Normality tests, reliability statistics and factor analyses were conducted for the variables of organizational culture, cross-cultural adjustment, culture novelty and withdrawal intentions. APPENDIX V - Factor analyses of Study II, presents further details on the procedures employed.
6.2.1 Organizational culture
Factor analyses of the organizational culture items (for home and host companies) yielded two factors that can readily be interpreted in terms of the original concepts of sociability and solidarity (Goffee and Jones, 1998). However, four items showed consistently poor results, both with data for home and host organizational culture, and as such were removed from the scales (see APPENDIX V - Factor analyses of Study II for details). The resulting factors altogether explained 43.61% of the total variance in the data for home organizational culture and 44.53% of the variance in the data for host organizational culture.
The sociability factor is most strongly defined by nine items: (1) People genuinely like one another, (2) People often socialize outside of work; (3) People do favors for each other because they like one another; (4) People make friends for the sake of friendship – there is no other agenda; (5) People often confide in one another about personal matters, (6) People build close long-term relationships – someday they may be of benefit; (7) People know a lot about each other’s families; (8) When people leave, co-workers stay in contact to see how they are doing, and (9) People protect each other.
The solidarity factor is most strongly defined by ten items: (1) people know business objectives clearly; (2) people follow clear guidelines and instructions about work; (3) poor
performance is dealt with quickly and firmly, (4) the group really wants to win; (5) when opportunities for competitive advantage arise people move decisively to capitalize them; (6) strategic goals are shared; (7) reward and punishment are clear; (8) the group is determined to beat clearly defined enemies; (9) projects that are started are completed; and (10) at the company, it is clear where one person’s job ends and another person’s begins.
To assess the internal consistency of these 19 organizational culture items, coefficients alphas were computed. The coefficients range from 0.807 to 0.844. which indicates a good internal consistency (cf. Pestana and Gageiro, 2003) and supports the decision to remove the four items that were poorly correlated with each factor.
To determine whether certain types of organizational cultures were related with the dependent variables, the profile of home and host organizational culture of the respondents was determined (Goffee and Jones, 1998). This procedure seemed valuable as a complement of searching for differences related with the separate dimensions of sociability and solidarity.
Based on Goffee and Jones (1998) procedure, Table 5 shows the resulting profiles, distinguishing home and destination organizational culture, for the total sample and for expatriates and repatriates separately.
Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage Frequency Percentage
Communal 123 55.70% 92 55.40% 31 56.40%
Networked 31 14.00% 23 13.90% 8 14.50%
Fragmented 34 15.40% 25 15.10% 9 16.40%
Mercenary 33 14.90% 26 15.70% 7 12.70%
Communal 127 57.50% 95 57.20% 32 58.20%
Networked 51 23.10% 38 22.90% 13 23.60%
Fragmented 25 11.30% 18 10.80% 7 12.70%
Mercenary 18 8.10% 15 9.00% 3 5.50%
Home Organizational Culture
Host Organizational Culture
Organizational Culture Total Sample
(N = 221)
Expatriates Sample (N=166)
Repatriates Sample (N=55) Type
Table 5 - Home and host organizational culture profiles.
The results showed that over 50% of the respondents perceived their home and host companies as having a communal culture type (e.g., having high sociability and solidarity), which challenges Goffee and Jones (1998) view, regarding the dominance of this culture type
among small and new companies. In this study, more than 50% of the total respondents worked for organizations operating in more than 16 different countries and employing more than 20,000 employees, which clearly indicates they were employed in large corporations.
Nevertheless, most companies were perceived as having a communal culture, which indicates individuals not only share strong and common business goals as build strong long-term personal relationships based on trust and friendship.
6.2.2 Cross-cultural adjustment
Factor analysis of the 14 items commonly used to assess international adjustment suggested that three factors could be extracted, which confirms other authors analyses (Black, 1988; Black and Stephens, 1989; Black et al. 1991). These factors collectively accounted for 66.38% of data variance (see APPENDIX V - Factor analyses of Study II for further details).
Factor 1 can be easily interpreted as general adjustment and explained 42.81% of data variance. Factor 2 can be identified as interaction adjustment and explained 12.91% of data variance. Finally, factor 3 included the three items of work adjustment, which explained an additional 10.66% of data variance. To assess the internal consistency of these three adjustment dimensions, Cronbach's alpha coefficients were computed. The coefficients varied from 0.806 for work adjustment, to 0.864 for interaction adjustment and 0.877 for general adjustment, which indicate an adequate internal consistency (Pestana and Gageiro, 2003).
In addition, the 11 items of the spouse's adjustment were also factor analyzed (see further details in APPENDIX V - Factor analyses of Study II). These 11 items resulted in two factors with eigenvalues greater than one. The first factor included seven items that measured general adjustment. The second factor consisted of four items that loaded above 0.5 and were designed to measure interaction adjustment. Both factors accounted for 91.93% of data variance and Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.981 to 0.984 for spouse general and interaction adjustment, which indicate scales have a very good internal reliability (Pestana and Gageiro, 2003).
6.2.3 Culture novelty
The internal consistency obtained for the 16 items scale of culture novelty was 0.865.
which is far above the range obtained before. The eight items measure of culture novelty derived from literature (Torbiorn, 1982; Black and Gregersen, 1991a; Black and Stephens,
coefficients below 0.70), which supported the addition of eight items, as done in this research.
However, five items showed a poor inter-scale correlation (lower than 0.5), which lead to the scale revision (see details in APPENDIX V - Factor analyses of Study II). A new measure of culture novelty, formed with nine items, was tested. It revealed a Cronbach's alpha coefficient high and almost unchanged (cronbach alpha =0.828). Also, a principal components factor analysis, using Varimax rotation, suggested that one single factor can be extracted. This factor, alone, explained 42.66% of data variance. Based in these results, the new nine items scale was adopted. The culture novelty factor is most strongly defined by the differences between home and destination countries in the following items: (1) everyday customs, (2) general living conditions, (3) transportation systems, (4) available quality and types of food, (5) general housing conditions, (6) education facilities and opportunities, (7) entertainment/recreation facilities and opportunities, (8) political system, (9) religion.
6.2.4 Withdrawal intentions
As obtained by Carmeli (2005), three factors with eigenvalues grater than one, emerged from a principal components factor analysis, using Oblimin procedure. These factors collectively accounted for 84.86% of data variance. After examining the loadings, the three factors can be labeled as withdrawal intentions from the organization (factor 1), withdrawal intentions from the job/assignment (factor 2) and withdrawal intentions from the occupation (factor 3). The scales internal consistencies, computed by Cronbach's alpha coefficients were high for separated scales as for the nine items scale, ranging from 0.858 to 0.945.
6.2.5 Variables descriptive and internal consistency
Table 6 summarizes the descriptive statistics and Cronbach's alpha for the model variables.
Number
of items Mean SD Range
Sociability 9 items 28.87 5.98 9-45 0.807
Solidarity 10 items 32.90 6.53 10-50 0.830
Sociability 9 items 27.10 6.54 9-45 0.835
Solidarity 10 items 31.39 7.21 10-50 0.844
Work 3 items 5.15 1.31 1-7 0.806
Interaction 4 items 4.37 1.53 1-7 0.864
General 7 items 4.89 1.28 1-7 0.877
Interaction 4 items 2.99 2.54 1-7 0.984
General 7 items 3.38 2.58 1-7 0.981
Culture Novelty Culture differences Torbiorn (1982) 9 items 3.61 0.79 1-5 0.828 Satisfaction General Satisfaction Bonache (2005) 5 items 3.60 0.96 1-5 0.905
Assignment 3 items 2.38 1.19 1-5 0.858
Occupation 3 items 2.13 1.23 1-5 0.903
Organization 3 items 2.09 1.16 1-5 0.945
Scale Cronbach's
Alpha General Variable Specific Variables Based on
Scale Statistics
Home Organizational Culture
Host Organizational Culture
Adjustment
Withdrawal Intentions Spouse Adjustment
Goffee & Jones (1998) Goffee & Jones (1998)
Carmeli et al. (2005) Black et al. (1991);
Black & Stephens (1989)
Table 6 - Descriptive statistics and Cronbach's alpha for the model variables
A review of Table 6 reveals that:
(1) The mean scores for sociability and solidarity are above the mid-level point of the respective scales, which is 22 for sociability and 25 for solidarity;
(2) The mean scores for the three adjustment variables are above the mid-level point of the scale ranging from (1) highly unadjusted to (7) highly adjusted. Interaction adjustment has a lower mean than the other two dimensions of adjustment, which is consistent with other research findings (Selmer, Chiu and Shenkar, 2007; Selmer; 2007, 2006, 2005; Waxin and Panaccio, 2005; Selmer and Leung, 2003a; Black and Gregersen, 1991a; Gregersen and Black, 1990; Black and Stephens, 1989).
(3) The mean scores for spouse adjustment are below the mid-level point of the scale, and lower than expatriation adjustment, which indicates that respondents perceived their spouse's adjustment as being more difficult than their own;
(4) The mean score for general satisfaction is above the mid-point of the respective scale, which indicates respondents are generally satisfied with their assignments.
(5) The mean scores for withdrawal intentions are below the mid-level of the respective scales, which indicates respondents generally do not intend to leave their assignments, organizations and occupations prematurely.
(6) Withdrawal intentions from the occupation have a lower mean than withdrawal intentions from the organization and the assignment, which is consistent with previous research findings (Carmeli, 2005).
(7) Finally, all scales revealed a satisfactory internal consistency (above 0.80), similar to comparable studies (Black and Stephens, 1989; Black and Gregersen, 1991b).