Methodology

Sample and data collection

The population of interest included any individuals who were currently on expatriate assignments,
as well as those who had previously been on assignments abroad. We secured the participation of
several organizations, primarily through someone connected to global HRs and who was willing to
facilitate the administration of an electronic survey. Those facilitators were given a company code
and a set of instructions, including a letter that they could send, en masse, to the expatriates and
repatriates that dened our population. In the letter to the expatriates, the facilitators assigned
codes to each respondent in an effort to maintain the anonymity of their responses. Participants
were given the URL for the survey,which took approximately 30 minutes to complete,and they then
electronically submitted these directly to the research team, which maintained their condentiality
as well. Other participants were added to the sample using the snowball technique, where by
individual expatriates or repatriates were asked to respond,and were further asked to pass the
request along to other assignees they knew.

Variables

Independent variables. The independent variables included the Big 5 personality traits discussed
earlier in the paper. The Big Five Inventory is a 44-item instrument designed to assess extroversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness, and has been placed in the
public domain by its authors (John and Srivastava, 1999). The 44 items were embedded in random
order in our electronic survey, and respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they saw
themselves as having the stated characteristics, on a ve-point scale with strongly disagree and
strongly agree as anchors. Below are sample items from each scale, together with their reliability
coefcients:

(1) Extroversion (eight items, 0.82):

. is talkative; and

. generates a lot of enthusiasm.

(2) Agreeableness (nine items, 0.74):

. is generally trusting; and

. is helpful and unselsh with others.

(3) Conscientiousness (nine items, 0.82):

. perseveres until the task is nished; and

. is a reliable worker.

(4) Emotional stability (eight items, 0.80):

. is relaxed, handles stress well; and

. remains calm in tense situations.

(5) Openness (ten items, 0.74):

. has an active imagination; and

. is original, comes up with new ideas.

Dependent variables. Expatriate effectiveness was our overarching dependent variable, but with
much discord in the past regarding its measurement, we have taken a multidimensional approach
toward operationalizing this construct. For each dependent item, we asked the expatriate or
repatriate to rate the extent to which he/she felt this objective had been accomplished (or was
being accomplished), using a seven-point scale with strongly disagree and strongly agree as
anchors. This approach came as the result of extensive discussions with former expatriates who
strongly believed that the success or effectiveness of an assignment depended greatly on what the
goals of the assignment were, or what the expatriate believed the goals of the assignment were. The
following scales were embedded in the survey, with the items scattered randomly to avoid any
ordering effects (number of items and scale reliabilities appear in parentheses).

Adjustment (six items, 0.66). This scale originally consisted of seven items and was then factor
analyzed to arrive at the strongest factor solution.Through item analysis, one factor emerged with
six items explaining 37 percent of the variance in the correlation matrix. Asaresult, the item reading
adjusting to people who speak a different language was eliminated from the adjustment scale.
Samples of the remaining adjustment items include the following:

. establishing a social network and interacting with host nationals outside of work; and

. remaining enthusiastic throughout the expatriate assignment.

Job performance (ve items, 0.76). This category originally consisted of 11 items, but through item
analysis, one factor emerged with ve items accounting for 52 percent of the variance. These items
had strong factor loadings and together seemed to represent successful completion of the
assignment. The six items which were dropped from the scale had more to do with the
headquarter/subsidiary relationship, such as communicating with the home ofce or transferring
knowledge from corporate to subsidiary, and thus did not load with the others. Samples of the
remaining job performance items include the following:

. completing the assigned project; and

. learning how the subsidiary operations ts into the companys overall strategy.

Assignment value (ve items, 0.77). All the ve original items for this scale loaded on one factor,
explaining 52 percent of the variance. These items were designed to capture overall success or
effectiveness of the assignment, in terms of how valuable the respondent believed the assignment
had been. Sample items from this scale are as follows:

. The assignment was worth the expenses incurred.

. Overall, the assignment contributed to the competitive position of the company.

Analysis. Multiple regression analysis was performed to assess the relationships between the ve
personality traits and each of the three measures of expatriate effectiveness. The statistical models
to be tested were as follows:

Adjustment = f (B0...extrab1...agreeb2...conscib3...emotionb4...openb5...e)

Job Performance = f (B0...extrab1...agreeb2...conscib3...emotionb4...openb5...e)

Assignment Value = f (B0...extrab1...agreeb2...conscib3...emotionb4...openb5...e)