Cultural identity change in expatriates: A social network perspective

Abstract

We explore relational patterns of expatriates’ social networks and their impact on expatriates’ change in cultural identity while working abroad. We go beyond mono-cultural assumptions and highlight the importance of examining cross-cultural relational dynamics on maintenance and change in expatriates’ cultural identity. We argue that strong ties in dense networks are most conducive to helping expatriates stay attached to a national culture. Cultural diversity in a social network provides the impetus for cultural identity change. Cross-cultural interconnectedness within an expatriate’s social network contributes to the development of multiculturalism in one’s cultural identity. We also discuss the effect of cultural identity change on expatriation and repatriation adjustment, and provide some practical implications for individuals as well as organizations. Overall, we offer a cross-cultural social network perspective in theorizing about the expatriation experience.

Keywords

cross-cultural relationships cultural identity change expatriation and repatriation adjustment social networks

Working abroad presents unique challenges of adaptation and adjustment for expatriates that often result in profound personal transformation (Kohonen, 2004; Osland, 2000; Sanchez et al., 2000; Sussman, 2000). Triggered by stress, anxiety and uncertainty associated with crossing borders and cultures, expatriates are said to engage in reflexive and sense-making activities that revise their sense of who they are, particularly around their identification with national cultures (Black et al., 1992; Brake, 1997; Osland, 1995; Sussman, 2011). There is general consensus among scholars that cross-cultural adaptation is often associated with change in one’s cultural identity (Berry, 1992, 1997; Osland, 2000; Kohonen, 2004; Shaffer et al., 2012; Sussman, 2000). Some studies also have hinted at the contradictory effect of expatriates’ cultural identity change on expatriation and repatriation adjustment (Black et al., 1992; Cox, 2004; Sussman, 2002a). Thus, cultural identity change is an important concept in capturing the profound changes that expatriates may experience when working abroad, and may hold the key to explaining expatriation and repatriation outcomes.

Some scholars have attributed cultural identity change in expatriates to major disruptions to expatriates’ social circles. When the social bonds to the home country are temporarily loosened, it creates instability in expatriates’ cultural identity (Kohonen, 2004; Kraimer et al., 2012; Sussman, 2000). Without a stable, supporting network of relationships to provide social validation and support, expatriates are likely to seek out new relationships in the host country to alleviate discomfort and manage relocation challenges (Berry, 1997; Butcher, 2009). Extensive social contact with host-country nationals that help expatriates cope with the stress of crossing cultures triggers reflections about one’s own cultural values and assumptions (Kohonen, 2008; Molinsky, 2007; Sussman, 2000), leading to adoption of new cultural values and assumptions (Kohonen, 2004) and change in expatriates’ cultural identity.

Many studies on expatriates have focused on how expatriates’ social relationships with host-country nationals contribute to their adaptation abroad. Strong ties with host-country nationals are said to provide cultural knowledge (Van Vianen et al., 2004), resources (Farh et al., 2010) and emotional support (Johnson et al., 2003) to expatriates in helping them to adjust their perception and behavior. In addition, scholars have also examined broader social network patterns, such as tie strength (Liu and Shaffer, 2005; Manev and Stevenson, 2001; Wang and Kanungo, 2004), frequency (Briody and Chrisman, 1991; Ward and Kennedy, 1992) and heterogeneity (Au and Fukuda, 2002), and their impact on expatriates’ well-being and adjustment.

However, existing studies have not gone far enough in fully capturing the cross-culture and cross-border nature of expatriates’ social networks, thus limiting our understanding of the overarching effect of expatriates’ social networks on their cultural identity change. First and foremost, we need to incorporate a wider variety of relationships in our discussions, particularly home-country ties and ties with third-country nationals. With a few exceptions (Fenlason and Beehr, 1994; Johnson et al., 2003), these relationships have received little attention in the expatriation literature. Yet, they may be as important as ties with host-country nationals in influencing expatriates’ identity re-evaluation and change. Furthermore, social relationships are embedded in a network of relationships that interact and reinforce each other. Their intensity and nature evolve as other relationships become included or excluded in the network. For example, a close-knit expatriate circle may reduce the need for an expatriate to acquire cultural information and resources from host-country nationals (Shen, 2010). The strength of expatriates’ social relationships with host-country ties may affect the strength of their relationships with those at home. Therefore, broader social network patterns that take into consideration the cross-culture nature of expatriates’ social networks are needed to help us obtain a more in-depth understanding of how expatriates’ cultural identity change is shaped by their relational patterns. In addition, scholars have called for more attention to the roles that human agency and contexts play in shaping one’s network structure and content (Brass et al., 2004; Kilduff and Brass, 2010). To what extent is an expatriate able to influence the relational patterns of their cross-cultural network? And what roles do organizations and the bigger social–cultural environment play in shaping expatriates’ networks? Answers to these questions will help us gain a deeper understanding of the degree of control expatriates have over their cultural identity change.

In this article, we address these under-explored questions by going beyond mono-cultural assumptions and exploring expatriates’ cultural identity change from a relational perspective. We draw from literatures on cultural identity, social networks and expatriation to develop a theoretical model explaining how cross-cultural relational patterns in expatriates’ social networks influence their cultural identity change, which, in turn, has strong implications for their expatriation and repatriation adjustment. We propose a new set of network characteristics that capture the cross-culture and cross-border nature of expatriates’ social networks, and discuss what individual and contextual factors contribute to these network features and how these characteristics facilitate or constrain cultural identity change in expatriates. Among others, we argue that strong ties play a more important role in cultural identity change than weak ties. Any type of cultural identity change is preceded with exposure to new cultural values and assumptions, which requires diversification of expatriates’ social networks across cultures. Cross-cultural interactions within an expatriate’s social network help to facilitate the development of multiculturism in expatriates’ cultural identity (multiculturism is an identity that transcends the boundaries of nationalism with broader commitments to the global community – see Adler, 1977). Overall, we see cultural identity change playing a mediating role between the cultural dimensions of expatriates’ social networks and expatriation/repatriation adjustment outcomes. Figure 1 shows a summary of our model. Below, we begin with a review of the literature on the role social relationships play in expatriation.

Figure 1.

Impact of expatriates’ social network characteristics on cultural identity change and adjustment.

The role of social relationships in expatriation

A great amount of research on expatriation has focused on the roles expatriates’ social relationships play in affecting expatriation outcomes, such as adjustment (Black and Gregersen, 1991), performance (Liu and Shaffer, 2005) and psychological well-being (Wang and Kanungo, 2004). Within this body of literature, expatriates’ social relationships with host-country nationals have garnered the most attention. Here, host-country nationals include co-workers and supervisors within the organizations, as well as friends and acquaintances outside of the organizations in the host country. Building on Social Learning Theory (Bandura, 1977), scholars have suggested that close interactions with host-country nationals help expatriates acquire culturally related social skills (Selmer, 2006), critical support resources (Farh et al., 2010) and knowledge of deep-level culture in both work and non-work settings (Van Vianen et al., 2004). Host-country nationals also provide emotional support in helping expatriates cope with the stress of working and living in the host country (Johnson et al., 2003), alleviate uncertainty and pressure (Caligiuri and Lazarova, 2002), and help them become embedded in the host country (Ren et al., 2014).

In comparison, there is much less discussion about expatriates’ relationships with family, friends and colleagues from their home country. The studies that do talk about family tend to focus on family members who travel with the expatriates to the host country. There is strong empirical support that family and spouse’s adjustment is directly related to expatriate adjustment (Black et al., 1991; Caligiuri et al., 1998; Shaffer and Harrison, 2001). However, expatriates’ social relationships with family, friends and colleagues in the home country have received little attention. Even though many of these relationships encounter major disruptions during expatriation, they may still play a key role in the expatriation experience (Butcher, 2009; Shen, 2010). Furthermore, studies that examine expatriates’ social relationships with compatriots and third-country expatriates are also limited. Compatriots are home-country nationals who also work in the host country. They are the most similar to expatriates in terms of cultural background and expatriation experience. Studies of international students have shown that they play important roles in helping students adjust (e.g. Hendrickson et al., 2011). Similarly, Johnson et al. (2003) and Shen (2010) found that social ties with third-country expatriates are an important source of social support for expatriates while working abroad. Sometimes the expatriate community is the primary source of social ties and support where interacting with host-country nationals is an exception (Harrison and Michailova, 2014).

In addition to studies that focus on particular types of social relationships, scholars have also examined broader relational patterns within expatriates’ social networks and their impact on performance and adjustment (Liu and Shaffer, 2005; Manev and Stevenson, 2001). For example, they have examined social network size (Au and Fukuda, 2002; Johnson et al., 2003; Wang and Kanungo, 2004), tie strength (Liu and Shaffer, 2005; Manev and Stevenson, 2001; Wang and Kanungo, 2004), frequency (Briody and Chrisman, 1991; Ward and Kennedy, 1992) and diversity (Au and Fukuda, 2002) of expatriates’ social networks and their impact on expatriation adjustment and expatriates’ psychological well-being, among others. These studies shift the focus away from what individual social relationships can provide for expatriates, and focus more on how the characteristics of the social networks affect expatriation outcomes. However, with a few exceptions (e.g. Au and Fukuda, 2002), they have not gone beyond traditional social network research that carries implicit assumptions of a mono-cultural environment where the ego and his/her social relationships come from a single national culture. Unequivocally missing is the cross-cultural dynamics of expatriates’ social networks, which often span across national cultures and borders. In an increasingly global environment where social interactions often cross cultural and national boundaries, we need new constructs to help us capture the full dynamics of cross-culture social networks.

In the section to follow, we address this gap by proposing a number of network characteristics that help us capture the cross-cultural relational patterns within expatriates’ social networks. We also discuss several individual and contextual factors that may influence these network characteristics before we move on to discussion of cultural identity change in expatriates.

Expatriates’ cross-culture social networks

Cross-culture network characteristics

The traditional network structural dimensions such as size, diversity and density pay insufficient attention to the unique features of expatriates’ social networks, which are often cross-cultural and cross-border (Wang and Kanungo, 2004). Studies by Mok et al. (2007) on Chinese immigrants in the US and by Butcher (2009) on Australian professionals in Asia also highlighted the importance of incorporating cultural dimensions into analysis of expatriates’ social networks. We need new constructs to capture the heterogeneity and interconnectedness of expatriates’ social networks, as well as the degree of cultural content that are embedded in social ties.

We propose the construct of cultural diversity to measure cultural heterogeneity in one’s social network. Cultural diversity is defined as the degree to which social ties in the same network are from different national cultural groups. Existing research that did incorporate diversity as a dimension of expatriates’ social network focused primarily on inclusion or exclusion of host-country nationals in expatriates’ social networks (Au and Fukuda, 2002; Johnson et al., 2003). We expand the concept to accommodate a variety of relationships, including ties with third-country nationals, some of which may come from previous expatriation experiences. Thus, cultural diversity can range from mono-cultural, where all ties are from the same national culture, to multicultural, where ties represent a wide range of national cultures.

We also build on Granovetter’s (1985) notion of embeddedness, and define cultural embeddedness as the degree to which individuals feel socially connected to a particular national culture. It represents the degree to which cultural norms, values and beliefs associated with a particular culture are being communicated through the ties in a network. Chiu et al. (2009) explored tie strength in expatriates’ social networks by distinguishing between expressive ties and instrumental ties. Compared with instrumental ties that help expatriates acquire physical, informational and financial resources, expressive ties provide intangible, emotional resources in helping the expatriates cope with the stress of working and living in the host culture. They are strong ties that often involve frequent interaction and a great deal of self-disclosure and mutual effort from both parties (Granovetter, 1973; Takeuchi, 2010). Thus, becoming culturally embedded requires expressive ties that convey deep-level norms, values and beliefs associated with that culture. Such ties often feature high frequency, high emotional intensity and high intimacy (Granovetter, 1973), conducive to exchanging complex and tacit information (Brass et al., 2004) such as cultural norms and beliefs.

Network density in social network studies refers to the extent to which actors in a social network know each other. It represents the degree of closure and interconnectedness in a social network (Burt, 2000). Building on this definition, we define cultural density as the degree to which actors from the same or different cultural groups know each other. It has two sub-dimensions: same-culture density (the extent to which actors from the same national culture know each other) and cross-culture density (the extent to which actors from different national cultures know each other). For example, host-culture density is the degree to which host-country nationals within an expatriate’s social network know each other. A high level of cross-culture density means that members from different cultural groups within a social network know each other and there is a great amount of cross-cultural communication among the multiple cultural groups. Low cross-culture density implies that the sub-networks remain segregated, with the expatriate often acting as the bridge, or structural hole. Instead of looking at density of the whole network, looking at density within and across different cultural groups is more relevant for our purpose.

Culture diversity, cultural density and cultural embeddedness capture the cross-culture nature of expatriates’ social networks and enable us to discuss variations in the cross-cultural relational patterns and dynamics. They provide novel insights into the structure and content of an expatriate’s social network, and help us explore how different cultural dimensions of one’s social network facilitate or constrain one’s cultural identity change.

But to what extent are these network characteristics subjected to individual and environmental influences? Existing studies suggest that, among others, personality traits (Bruning et al., 2012; Johnson et al., 2003; Mehra et al., 2001), relational savvy (Chandler et al., 2010), organizational structure (Brass et al., 2004) and a nation’s sociopolitical and cultural contexts (Volpe and Murphy, 2011) all play a role in influencing network structure. Because cultural diversity, cultural density and cultural embeddedness all require cross-cultural relationships, expatriates’ motivation and capacity for building cross-cultural relationships have a direct impact on these network characteristics. For instance, diversifying a network culturally requires expatriates to build strong ties with people from cultures other than their home culture. Host-culture embeddedness requires substantial time and effort in developing strong ties with host-country nationals that convey deep levels of cultural norms and beliefs, which help expatriates develop meaningful connections or attachment to the host culture. Furthermore, the organizational or social–cultural environment can also facilitate or hinder cross-culture relationship-building. Below, we explore a set of key individual and contextual factors that influence cross-culture network characteristics. Our purpose is not to be exhaustive in exploring all possibilities but to highlight a set of important yet understudied factors that are particularly relevant to expatriates’ relationship-building in a cross-cultural context.

Influencing factors

Cultural intelligence

Thomas et al. (2008: 127) defined cultural intelligence as a system of interacting knowledge and skills, linked by cultural metacognition, that allows people to adapt to, select and shape the cultural aspects of their environment. Earley and Peterson (2004) highlighted three core elements in cultural intelligence: metacognition and cognition (thinking, learning and strategizing), motivation (efficacy and confidence, persistence, value congruence and affect for the new culture) and behavior (social mimicry and behavioral repertoire). Cultural intelligence was found to be positively related to one’s cross-cultural communication and cultural adaptation (see the comprehensive literature review by Thomas et al., 2008). It becomes particularly important when the cultural distance between the host culture and the home culture is substantial. Individuals with greater cultural intelligence tend to be more interested in different cultures, and be more motivated and confident to develop close relationships with those of different cultural backgrounds (Emerson et al., 2002). Cultural intelligence helps expatriates diversify their social relationships, enhance their embeddedness in a foreign culture, and facilitate communication across different cultural groups in their networks:

Proposition 1a: Cultural intelligence is positively related to cultural diversity, host-culture embeddedness and cross-culture density in expatriates’ social networks.

Expatriate type

Expatriate type also influences individuals’ motivation to build cross-cultural relationships, particularly with host-country nationals. The expatriate population is heterogeneous, containing traditional company-assigned expatriates and self-initiated expatriates as well as other alternatives such as short-term expatriates, flexpatriates and frequent cross-border commuters (Baruch et al., 2013; Shaffer et al., 2012). For this article, we focus on traditional corporate and self-initiated expatriates because they have greater exposure to the local culture and more extensive interaction with host-country nationals in both work and non-work domains (Baruch et al., 2013). We argue that company-assigned and self-initiated expatriates may have different levels of motivation for building cross-cultural ties. Company-assigned expatriates are different from self-initiated ones in terms of employment contracts, relocation motivation and individual career plans (Dickmann and Harris, 2005; Inkson et al., 1997; Jokinen et al., 2008; Peltokorpi, 2008; Tharenou and Caulfield, 2010). Compared with company-assigned expatriates who expect to go home sooner or later, self-initiated ones are more likely to have a stronger interest in the host-country culture (see Tharenou and Caulfield, 2010, for more detailed literature review), be more willing to develop strong ties with local people (Shen, 2010) and be more motivated to strengthen the interconnectedness among individuals from the host culture:

Proposition 1b: Self-initiated expatriates are more likely to have social networks that are high on cultural diversity, host-culture embeddedness and host-culture density, compared with company-assigned expatriates.

Expatriates’ overseas time orientation

We define expatriates’ overseas time orientation as one’s expected time frame living/working in the host country as well as in other countries before one goes back home. Traditional company-assigned expatriates often get a fixed assignment contract of three to five years and then go back to their home offices. In recent years, global expatriates with assignments in multiple countries, short-term expatriates or frequent international commuters have become more and more popular (Collings et al., 2007; Mayrhofer et al., 2004). In addition, some company-assigned expatriates may have an open-ended contract without fixed assignment length, and how long they are going to stay in the host country depends on regular negotiation between the expatriates and their companies. Finally, self-initiated expatriates have varied repatriation time frames in mind, ranging from no specific time frame, to fewer than two years, and to permanent stay in the host country (see the sample in Tharenou and Caulfield, 2010, for example). We argue that expatriates’ overseas time orientation influences their willingness for cultural adaptation in two ways: (i) the longer they expect to stay in the host country, the more effort they may invest in building ties with host-country nationals, and the less embedded they become with their home country (Shen and Hall, 2009); and (ii) the longer they expect to stay overseas in different countries, the less effort they may invest in adapting to a specific national culture, and the less embedded with any particular country. A short-term stay is not adequate for a meaningful identity exploration and transformation (Shen and Hall, 2009):

Proposition 1c: Expatriates with longer overseas time orientation in the host country are more likely to have social networks that are high in cultural diversity and host-culture embeddedness compared with those with shorter time orientation.

Proposition 1d: Expatriates with longer overseas time orientation in multiple countries are more likely to have social networks that are high in cultural diversity and low in host-culture embeddedness compared with those with shorter time orientation.

Organizational contexts

The organizational contexts may also constrain or facilitate expatriates’ relationship-building efforts in the host country, particularly with host-country nationals. The organizational contexts include: (i) the relational environment expatriates are entering, particularly the size and availability of the expatriate cohort in the local subsidiary/office; and (ii) adjustment support provided by the organization to help ease the cross-border transition and to facilitate expatriates’ cross-cultural adjustment. Shen (2010) found that expatriates are less likely to seek cultural guidance and adjustment support from host-country nationals when the local subsidiary/office has a large expatriate cohort and when it provides strong relocation support. Farh et al. (2010) also suggested that expatriates reduce their need to seek information from others in the host country if they get adequate host-country-related information from their organizations. Chen et al. (2010) found that expatriates’ cross-cultural motivation and work adjustment will be more positive when local subsidiary support (including adjustment support) is lower. In other words, expatriates tend to be less motivated and make less effort to adjust in more supportive subsidiaries. These arguments and empirical evidences indicate that availability of a large expatriate cohort and strong organizational adjustment support may reduce expatriates’ motivation and effort to interact with host-country nationals, particularly those outside their organizations. As a result, it may limit their exposure to the local culture and people, and reduce the chances of building strong and interconnected relationships with host-country nationals:

Proposition 2: Organizational relocation contexts, including size of expatriate cohort and adjustment support, are negatively related to cultural diversity, host-culture embeddedness and host-culture density in expatriates’ social networks.

Host-country nationals’ openness towards expatriates

Ward et al. (2010) stressed the necessity to include community and society, particularly the perspectives of dominant groups in the host country, when examining individuals’ acculturation processes. Berry (1997) also argued that a nation’s multicultural ideologies and attitudes, together with its national immigration policies and programs, may encourage or constrain individuals’ choice of specific acculturation strategies. For example, building cross-culture relationships with host-country nationals is very difficult when the host country does not embrace multiculturalism and demonstrates high levels of prejudice and intergroup hatred (Berry, 1997). Consequently, when working in such countries, social interaction between expatriates and local people as well as between expatriates and people from other different cultures may be either seriously limited or become too superficial (see the literature review by Atiyyah, 1996, about expatriate acculturation in Arab Gulf countries). For example, based on a study of Western female expatriates’ experiences in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Harrison and Michailova (2014) found these expatriates rarely interacted with host-country nationals, but primarily drew support from the well-established Western expatriate community because of the significant cultural difference between UAE and the western countries, particularly its male-dominant culture and norms that regulate cross-gender interaction. When the cultural values, norms and policies of the host country pose significant challenges for cross-cultural interaction, they negatively influence host-country nationals’ openness towards expatriates. Scholars have proposed that the host-country nationals’ perceived cultural distance between the expatriates’ home culture and the host culture will be positively related to the salience of the expatriate as the out-group member, which, in turn, negatively influences their willingness to socialize with expatriates (Toh and DeNisi, 2007) and their supportive attitudes and behaviors towards expatriates (Belhoste and Monin, 2013; Olsen and Martins, 2009). Thus, building strong and interconnected ties with host-country nationals is a dyadic process that requires the cooperation of the host-country nationals. Becoming embedded in the host culture is contingent upon the willingness of the host-country nationals to socialize and maintain strong relationships with the expatriates:

Proposition 3: Host-country nationals’ openness towards expatriates is positively related to cultural diversity, host-culture embeddedness and host-culture density in expatriates’ social networks.

The social network of expatriates represents the social context within which they live and work in the host country. This immediate context has more bearing on their cultural identity than does the larger social–cultural environment. In fact, one’s cultural identity is often shaped by key social relationships that people have with others (Aron et al., 1992; Markus and Kitayama, 1991). Some relationships may help them maintain their existing cultural values and assumptions, whereas others may trigger change or adoption of new cultural meanings. Variations in the cross-culture relational patterns of social networks can help explain different outcomes of cultural identity change. Below we summarize the types of cultural identity change that have been discussed in the literature, and present a set of propositions to explain how the relational patterns we introduced previously affect expatriates’ cultural identity change.

A social network perspective of cultural identity change

Types of cultural identity change

The personal transformation that happens when crossing borders and cultures often revolves around maintenance or change of one’s cultural identity, defined as the degree of identification with national cultures (Berry, 1997, 2005; Cox, 2004; Sussman, 2000; Ward and Kennedy, 1994; Ward and Rana-Deuba, 1999). Existing research suggests that expatriates may either maintain and strengthen their home-cultural identity (affirmation), or experience cultural identity shift (assimilation, integration and disintegration).

Affirmation: Strengthening the home-culture identity

Affirmation suggests that expatriates maintain and strengthen their identification with their home-cultural values, norms and beliefs (Sussman, 2000) and see themselves as a member of the home-culture group even after spending a significant amount of time abroad. Kohonen (2008) described such individuals as ‘non-shifters’. At the outset, they have experienced little cultural identity change while working/living in the host culture. However, this does not suggest that they experienced no change in the way they think about their home culture and their membership in the home-culture group. Cultural identity is often not explicitly recognized until people cross cultures (Sussman, 2000). Direct contact with a different social/cultural group often provokes reflections about one’s identity and makes a particular group membership a more visible aspect of one’s identity (Hogg and Terry, 2000; Kosmitzki, 1996; Tajfel and Turner, 1986; Turner, 1987). Thus, at the outset, expatriates may affirm their home-culture identity; however, the content of their identity may have changed significantly, leading to stronger attachment to their home culture, and re-evaluation of their home-culture values and norms. In other words, cross-cultural relocation sometimes serves as an occasion for certain home-culture values to become more salient and visible to the expatriates.

Assimilation: Developing a host-culture identity

Assimilation means that expatriates have adopted the host-culture values, norms and beliefs and become strongly identified with the host culture to such a degree that their home-culture identity is significantly weakened or subtracted (Cox, 2004; Sussman, 2000; Ward and Kennedy, 1994; Ward and Rana-Deuba, 1999). This does not mean that they are fully dis-identified with their home culture, though such extreme examples may exist in reality. More accurately, these identity shifters (Kohonen, 2008) are assimilated into the host culture to such a degree that their newly developed host-culture identity may become much more salient than their identification with their home cultures. Assimilation happens when the home-culture values and norms can no longer guide individuals’ perception and behavior. Their meaning systems are replaced with host-culture beliefs and values.

Integration: Developing a bi-cultural identity

Integration suggests that individuals have adopted host-culture values and beliefs without giving up their home-culture identity (Cox, 2004; Ward and Kennedy, 1994; Ward and Rana-Deuba, 1999), and the boundary between the home and host cultures is blurred. People who embrace both maintenance and change are said to take on this integration approach (Berry, 1997, 2005), and consequently identify with both home and host cultures. In other words, a home-culture identity is still salient with reinforced or consolidated core home values (Osland, 2000; Osland and Osland, 2005), while the host-culture identity has been developed at the same time (Kohonen, 2008). Adopting a bicultural identity allows an expatriate to look at things as an outsider to both home and host cultures. Expatriates who develop a bicultural identity perceive neither culture as dominant and see both cultures as significant in their self-perceptions.

Disintegration: Developing a global identity

Expatriates may also adopt a multicultural view of the world through disintegration with any particular culture (Cox, 2004; Osland, 2000; Ward and Kennedy, 1994; Ward and Rana-Deuba, 1999). Disintegration involves the collapse of a meaning system rooted in a particular national culture, which leads to a global identity that is not ingrained in any particular cultural system. Hong et al. (2000) proposed the idea of looking at culture not as internalized in the form of an integrated and highly general structure but as a loose network of knowledge structures that guides behavior. In that sense, contradictory or conflicting values can co-exist. As situations or interactions change, parts of their cultural identity come to the foreground. Thus, a global identity can be pictured as a mosaic of cultural knowledge, values and attitudes that make up one’s cultural identity, and put together in idiosyncratic ways (Osland, 2000). They see themselves as part of a global culture or member of a global community (Arnett, 2002; Erez and Gati, 2004). They respond to and adapt to multiple cultures; however, they are not bound by any particular one. Adler (1977) claims that such individuals ‘live on the boundary’ (p. 26) and are ‘always in the process of becoming a part of and apart from a given cultural context’ (p. 31).

Network characteristics and cultural identity change

Past research has made great efforts to describe what could happen to expatriates’ cultural identity when they cross borders and cultures (Kohonen, 2004, 2008; Kraimer et al., 2012; Sussman, 2000). However, the research is much less clear about why expatriates experience different cultural identity change outcomes. Identities are not constructed in a vacuum, but are constantly created, validated and tested in social relationships (Hogg et al., 1995; Shapiro, 2010; Sluss and Ashforth, 2007; Stryker and Burke, 2000). Identities also mirror objective relationships structure (Mok et al., 2007: 630); and any change to an individual’s network structure can potentially lead to identity re-evaluation and change (Butcher, 2009). Thus, expatriates’ relational patterns, especially cross-culture relational dynamics within their social networks, play key roles in shaping their cultural identity change.

For cultural identity change to happen, it requires extensive social contact with people who hold different values and beliefs (Berry, 1997). These relationships provide exposure to a different set of cultural norms and values, opportunities for learning about other cultures, and social validation for the newly adopted values. Thus, the cultural diversity of an expatriate’s social network plays an important role in facilitating cultural identity change. Beliefs become and remain meaningful if and only if one is integrated into networks of individuals who share those beliefs (Curran and Saguy, 2013: 59). Concrete exchanges among members of social networks permit a more dynamic interpretation of the meanings held by them in a local context (Deaux and Martin, 2003).

In particular, assimilation happens when there is a significant increase in the number of close ties with host-country nationals. These strong ties with host-country nationals make it possible for expatriates to immerse in the host culture. Furthermore, integration also requires the diversification of expatriates’ social networks by developing a sub-network of host-country nationals while maintaining their strong ties with the home culture. These new ties challenge certain aspects of their home culture and help foster their sense of belonging to the host culture. Whereas assimilation and integration focus on the inclusion of new relationships with host-country nationals, disintegration is often associated with a more substantial increase in the cultural diversity of expatriates’ networks, oftentimes with third-country nationals. Disintegration, the development of a global identity, does not happen overnight but gradually as the social network becomes more and more diversified, with many cultural groups being represented and close ties from multiple cultures established. This increase in cultural diversity is concomitant with extensive expatriation experience as expatriates move across borders and cultures. Overall, an increase in cultural diversity in an expatriate’s social network serves as the impetus for cultural identity change:

Proposition 4: Cultural diversity in expatriates’ social networks facilitates assimilation, integration and disintegration.

Expatriates may also intentionally maintain and strengthen social relationships that are embedded in their home culture while working abroad, because it helps to create a social environment that is consistent with and reinforces their existing cultural identity (Milton and Westphal, 2005). Maintaining social ties with family, friends and colleagues back home become more difficult yet important because these ties provide the home linkage (Shen and Kram, 2011). With modern technology, expatriates can use social media and online communication tools to help them maintain ties with the home country. When that is difficult or inadequate, they may also seek out ties with compatriots for social support and learning. Even when contact with locals is necessary, the relationships tend to be more instrumental than expressive. These instrumental ties tend to be one-directional and help expatriates to get tangible resources (physical, informational, financial) they need to achieve certain objectives at work or outside of work (Chiu et al., 2009; Manev and Stevenson, 2001). Such networking effort creates strong embeddedness in the home culture, helping expatriates affirm their home-culture identity. Furthermore, a high level of embeddedness in the home culture can also inhibit an expatriate from expanding his/her social network to include ties from other cultures, particularly with host-country nationals. Home-culture ties already provide the emotional support needed to help with adjustment. A strong compatriot circle provides friendship and learning opportunities such that there is no strong desire for building expressive ties with host-country nationals. Thus, having strong home-culture embeddedness in social networks can help expatriates stay attached to their home culture and constrain change in their cultural commitment:

Proposition 5a: Home-culture embeddedness in expatriates’ social networks facilitates affirmation and constrains assimilation and disintegration.

On the other hand, high-quality expressive ties with host-country nationals help expatriates get embedded in and assimilated into the host culture. A large personal network in the host-country signals that the expatriate has re-rooted his/her network in the new environment (Wang and Kanungo, 2004). Integration means a high degree of embeddedness in the host culture while staying connected to the home culture. This requires seeking out expressive social ties that help them adapt to and become embedded with the host culture while maintaining strong social ties that help them affirm home-culture identity. In both assimilation and integration, a high level of host-culture embeddedness is needed, with high-quality and meaningful relationships with host-country nationals. In the process, individuals may also choose to exclude relationships with home-country nationals from their social networks, which suggests some type of ‘culture shedding’ (Berry, 1992), where certain parts of one’s relational repertoire are no longer salient. Most often this does not require purposeful action. Lack of communication and interaction leads some ties to simply ‘fade away’ and be excluded from one’s social circle (Cummings and Higgins, 2006; Liu and Shaffer, 2005), which result in the dominance of new ties in the host country:

Proposition 5b: Host-culture embeddedness in expatriates’ social networks facilitates assimilation and integration.

Podolny and Baron (1997) argued that ties conveying identity and role expectation require a dense, redundant network so that sufficient trust and support can be built (also see Kilduff and Brass, 2010). This echoed Coleman’s and Burt’s arguments about the importance of network closure and a strong degree of interconnectedness in consolidating norms and obligations (Coleman, 1988) as well as providing redundant information benefits (Burt, 1997). A social network with strong interconnectedness within a cultural group helps affirm the cultural norms and values that are deeply embedded in that specific culture. For example, the degree to which expatriates’ social ties from the home culture know each other has a bearing on how strong their home-culture identity is. Milton and Westphal (2005) suggested that people manage their identities by seeking support from those who share the same identity. They called it ‘identity confirmation’ and defined it as a state where an individual’s social environment is consistent with his or her identities. When there is a dense, redundant network of home-culture ties, it is much easier for expatriates to maintain loyalty to their home culture. Furthermore, there is a difference between having a social network consisting of host-country nationals that interact with each other frequently, creating a close-knit host-culture social circle, versus a collection of random relationships with host-country nationals that do not interact. When the host-country nationals within an expatriate’s social network interact frequently, providing redundant support and developing more trust, they facilitate expatriates’ assimilation process through faster social learning and adaptation. The norms and cultural values transmitted through those ties are more likely to challenge expatriates’ existing values and beliefs and provide more social validation and guidance when the expatriates change their behavior and attitude to be more consistent with their host-country environment:

Proposition 6a: Home-culture density in expatriates’ social networks facilitates affirmation. Host-culture density in expatriates’ social networks facilitates assimilation.

The extent to which different cultural groups within a social network know each other is important for cultural identity change that involves disintegration. For disintegration to happen, expatriates no longer feel particularly attached to a single culture but possess a mosaic of cultural values and beliefs that make up their cultural identity. Their social networks are most likely constituted of ties from various cultural groups and background, with no specific cultural group dominating the network. Having a discretely multicultural social network may lead to the feeling of marginalization and rootlessness. They are more likely to experience what Baumeister (1986) called ‘identity deficit’, or the experience of a lack of guiding commitment to any culture. However, having a highly dense and redundant network helps them transcend the feeling of rootlessness, gain a sense of membership in a close-knit global community, and develop multiculturism in their cultural identity. This requires a high degree of communication across different cultural groups within their networks, leading to a high level of cross-cultural density, which helps to reinforce this feeling of interconnectedness to a global culture:

Proposition 6b: Cross-culture density in expatriates’ social networks facilitates disintegration, leading to a feeling of connectedness to the global community.

Cultural identity change and expatriation/repatriation adjustment

We have shown above that changes in the cultural dimensions of expatriates’ social network is closely related to outcomes of cultural identity change. Existing literature also suggests that the personal transformation that expatriates experience while working abroad has strong implications for their expatriation and repatriation adjustment. Various empirical studies (Black, 1992; Cox, 2004; Gregersen and Stroh, 1997; Sussman, 2001, 2002a; Ward and Rana-Deuba, 1999) showed that whereas expatriates may experience less difficulty in expatriation adjustment when they are more assimilated into the host culture, they often encounter greater repatriation challenges because of loss of home-culture values and beliefs; by contrast, those who experience low repatriation distress often have more difficulty in expatriation adjustment owing to a lack of adaptation with the host-culture values and beliefs. Sussman (2002b) also suggested that the relationship between host-culture adaptation and repatriation experience is more complex and may be mediated by shifts in one’s cultural identity. Thus, we argue that cultural identity change acts as an important mediator between expatriates’ social network patterns and their expatriation and repatriation adjustment:

Proposition 7a: Cultural identity change mediates the relationship between expatriates’ social network characteristics and expatriation/repatriation adjustment.

We propose that expatriates who experience affirmation are more likely to have poor expatriation adjustment because of the characteristics of their social networks. Lack of cultural diversity and embeddedness in the host culture in their social networks make it difficult for expatriates to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to adapt. In contrast, scholars have found that people who experience assimilation and integration in their cultural identity are more likely to have better cultural adaptation and psychological adjustment (Benet-Martínez et al., 2002; Chen et al., 2008; Hong et al., 2000; Phinney and Devich-Navarro, 1997; Ross et al., 2002). Assimilation and integration require extensive contact with host-country nationals that help expatriates with expatriation adjustment. For expatriates who experience disintegration, their psychological barrier to adjustment to a new culture is low. With a culturally diverse network consisting of ties with people from multiple cultures, they have become adept at building cross-culture relationships that help them with expatriation adjustment:

Proposition 7b: Affirmation is negatively related to expatriation adjustment. Assimilation, integration and disintegration are positively related to expatriation adjustment.

We also propose that for expatriates who experience assimilation and disintegration, their repatriation adjustment is more difficult and stressful than for those who experience affirmation and integration. For expatriates who have been assimilated into the host culture, their social networks are very likely to be dominated by strong ties with host-country nationals. Upon returning home, they face the challenge of rebuilding previously disrupted or faded home-country ties or develop new ones in order to re-integrate into the home culture. In other words, the more culturally embedded in the host country, the more effort and time is needed to rebuild social networks in the home country, leading to a difficult repatriation experience. On the contrary, expatriates who experience affirmation face limited disruption during repatriation because they already have a social network rooted in the home culture for social validation and support. For expatriates who experience disintegration, one salient feature of their social networks is the lack of embeddedness in any particular culture. As a result, their repatriation experience, particularly if they plan to settle down, may become stressful as they learn to become culturally embedded again. By contrast, expatriates who experience integration may have an easier time with repatriation adjustment because their social networks allow them to move between the two cultures without much challenge:

Proposition 7c: Affirmation and integration are positively related to repatriation adjustment. Assimilation and disintegration are negatively related to repatriation adjustment.

Discussion

Our article answered the call for integrating the identity and social networks perspectives (Volpe and Murphy, 2011). We highlight the importance of examining cross-culture relational dynamics of expatriates’ social networks and their impact on cultural identity change in expatriates. More specifically, the model suggests various ways through which expatriates’ social circles may influence the outcomes of their cultural identity change while working abroad. In exploring the cross-cultural relational dynamics, our model helps us understand more deeply how cultural identity change happens and how such change affects expatriation and repatriation adjustment. It offers several insights that have not, to the authors’ knowledge, been discussed in prior literature.

First, we enrich the repertoire of constructs for analyzing expatriates’ social networks by proposing a new set of cultural-based network characteristics. Existing constructs are inadequate in capturing the full cross-cultural dynamics of expatriates’ social networks. Cultural diversity, cultural embeddedness and culture density help us go much further in exploring and theorizing about the composition and structure of expatriates’ social networks as well as understanding more deeply the effects of social networks on various types of individual and organizational outcomes.

More importantly, our model suggests that network characteristics such as cultural diversity, cultural embeddedness and cultural density have a direct impact on expatriates’ cultural identity change. For example, strong ties in culturally dense networks are the most conducive to helping expatriates stay attached to a national culture. When strong ties within the same cultural group know each other, they transmit and reinforce specific cultural norms and values, making cultural identity change more difficult. We also point to the role of cultural embeddedness in affecting cultural identity change. We suggest that although a high degree of cultural embeddedness can provide stability in an expatriate’s cultural identity, it can also constrain cultural identity change. Any type of shift in cultural identity needs to be preceded with a decrease in embeddedness in a specific culture and destabilization of one’s social network. Oftentimes physical relocation offers opportunities of destabilizing one’s social network. However, expatriates can also purposefully maintain their home-culture embeddedness through: (i) maintaining strong ties with family, friends and colleagues back home; and (ii) building strong ties with compatriots to help them cope with uncertainty and adapt without dramatically changing their cultural identity. Furthermore, a high degree of cultural diversity in one’s network can lead to more exposure and knowledge of various perspectives and beliefs for the expatriate, helping with the development of new cultural identity. Cross-culture interconnectedness within a social network can also help expatriates develop multiculturism in their cultural identity.

Finally, our model highlights the importance of both individual agency and structural constraints in shaping individuals’ social networks, which answered the call by Kilduff and Brass (2010) for more research on human agency and contexts in social network studies. We argued that expatriates’ social networks are shaped by individual, organizational and host-country contexts, each playing an important role in facilitating or constraining relationship development in a cross-cultural setting.

Practical implications

Our model also offers practical implications for expatriates and their employing organizations. Because one’s cultural identity change is related to one’s social network structure, expatriates must consider their long-term career goal and take a more strategic and purposeful approach when building their social networks. Maintaining strong home and host-country ties is very important unless they decide to stay permanently in the host country or pursue a global career with no repatriation plans. As our model suggests, integration is the most conducive to expatriation and repatriation adjustment. However, one potential challenge associated with adopting a bicultural identity is the failure to integrate the two cultures, which may lead to identity conflict (Baumeister et al., 1985) and undermine expatriates’ adjustment (Nguyen and Benet-Martínez, 2007). Our model suggests that, in addition to cognitive mechanisms (Benet-Martínez et al., 2002; Molinsky, 2007), expatriates can actively manage their social networks to create a relational environment more conducive to the integration of the two cultures. For example, they could enhance their networks’ cross-cultural density by interconnecting ties from both cultures. Furthermore, because host-cultural embeddedness is related more to the tie strength and density than to the number of ties, it is better for expatriates to invest more time and effort in building a few strong, interconnected ties with host-country nationals than seeking a large number of weak ties. Finally, expatriates who want to pursue a global career (i.e. taking a sequence of multiple long-term assignments in different countries) should recognize the possibility of developing a global identity and associated benefits and risks (McPhail et al., 2012). Feeling rootless without a specific home base may engender a sense of not belonging anywhere – of being a globe-trotting nomad. Expatriates can strengthen their feeling of global community by increasing the interconnectedness of ties within their networks.

There are also practical implications for organizations. First, organizations can take the initiative to influence specific cross-culture relational patterns of expatriates’ social networks when they send expatriates for long-term assignments. For example, organizations can help expatriates maintain the strength and size of their home-culture ties. Regular online communication through intra-organizational platforms should be combined with regular home visits (Shen and Hall, 2009). Organizations can also help expatriates build close relationships with host-country nationals and provide training programs specifically targeting effective cross-cultural communication. Second, organizations need to rethink their relocation practices. Strong relocation support, though beneficial for expatriates’ transition (Bhaskar-Shrinivas, 2005; Black et al., 1991), may also create a very cozy and safe environment in which the expatriates feel less motivated to move out of their comfort zones and interact with host-country nationals. Therefore, organizations may want to avoid over-protection when offering relocation support and incorporate host-country nationals into the organizational relocation practices (such as peer coaching). Third, organizations need to pay more attention to global expatriates because ‘patriation’ (i.e. the return of expatriate managers after a sequence of multiple relocations/assignments in a global network organization) is more complicated than traditional repatriation and involves expatriates’ significant identity reconstruction (Harvey and Novicevic, 2006). In addition to the detailed ‘patriation’ process proposed by Harvey and Novicevic (2006), such as development of a timeline for expatriation assignments by location, we emphasize the importance of strengthening expatriates’ ties with their home organization and community when they move across different countries (Shen and Hall, 2009). Regular home visits may not be enough. Organizations should encourage active interaction between the expatriates and their home-based sponsors/mentors, co-workers, families and friends as well as between the expatriates and the local compatriot community. The key is to maintain and strengthen the expatriates’ home-culture embeddedness so that their post-patriation experiences are less stressful.

Future research

Future research can benefit from further exploring the three newly proposed network characteristics, including possible moderators and outcomes such as performance and relocation satisfaction. For example, network size may moderate the relationship between the cultural patterns of expatriates’ social networks (e.g. cultural density) and their cultural identity change. The bigger the network, the stronger is the impact of cultural density on cultural identity change.

Future research may also explore how individuals’ cultural background and their national identity centrality – the extent to which individuals define themselves by their citizenship or the subjective importance of one’s national identity in the hierarchy of different social identities (Das et al., 2008: 1507) – influence expatriates’ networking behavior. Das et al. (2008) argued that the strength of one’s national identity affects individuals’ attitudes and behavior. Some scholars also found that expatriates’ nationalities or cultural background influence with whom they build friendships. For example, Rienties and Nolan (2014) found that most Confucian Asian students in the UK had more friends from the same culture than from different cultures.

We also highlighted several individual (e.g. cultural intelligence) and contextual factors (e.g. organizational and host-country contexts) that influence cultural identity development. The adult development theory (e.g. Kegan, 1982; Levinson et al., 1978) may provide another important theoretic lens to examine expatriates’ cultural identities and their network characteristics. For example, Shen (2010) found that younger and single expatriates are more likely to build culturally diversified networks than are their older and married counterparts. Shaffer and Harrison (2001) suggested that strong familial ties, particularly with their spouses and children, may make expatriates less motivated to seek local relationships. Future research will benefit from a more thorough understanding of the role of expatriates’ life or developmental stages in cross-cultural relationship-building and cultural identity transitions.

Conclusion

Existing literature sees individual differences and the social–cultural environment as the most critical in determining expatriates’ culture adaptation and in turn cultural identity change (e.g. Cox, 2004; Sussman, 2000, 2001). We argue that expatriates’ close social circles have a more direct impact on their cultural identity transitions. Although expatriates have limited abilities in affecting the bigger social–cultural environment, they can play a more active role in shaping their own social environment by including or excluding social relationships. Thus, individuals play a much more proactive role in shaping their own cultural identity than has been recognized and discussed in the literature. Overall, the cross-culture social network perspective offered in this article suggests that cultural identity change in expatriates is often the result of interplay between individual choices and organizational and host-country contexts revolving around cross-cultural relationships.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank our associate editor Mathew Sheep and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and insightful comments and suggestions throughout the review process. We would also like to thank Douglas T Hall for his helpful comments on this article.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

1.

The two authors contributed equally to the article.

Jina Mao is Assistant Professor in the Management and Business Department at Skidmore College, USA. Her research focuses on people’s relationships with their work organizations, and the social, structural and cultural influences on those relationships. She explores topics such as identity, engagement, authenticity, interpersonal relationships, culture and creativity. Her research has been published in Organization Science and Research in Careers. [Email: jmao@skidmore.edu]

Yan Shen is Assistant Professor in International Business at the Peter B Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Victoria, Canada. Her research interests include careers across cultures, expatriates and mentoring and developmental networks. Her research has been published in Academy of Management Journal, Human Resource Management, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Career Development International, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Journal of World Trade. [Email: yanshen@uvic.ca]

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