Work conditions as moderators of the relationship between western expatriates’ commitment and retention in international assignments
| Published date | 14 October 2014 |
| Pages | 145-163 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-09-2012-0011 |
| Date | 14 October 2014 |
| Author | Phuong Nguyen,Jörg Felfe,Insa Fooken |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Work conditions as moderators of
the relationship between western
expatriates’ commitment and
retention in international
assignments
Phuong Nguyen
International Educational Doctorate Institute (INEDD), Siegen University,
Siegen, Germany
Jo
¨rg Felfe
Department of Organizational Psychology, Helmut Schmidt University,
Hamburg, Germany, and
Insa Fooken
Department of Education and Psychology, Siegen University, Siegen, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to first, examine the role of multi-dimensional commitments
of western expatriates to a local operation in sustaining retention in international assignments.
Second, the study also attempts to investigate the work conditions in which dimensions of local
operation commitment are more effective in predicting retention.
Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected by questionnaire from 471 western
expatriates currently working for the subsidiaries of multinational companies in Vietnam, and from
this, five hypotheses were formulated and tested using hierarchical regression, moderated regression
analyses and plots of two-way interaction effects.
Findings – The results indicated that all three components of local operation commitment (affective,
normative, and continuance commitment) positively predicted retention. The findings also revealed
that job autonomy, leader support, and remuneration were found as moderators, which increase the
effects of the three components of local operation commitment on retention.
Practical implications – By understandingand managing the multi-dimensional nature of expatriate
commitment toa local operation as well as their working conditions (job autonomy, leader support,and
remuneration), multinational companies can reduce the rate ofpremature return for western expatriates.
It is theinteraction between localoperation commitment andthese factors that most positivelyinfluences
retention.
Originality/value – The first contribution of this research is the identification of the important role
of multi-dimensional commitments to a local operation in predicting retention. Second, the moderating
effects of work conditions found in this study partially explain why the relationship between local
operation commitment and retention is reported unstable in previous studies. Therefore, controlling
work conditions is recommended to enhance the local commitment-retention relationship.
Keywords Employee turnover, Organizational leadership and leadership development,
Expatriation and repatriation, International human resource management, Organizational behaviour,
Recruitment and retention, Organizational commitment, Job autonomy, Job variety, Leader support,
Remuneration
Paper type Research p aper
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/2049-3983.htm
Received 19 September 2012
Revised 12 December 2012
2 January 2013
Accepted 2 January 2013
Evidence-based HRM: a Global
Forum for Empirical Scholarship
Vol. 2 No.2, 2014
pp. 145-163
rEmeraldGroup Publishing Limited
2049-3983
DOI 10.1108/EBHRM-09-2012-0011
This research was funded in part by DAAD Germany, and the International Office of the
University of Siegen. The authors are grateful for the helpful financial support.
145
Work conditions
as moderators of
the relationship
1. Introduction
As international activities of multinational companies rapidly increase in Asia,
western employees, the so called western expatriates, are sent overseas to take on a
variety of roles (establishing subsidiaries or managing representative offices; entering
and occupying the local markets; training local employees; and providing technical
support). The performance of exp atriate employees in foreign subsidiaries mostly
decides the success of multinational companies in foreign markets. However, according
to previous studies (e.g. Gregersen and Black, 1990; Dowling and Welch, 2006;
Naumann, 1993; Naumann et al., 2000; Nguyen et al., 2012), multinational companies
may lose several billion US dollars per year due to expatriate s’ premature return. Costs
of this turnover are even more serious for a multinational company than for a domestic
one due to the largeinvestment in expatriates’ development andretention in international
assignments. Thus, it is essential for mult inational companies to increase western
expatriates’ retention in international assignments.
Previous studies also suggested tha t turnover intention was negatively related to
organizational commitment. Organizational commitment indicates the relationship
strength between individuals and their organization. This close relationship can reduce
the rate of turnover, which incurs significant costs to the organization as well as to the
individuals.During international assignments, an expatriate might developcommitment
to a parent company (from which an expatriate is sent and to which the expatriate still
formally belongs) and commitment to a foreign subsidiary or a local operation (where
the expatriate undertakes the temporary international assignment). The relationship
between parent company commitment and retention has been reported as significant
(e.g. Gregersen and Black, 1990). However, the relationship between local operation
commitment and retention has, only in certain cases, been reported as significant
(Birdseye and Hill, 1995; Naumann et al., 2000), whereas in other cases the relationship
has been reported as insignificant (Black and Gregersen, 1999; Gregersen and Black,
1990). Withsuch contradictions abound, it may be conceivable that the links betweenthe
local operationcommitment and retention aremoderated by working conditions. Indeed,
during international assignments in Asia, besides surviving numerous difficulties with
living conditions such as the difference in social, cultural and political environments,
western expatriatesoften experience challenges at work such as high job autonomy, job
variety and lack of supervision from parent companies (Biemann and Andresen, 2010;
Cerdin and Le Pargneux, 2010; Nguyen et al., 2012). Thus, faced with relatively unique
conditions of international assignments, western expatriates may behave differently
with respect to commitments to local operations and retention than other employees.
Therefore, examining the influence of work conditions during western expatriates’
international assignments may partly answer the question “which factors in the
internationalbusiness context makethe effect of local operationcommitment on retention
more (or less) pronounced?”
There are, of course, already some studies that have tested work conditions as
antecedents of expatriate commitment to their local operations. For example, previous
research found that work conditions such as job autonomy and job variety are
positively related to expatriate salespeople’s organizational commitment (Naumann
et al., 2000), leader-member support is positively associated with affective commitment
of expatriates (Liu and Ipe, 2010; Nguyen et al., 2012), and compensation significantly
predicts affective commitment (Nguyen et al., 2012; Tornikoski, 2011). However, so far
no study has investigated the moderating effects of these work conditions on the local
operation commitment-retention relationship. Moreover, from this literature we note
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