Antecedents and consequences of low-status expatriates’ adjustment experience

How do low-status expatriates adjust to working and living overseas? What factors are essential to their task performance, psychological well-being, intention to leave and life satisfaction in the host country? The extant expatriate literature disproportionately focuses on high-skilled, high-status professionals and managers who are either company-assigned or self-initiated to relocate and work in a new country. This bias overlooks the fact that the vast majority of international employees relocated in various countries actually fall into the category of low-status who take up low-skill and low-paid jobs. Some of them even live and work in precarious conditions. Yet, they form a significant part of the workforce in several developing and developed countries. Based on 45 semi-structured interviews with low-status expatriates, we derive a model that explains the relevant antecedents and consequences of low-status expatriates’ adjustment experience. To this end, we analyzed our data by drawing on the extant perspectives on expatriate adjustment and immigrant adaptation.