General adjustment

following statements describe these opposing views, which co-occurred with demographic variables, as older and married expatriates referred to the fact of often having had more interaction difficulties than younger colleagues (under 36 years old) and single repatriates.

"In terms of work, the relationship was excellent. (…) With people from a local plant, I can say that it was with the people there that most links were made. Even recently, three or four people were here, and the reception was such that… people were really surprised because (...) it was more than just work. The people were here and we went out to have dinner and... There is always… a special relationship, which I find exemplary."

"I never managed to integrate totally. It’s like this….this is what happens when you mix with Czechs. They try, for example, at a restaurant…. those on my left or right or in front try to speak English. The rest on the sides, speak Czech... (...) But one feels set apart.

Always. Whenever one tries to mix with people there you never feel like one of them."

5.4.3.6 Key findings for interaction adjustment

In summary, results from the content analysis showed individuals’ descriptions of interaction adjustment and the reasons that influence it were grouped into four categories (by decreasing order of reference): non-work factors, organizational factors, anticipatory factors and finally work factors. Apparently, interaction adjustment was not much influenced by individual factors, as these factors were not mentioned. The most relevant categories, co- occurring with individuals’ assessment of interaction adjustment, were host socializing actions and host support outside work. In addition, interaction adjustment seemed to be more difficult than work adjustment, as only six interviewees mentioned not having had interaction difficulties, compared to sixteen people who mentioned the same regarding work difficulties. In relation to demographic differences, there was evidence of co-occurrence between the assessment of interaction adjustment and individuals’ age, marital status and assignment type. Younger respondents (below 36 years old), repatriates and singles reported fewer interaction difficulties than older and married expatriates did.

were: non-work and individual factors. Anticipatory factors and work factors were mentioned, though they were represented by a single factor, respectively: host language ability and work overload. Apparently, organizational factors were not perceived to influence general adjustment, as aspects related with the organizational influence on general adjustment were absent from interviewees statements. The following sections describe the main findings.

5.4.4.1 Anticipatory factors perceived to influence general adjustment

This category contained a single item, mentioned by six people (10 references), referring the influence of host language ability on general adjustment. The following statement illustrates this influence:

"The difficulty is the day to day interactions, little things, with language. Like for example using the petrol card in the gas station for the first time. When they say put in the code, it’s written in Czech... Simple things, but the cause of an enormous problem and me with a queue of ten people behind me and me not knowing which button to press, there in the petrol station. And you begin to blush and sweat, ... and get very stressed out just putting petrol in your car…(…) I decided to get a coffee in a machine. One of the ways of getting coffee in those first few days. I later bought the machine. In one of those automatic machines in the gas station, the coffee comes out, it was bitter, there were some other little packets, and instead of sugar, I put salt in my coffee (laughter)… (...) It was very frustrating that I can’t even drink a coffee here. Lots of problems. Little ones...(…) I had lots of incidents like this in the first months in my day-to-day life."

5.4.4.2 Work factors perceived to influence general adjustment

The single work factor mentioned was work overload, which negatively affected general adjustment, as cited by eight people (eleven references):

"In other matters it was like this: even though I was in Paris, in the first months, for a great deal of the time I ended up being stuck in the factories (...)... During the day I was working… even at night (...) So then at night I just went to bed and woke up the next day.

Often there was no time for dinner (…) At the weekend I really tried not to work. That doesn’t mean I never worked... but I tried to put it aside for my own mental stability".

5.4.4.3 Individual factors perceived to influence general adjustment

Included in this category were, in decreasing order of reference, six sub-categories:

country-of-origin (being Portuguese), living alone, being foreigner, homesickness (saudades),

gender and age. Following are some insightful statements reflecting the perceived influence of each sub-category.

Country-of-origin (being Portuguese):

"There’s a sort of ranking of countries and I think that it’s subject to people’s mentality.

And I think that in Quebec this happened a bit: “There are some guys coming from Spain and Portugal. Countries light years away from ours”… What do they know? And I believe it’s like this..."

"With human contact people end up recognizing and even enjoying having a positive relationship with us. But in institutional terms they are very negative towards the Portuguese culture."

Living alone:

"At the beginning you have to rebalance and redefine a whole series of rituals.

Because a life in Porto is a life with people all around, and one which, from childhood, you get used to doing things: you have coffee there, buy a newspaper there, go there to talk to so and so. Eating, having lunch or dinner. You know that if you want to be with someone you just go to a certain place or pick up the phone to arrange something. There, you picked up the phone and arranged nothing. You didn’t have anybody. I didn’t do much … (…). Time just went by and I got used to being alone. From the point of view of living alone..."

Being a foreigner:

“Once I was on the way to Meppen (Germany) and I went into a restaurant, asked for the menu, and the owner came up to me and threw me out. He had the cheek to say:-“We don’t serve foreigners here”. I got up and left. I should have called the police and made a big scene. I don’t think the Germans accept foreigners very well, in general. Whether it’s immigration from the east, south or wherever. They tolerate the foreigners who work. The rest – they don’t tolerate...(…) A foreigner is the enemy by definition.”

Homesickness (saudades):

“I came back at a time of great difficulty. I was really fed up of being there. I needed to be at home, to spend a lot of time with the people I like most, mostly my family. I missed that. I was really needing that.”

Gender:

“The way they treat women ... if you like, what we are talking about here is a sort of prejudice – they are extremely ‘macho’. Enough to say that most women of my age with

children are at home, and not at work. That was what they all wanted to know: why I wasn’t married and why I didn’t have any children. They just couldn’t understand that I had no intention of marrying and having children at that time. It’s a very ‘macho’ society. And I happened to see the statistics – that barely 20% of women who are married with children go out to work. This was a complete shock to me…(…) Sometimes I had to really put on a hard expression and act almost rude and say “Either you people forget that there is a women here, or we’ll have some problems that none of you expect”. Because at times they tended not to hear what I had to say simply because I was a woman.”

Age:

“My age – I wasn’t so young – I was 27 (laughter). At the beginning it was more: the controllers there were all about 40. This was a shock for me, when we were asking them for things, and teaching them… this was a huge cultural shock to them.”

5.4.4.4 Non-work factors perceived to influence general adjustment

Non-work factors comprised the most cited antecedents of general adjustment (30 people, 137 references). Included under this hierarchical category were 12 categories (in descending order of reference): (1) housing, (2) climate, (3) food, (4) leisure activities, (5) shopping, (6) driving, (7) safety, (8) relocation or settling in, (9) children’s' schools, (10) administrative, (11) housekeeping and (12) health care. In accordance with the literature, this study identified five of the seven dimensions associated with general adjustment. The coinciding dimensions are housing, food, entertainment/recreational, shopping and health care. Since research has not previously identified the influence of such aspects as: relocation, climate, driving, safety, schools, administrative and housekeeping demands, they are illustrated below.

Relocation/settle-in:

“A complete disaster. It’s because the company has a policy of allowing 100 kg of luggage for each person, and which must accompany us on the same plane. What for? So that when you arrive – the basic stuff – the kid’s stuff, books – things you need on a day to day basis. Because you don’t have time … arrive with you. OK. And this was the first disaster by the company (...) So, when we arrived, our son’s toys arrived two months later. Almost at Christmas. We had to go out and buy him some just for him to play with something. We didn’t take toys in our luggage. Living two months like that. Our personal effects only arrived two

months later… (…). They saved a lot of money on us and only caused us a lot of frustration (…).”

Climate:

“The climate added some new, horrendous factors. I’d never imagined temperatures of -50C. In fact, they even announced on TV that you shouldn’t go out alone, because if someone gets dizzy and falls, they’d be dead within a minute. So, I had to re-think my own position and my out of work behaviors in a way I’d never before imagined.”

Driving:

"By car there are two solutions: one is to go by taxi but to do this you have some drawbacks – sometimes there just aren’t any. When it’s raining they pretend not to see you and only stop for the Chinese. I had made an agreement with the company to buy a car and have a driver, as no document was valid in China other than our passport. Not now, but at that time you could only get a Chinese driver’s license after a year’s residence, so after a year I got my Chinese license and started driving myself."

Safety:

"The main problem I have to do is precisely adaptation – and the big problem we have is safety. It’s not at work it’s the day-to-day situation. We have to be constantly on the alert. If we are a bit careless in terms of our normal security arrangements, we could be potential victims of something. We might be kidnapped or get shot or robbed… It’s something that we always have at the back of our minds. We don’t have to go through that here."

Schools:

"We were a little over-confident with regard to local conditions. One of the things that turned out to be very difficult was to find somewhere for my son to go to – a crèche or a nursery. We were over confident… that a country which was more culturally advanced than our own… and I always thought that this wouldn’t be difficult..(…) but it really is very difficult, because of supply and demand. It should be said that there is a different cultural concept.

People there have a tradition of relying on nannies, and then there are different categories.

This was for us, who had no idea of the situation, rather unpleasant. So, what we needed was a nursery. Finding somewhere that accepts infants up to 3 years of age (crèche) is almost impossible. (…) As far as our stay was concerned this was the main difficulty and really needs better preparation."

Administrative demands:

"There are always agencies that take care of all the paperwork. You always need a Chinese person in the process to take care of whatever it is. Westerners who think they can deal with things … simply can’t, because things are set up so that Chinese can take care of everything."

Housekeeping demands:

"It took me a week to find the waste disposal bin in our building. A week… imagine the entrance hall of my building full of boxes since my arrival. I’d unpacked my belongings – CD’s, books… I didn’t take many things because the apartment was furnished, but you always have to take things…"

5.4.4.5 Key findings for general adjustment

In summary, the above mentioned results highlighted the main determinants of general adjustment, which comprised anticipatory, work, individual and non-work factors.

Anticipatory factors influenced general adjustment through host language ability, as this aspect was perceived to invade day-to-day life. Work factors influenced general adjustment through workload, in a negative way.

General adjustment was also perceived to be affected by individual characteristics, such as age and gender, as young interviewees and women felt more difficulties due to these personal characteristics. Additionally, the fact of being foreigner and Portuguese were also perceived to negatively affect general adjustment. Furthermore, living alone and homesickness contributed also to delay general adjustment.

As indicated, non-work factors were perceived to impact general adjustment. In this case, non-work factors include the challenges to find and adapt to different housing, food, climate, driving, safety, schooling, housekeeping and administrative requirements.

Furthermore, the influence of non-work and individual factors on general adjustment was perceived differently according to interviewees’ demographic characteristics. Namely, women referred more frequently to the impact of age and gender as a conditioning factor than men did. Conversely, males, more than females, cited the influence of accommodation, safety, health care, children schools and country-of-origin (being Portuguese). Single people felt more the impact of homesickness than married respondents did, while the later were more affected by children schools, leisure activities and country-of-origin (being Portuguese).

Even if some researchers (e.g., Black et al., 1991) have included the dimensions of cost of living and general living conditions to measure the degree of expatriates' general adjustment, these factors were not directly mentioned by the interviewees. Cost of living was completely absent from interviewees' references and general living conditions was substituted by its components, as the differences associated to food, climate, driving, safety etc. As the above results indicated, several un-researched factors were perceived to affect expatriates general adjustment, such as relocation or settling-in, climate, homesickness and country-of- origin.