Title: Unhappy expatriates at work: subjective ill-being and work outcomes

Authors: Jan Selmer; Jakob Lauring

Addresses: Department of Business Administration, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark ' Department of Business Administration, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Abstract: While some expatriates could feel deeply unhappy trying to deal with the challenges of living and working abroad, few rigorous academic studies have presented evidence of the association between unhappiness among expatriates and their work outcomes. That is surprising since unhappiness could well have a substantial effect on performing certain work tasks which is the reason for the foreign assignment. Based on the survey responses of 428 expatriate academics, results of this exploratory study show that unhappiness conceptualised as Subjective Ill-Being (SIB) had a strong negative association with work adjustment, work performance, work effectiveness, and job satisfaction as well as a strong positive relationship with time to proficiency. These results are discussed in detail and their implications are drawn.

Keywords: unhappy expatriates; subjective ill-being; work adjustment; work performance; work effectiveness; job satisfaction; time to proficiency; expats; work outcomes.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIM.2014.064895

European Journal of International Management, 2014 Vol.8 No.6, pp.579 - 599

Received: 07 Feb 2013
Accepted: 07 Feb 2013
Published online: 21 Oct 2014 *

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