Improving Expatriation Success: The Roles of Regulatory Focus and Burnout

Avi SILBIGER, Ron BERGER*, Bradley R. BARNES, Douglas W.S. RENWICK

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The study empirically and theoretically contributes to the human resource management discipline by developing and testing a cohesive model drawing on the pertinent literature from expatriate management, burnout and regulatory focus theory. Drawing on data from 233 expatriate managers, the study aims to examine the relationships between expatriate adjustment and the outcomes of job satisfaction and withdrawal cognitions via expatriate burnout. Specifically, the findings reveal that (a) higher levels of both work adjustment and interaction adjustment lead to reduced expatriate burnout, with the former having a greater effect on burnout than the latter; (b) burnout serves as a full mediator between work adjustment and withdrawal cognitions, and a partial mediator between work adjustment and job satisfaction; and (c) regulatory focus serves to moderate expatriate adjustment–outcome consequences, i.e. promotion-focused (as opposed to prevention-focused) expatriates demonstrate a stronger burnout–job satisfaction relationship. Several implications are extracted from the study for regulatory theory, burnout and expatriation management practices as well as suggested avenues for future research.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)231-247
Number of pages17
JournalBritish Journal of Management
Volume28
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2017
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 British Academy of Management

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