THE ROLES OF CULTURAL INTELLIGENCE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL ON COWORKER SUPPORT, BURNOUT, AND WORK-RELATED PERFORMANCE OF CHINESE EXPATRIATES IN THAILAND

Abstract

Further globalization has witnessed China’s dramatic growth in outward direct investment in Thailand and a double increase in the number of Chinese expatriates in Thailand over the past few years. However, the international assignments are inherently challenging. Basically, the excessive travel and less routine work schedule, as well as the increased responsibility and complexity of work content, may put expatriates under great workplace stress. The inability to handle such challenges may cause expatriates to suffer from job burnout. This issue is particularly overwhelming for the Chinese expatriates who are among the hardest working people in the world in terms of extremely long working hours. Not just only the stress from quantitative workload, Chinese expatriates also have difficulty building interpersonal relationship with host country nationals (HCNs). Research found that the Chinese MNEs mostly select the expatriates based on their technical skills rather than cross-cultural competency and emotional maturity; consequently, Chinese expatriates were criticized as being ill-equipped to interact with coworkers in the host countries. Under such intense challenges, the Chinese expatriates may be subject to job burnout and subsequently, lead to undesirable expatriate outcomes in the host country workplace. To alleviate and prevent job burnout, based on Job Demands-Resources model and Conservation of Resources theory, this research investigated the beneficial role of cultural intelligence (CQ) and psychological capital (PsyCap) in the reduction of job burnout and the enhancement of work engagement and job performance of the Chinese expatriates working in Thailand. Moreover, given that Thai culture is characterized with collectivism, this research proposed that the host country national (HCN) coworker support as the potential mediator that might transmit the effect of CQ and PsyCap to the expatriate outcome variables, including job burnout, work engagement, and expatriate performance. Survey data was gathered from 413 Chinese expatriates working for 15 Chinese subsidiaries in Thailand. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was utilized for data analysis. The results showed that CQ and PsyCap had significantly negative relationship with job burnout, and significantly positive relationship with HCN coworker support, work engagement and expatriate performance. In addition, the results revealed that HCN coworker support partially mediated the linkage between CQ, PsyCap and expatriate outcome variables, including job burnout, work engagement, and expatriate performance. Based on the results, this research provided some practical suggestions to the multinational enterprises, especially those who hire the Chinese expatriates, on screening, selecting, training and assigning qualified expatriates. Particularly, the specific recommendations on how to provide effective training related to the improvement of CQ and PsyCap were offered.