Impact of a local host on the success of an international assignment

Abstract

This longitudinal study examined whether contact with a local host in the Netherlands positively impacts on the adjustment and performance of “Western” expatriates with English or French as their first language. Thirty‐one expatriates were put in contact with a Dutch host with whom they would have regular contact over nine months; another 30 similar expatriates would have no contact with a host. After a five‐month period of contact with a host, there was a positive impact on interaction adjustment. The results also indicated that expatriates who valued the contact highly derived more benefit from it. Contact with a host seems to be especially worthwhile for expatriates who have to deal with host nationals on a daily basis. ©2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Going abroad to play: Motivations, challenges, and support of sports expatriates

“…To foster the integration of foreign talent into the environment and team, one recommendation would be to establish a buddy system, by pairing a local player with a foreign one. Such a system has shown to provide benefits to expatriates in terms of adjustment and intercultural competence (Van Bakel, Gerritsen, & Van Oudenhoven, , ). Equally, it could be a possibility to identify host families within the reach of the club community to host foreign players and introduce them to the local language and culture for a few weeks—as happened to Marissa K.—before finding appropriate individual housing.…”

Interpersonal affect and host country national support of expatriates

“…As they embark on their new assignments, expatriates are often forced to leave behind a social support network (van Bakel, Gerritsen, & van Oudenhoven, 2011), that could be relied upon as and when needed. Instead they must now attempt 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60…”

The Importance of Relationship Quality: Maximizing the Impact of Expatriate Contact with a Local Host

“…The role of contact quality was examined for each of the dependent variables in the three previously mentioned studies (Psychological Health, Satisfaction with Life, Physical Health, Sociocultural Adjustment, General Adjustment, Interaction Adjustment, Work Adjustment, Open‐Mindedness, Social Initiative, Cultural Empathy, Flexibility, Host National Access, Host National Social Support, Assess Your Own Performance, Most Recent Actual Performance Evaluation, and Desire to Terminate the Assignment; see Van Bakel et al, , , ), yet contact quality played a role for only four of these variables. These are reported in this article (Interaction Adjustment, Open‐Mindedness, Social Initiative, and Host National Social Support).…”

“…For example, the Expat Explorer Survey (HSBC, ) showed that Europe, and especially the Netherlands, was the most difficult region in which to make local friends. One solution is to purposely put expatriates in touch with a local host (Van Bakel, Gerritsen, & Van Oudenhoven, ).…”

“…First, according to the culture learning model (Ward, Bochner, & Furnham, ), expatriates can learn about the new culture and acquire new skills through this contact, which can be a source of important information (Johnson et al, ). Van Bakel et al () showed that expatriates with a local host improved more on their interaction adjustment with host nationals in general than those without a host. Contact with a local host was also found to buffer a decrease on attitudinal (Open‐Mindedness) and behavioral (Social Initiative) aspects of intercultural competence (Van Bakel, Gerritsen, & Van Oudenhoven, ).…”