Female expatriate adjustment during expatriation and repatriation - Influence of family

Abstract

Expatriation is a common way to transfer global knowledge around the world. As there are continuously more female expatriates in the field, is important to look into their adjustment during expatriation and repatriation. Family plays an important role in female expatriate’s life and the role of family needs to be considered in the adjustment process.

The goal of this thesis is to find out the factors influencing female expatriate adjustment and readjustment, and in particular how does the family influence the adjustment and readjustment of the female expatriate. To offer a fresh perspective to the topic, new dimensions and domains of adjustment are used to analyze the existing literature as well as the empirical findings.

The empirical research is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews. The data was collected by interviewing Finnish company-assigned female expatriates with a family. The collected data was analyzed and findings compared to the existing literature.

The findings show that family has a big role in female expatriate adjustment during expatriation and repatriation. Family offers great support for the expatriate, yet at the same time the expatriates experience challenges finding the right work-life balance. The challenges are especially visible with the expatriates with small children. Also spouse’s adjustment is one of the most significant factors influencing the expatriate’s adjustment, sometimes even causing early repatriation. In addition to family relationships, the findings show that other main factors influencing the female expatriate adjustment and readjustment are work- and social relations.