Managing self-initiated expatriates: An empirical research on different types of mentoring and their effect on employees’ cross-cultural adjustment

Abstract

The phenomenon of globalization has led to the increasing mobility of workers across nations and a lot of these people can be categorized as self-initiated expatriates. Since relocating to another country can be difficult, it is important that these international employees feel completely adjusted as their adjustment is associated to many things such as their performance in the organization. In detail, mentoring has been continuously proposed as an assisting tool by scholars. The current research examined specifically the type of mentoring that these expatriates receive in the host-country, and how does this affect – if it affects – and in what way their cross-cultural adjustment. The research question and sub-questions were formulated to empirically test the conceptual framework by Mezias and Scandura (2005), which this research focused on. Drawing on a qualitative exploratory study of 15 interviews in five (5) countries and within 11 different organizations, it was seen that indeed each degree of adjustment can be best influenced by different types of mentoring, although, in some cases, the type of mentoring was not explicitly the same for all respondents. This pinpointed the fact that the perception of each person regarding the mentoring he/ she received differed. In general, it was shown that individuals’ experience in the organization/ host-country varies. In this way, this dissertation is a valuable asset to organizations and especially the HR department, which plays a major role in acquiring, developing, and retaining its workforce. Practical implications are rehearsed, exposing limitations of the study and areas for further research.