The Contingent Effects of Role Ambiguity and Role Novelty on Expatriates' Work‐related Outcomes

Published date01 April 2015
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12089
Date01 April 2015
The Contingent Effects of Role Ambiguity
and Role Novelty on Expatriates’
Work-related Outcomes
Norifumi Kawai and Alex Mohr1
School of Business, Management and Economics, University of Sussex, Jubilee Building, Brighton BN1 9SL,
UK, and 1Kent Business School, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7PE, UK
Emails: N.Kawai@sussex.ac.uk; A.T.Mohr@kent.ac.uk
Research on work stress has highlighted its negative outcomes for both individuals and
their employers. Overseas assignments are more stressful than domestic assignments,
and their relatively high failure rates are well documented. We suggest, however, that
certain types of stress can positively affect expatriate performance. Based on role theory
and the distinction between hindrance and challenge stressors, we develop hypotheses
regarding the influence of role ambiguity and role novelty on expatriate success. We also
conceptualize and empirically investigate the moderating influence of expatriates’ per-
ceptions of organizational support and supervisor support. Our hypotheses are tested
using a sample of 125 Japanese expatriate managers in Germany. We find that role
ambiguity is a hindrance stressor and negatively affects job satisfaction and work
adjustment, while role novelty acts as a challenge stressor and positively affects job
satisfaction, task performance and work adjustment. Our findings also show that per-
ceived organizational support attenuates the negative effects of role ambiguity on work
adjustment and strengthens the positive effect of role novelty on job satisfaction. We also
find that supervisor support positively moderates the positive effect of role novelty on job
satisfaction and work adjustment.
Introduction
Expatriate management research has focused on
the high costs and failure rates of expatriate
assignments (e.g. Tungli and Peiperl, 2009). The
emphasis has been on conceptualizing expatriate
managers’ adjustment to the foreign work and
general environment as well as to interacting with
host-country nationals, which has been regarded
as a key predictor of their intention to complete
their assignment (e.g. Black, 1988; Nicholson and
Imaizumi, 1993; Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley,
1999). Recent research has placed greater empha-
sis on managers’ work-related performance
during such assignments irrespective of adjust-
ment level (e.g. Kraimer and Wayne, 2004),
although such research remains scarce compared
with studies on the adjustment of expatriates. We
suggest that, from the organization’s perspective,
work-related outcomes are at least as important
as the adjustment of expatriates sent overseas to
perform particular tasks. We also consider satis-
faction level to be a key indicator of an expatri-
ate’s inclination to continue an assignment.
Prior research has identified work stress as a key
factor affecting both job performance and satisfac-
tion in domestic settings (e.g. Gupta and Beehr,
1979; Stamper and Johlke, 2003). Gupta and
Beehr (1979) suggest, for example, that work stress
increases absenteeism and turnover among
employees. In the context of foreign assignments,
Haslberger, Brewster and Hippler (2013, p. 333)
emphasize that such assignments are ‘high-
pressure situation[s]’ as expatriates must adapt to
unfamiliar environmental demands inside and
outside the workplace abroad. The greater levels of
role ambiguity and novelty associated with over-
seas assignments have been identified as important
© 2014 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 26, 163–181 (2015)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12089
reasons why expatriates experience higher stress
levels than domestic employees (e.g. Black, 1988;
Kraimer and Wayne, 2004; Morley and Flynn,
2003). Consistent with stress research, scholars
investigating expatriate adjustment have tradi-
tionally argued that the high levels of stress asso-
ciated with the role ambiguity and role novelty of
overseas assignments are detrimental to expatri-
ates’ adjustment (e.g. Kraimer and Wayne, 2004;
Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley, 1999) and perfor-
mance (Kraimer and Wayne, 2004; Wu and Ang,
2011). Interestingly, however, although some
authors find no statistically significant effects
(Shaffer, Singh and Chen, 2013), others report
positive effects of the stress associated with high
levels of role novelty on expatriates’ adjustment
(Morley and Flynn, 2003). Although explaining
this inconsistency is thus important with regard to
expatriates’ adjustment, we consider it equally
important to address such potentially ambiguous
effects of role stress on expatriates’ job satisfaction
and task performance.
We posit two possible explanations for this
inconsistency. A first explanation of the inconsist-
ency in the findings on the link between work
stress and job outcomes may be due to the exist-
ence of different types of stressors that vary in
their effects on expatriates. Research in domestic
contexts has distinguished between hindrance
stressors and challenge stressors, arguing that
these have different effects on work-related out-
comes (Cavanaugh et al., 2000; Wallace et al.,
2009). Whereas hindrance stressors are argued to
have negative effects, challenge stressors are
expected to have positive effects on work out-
comes (Cavanaugh et al., 2000; Hon, Chan and
Lu, 2013; Wallace et al., 2009). However, few
scholars have yet addressed how these two types
of stressors affect work outcomes in an interna-
tional setting. In the context of overseas assign-
ments, we expect role ambiguity to act as a
hindrance stressor and affect expatriate manag-
ers’ work-related outcomes negatively. In con-
trast, we expect role novelty to act as a challenge
stressor and thus affect expatriate managers’
work-related outcomes positively. A second
explanation for the lack of consistent results on
the link between work stress and job outcomes
may lie in the existence of contingencies. Previous
research has investigated the moderating effects
of, for example, language fluency (Shaffer,
Harrison and Gilley, 1999), hierarchical level
(Shaffer, Harrison and Gilley, 1999), locus of
control (Black, 1990) and perceived assignment
value (Shaffer, Singh and Chen, 2013). Although
this research indicates that organizational support
and supervisor support are two of the central con-
tingencies for the link between stress and job out-
comes, we still know very little about social
support’s role in this link in the context of expa-
triate managers. Social support has traditionally
been central to research on role stress, as it is
expected to alleviate strains arising from others’
expectations and demands (e.g. Iwata and Suzuki,
1997). Most studies on the link between role
stress–performance have analysed it in a domestic
setting (e.g. Beehr, King and King, 1990; Iwata
and Suzuki, 1997; Webster, Beehr and
Christiansen, 2010); we suggest that social
support also plays an equally important, if not
more important, role in moderating both the posi-
tive and negative effects of role stress on expatri-
ate managers’ work-related outcomes.
Against this background, we address the fol-
lowing research questions. (1) How do role
novelty and role ambiguity, as key sources of the
stress associated with an overseas assignment,
affect expatriates’ job satisfaction, task perfor-
mance and work adjustment? (2) To what degree
do organizational and supervisor support moder-
ate these effects? Through these questions, we
contribute to the literature on expatriate manage-
ment by adapting and extending job stress
research to the expatriate management context
and clarifying the boundary conditions of the (dif-
ferent) effects of role stress on expatriate manag-
ers. The remainder of this paper is organized as
follows. In the next section, we build on role
theory and the distinction between hindrance and
challenge stressors to derive hypotheses about the
effects of role ambiguity and novelty on expatriate
performance as well as the moderating effects of
organizational and supervisor support. We then
present the research context and the empirical
basis of our study. After presenting the findings
we discuss their implications for theory and prac-
tice, highlight the study’s limitations and identify
several avenues for further research.
Theory and hypotheses
Role theory views organizations as systems of
roles and suggests that individual work outcomes
© 2014 British Academy of Management.
164 N. Kawai and A. Mohr

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