The sojourner's truth: Exploring bicultural identity as a predictor of assignment success in American expatriates
Year: 2009
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: MOORE, TI'ESHIA MARIE.The Sojourner's Truth: Exploring Bicultural Identity as a Predictor of Assignment Success in American Expatriates.(Under the direction of Brad Mehlenbacher).This study explores the bicultural identity of current American expatriates and the relationship between that identity and assignment completion.Biculturalism is defined as the psychological and emotional transition into dual competency, allegiance, and personal identification with the home and host societies.By expanding the cultural identification frameworks utilized in existing models, the study estimates whether and to what degree assignment completion are influenced by an expatriate's ability to both adapt and maintain cultural identifications while living and working abroad.Using an online survey to assess levels of cultural adaptation, identification, support, and stress, the study places respondents into one of four quadrants of bicultural identity based on the Acculturation Index (Berry, Kim, Power, Young, & Bujaki, 1989;Ward & Rana-Deuba, 1999).The strength of the relationship and influence between the quadrant placement and assignment completion is then examined.Using a four quadrant model of cultural identity, bicultural identity is explored through a logistic regression model.Assignment success, measured as the intention of the expatriate to remain in the assignment for as long as originally stipulated, produced a quasiseparation of data.Subsequent analyses using sociocultural adaptation as the criterion variable found host country identity, organizational support, cultural distance, and servicerelated assignments as significant predictors of sociocultural adaptation.In turn, adaptation significantly predicted assignment success and organizational commitment.Greater DEDICATIONThis work is dedicated to the future generations of the Moore family-that you would think, dream, and achieve bigger than I will.And to my husband, the love of my life, for your unwavering faith in me.
Author: Ti'eshia Marie Moore
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: University of Central Florida
OpenAlex ID: W58886929