumtaz and Nadeem 2022;Bastida et al 2023). These training programs would prepare expatriate academics on how to leverage PA as a coping mechanism that helps mitigate the detrimental consequences of being involved in VUCA environments.…”

“…PA can be described as a person's tendency to respond positively to environmental stimuli, entailing emotional responses such as interest, enthusiasm, excitement, or attentiveness (Watson et al 1988;Cropanzano et al 1993;Stoermer et al 2020). International academics face countless challenges owing to volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments (Caligiuri et al 2020;Bastida et al 2023;Bader et al 2022) that threaten their mental abilities (Amari et al 2023). This context may further stifle international workers' aptitudes in terms of creativity for goal achievement (Gocłowska et al 2018;Amari et al 2023).…”