Assisting cross‐border manager adjustment: Psycho‐cultural and socio‐cultural interventions

Purpose - This research aimed to identify cross-cultural adjustment interventions to assist the personal wellbeing (psycho-cultural) and cultural interaction (socio-cultural) of managers on foreign assignments. Both pre-departure and in-country interventions were sought. Design/methodology/approach - A questionnaire was employed and comprised two adjustment measures. Data were collected from 244 Australians in south-east Asia working in two industry groups - manufacturing/industrial and financial/services. Exploratory factor analysis was employed to identify adjustment constructs. Pearson correlations, as well as ANOVAs and t-tests, were employed to explore the effect of industry group, respondent group, number of cross-border assignments, age and gender. Findings - Eight adjustment interventions were identified and were labelled: quality of life awareness; host business and cultural awareness; family impact awareness; staff and business colleague awareness; home country networks; cultural reinforcement and support; cultural inclusion; and host language skills. Research limitations/implications - The research was limited to a specific business region, to one cross-border manager cultural grouping and an exploratory technique was employed. Hence further work is needed to confirm the constructs and to assess the generalisability of the results to other business regions and to other cross-border manager groups. Originality/value - Whilst some important differences existed, the implications and value of the research may be evident in assisting psycho-cultural problems such as anxiety and stress, and to encourage socio-cultural interaction such as involvement in and with cultural environments and decreasing the potential for failed assignments.