Work adjustment

According to the literature, adjustment antecedents can be classified in five categories: anticipatory factors (such as host language ability and previous international experience), individual factors (such as relational skills and self-efficacy), job factors (such as role novelty and role clarity), organizational factors (such as co-workers support) and non- work factors (such as spouse adjustment and culture novelty). Therefore, one attempted to determine whether this taxonomy would fit the data derived from the interviews. These categories were used in content analysis to group the references to the aspects perceived to influence each dimension of in-country adjustment.

For instance, in the case of work adjustment, when individuals were freely asked to describe their work adjustment and the reasons that influenced it, their answers were grouped into four categories: anticipatory factors, work factors, organizational factors and individual factors. Non-work factors were absent from the references regarding the antecedents of work adjustment. Further, there was no evidence of co-occurrences between the above-mentioned antecedents of work adjustment and individuals’ demographics (such as age, gender or marital status). The following sections summarize the main findings.

5.4.2.1 Anticipatory factors perceived to influence work adjustment

This category included the references to the influence of host language ability on work adjustment, as illustrated:

"I ended up using, with New York’s authorization, the funding for advanced English, to improve my English. I thought it was more useful to perfect my English than to learn Czech… I think this was a mistake, as, mainly in professional circles it caused barriers. Mainly with the interaction with the sales teams. In the office too, though less so. You see, in the interaction with sales teams we had to use a translator, which caused huge barriers in communication and feelings."

5.4.2.2 Work factors perceived to influence work adjustment

Included in this category, five job factors were perceived to affect the informants' work adjustment, such as assignment mission, leading people, role novelty and role clarity, and host management team, as illustrated below.

Assignment Mission:

"I went there with a job to do – which was to make permanent changes – to cause change, to create a certain amount of discomfort among people. So people react badly when they feel ... when they move from comfort to discomfort. The people that personalize this are people who bring about this transition, so it was a somewhat thankless task. It was the work, the job itself that was appealing, but it was really a thankless task, because it stirred up a lot of conflict. A lot of conflict … it was necessary to change a lot of things."

Leading People:

"The most difficult thing is managing people – this was always the most difficult part.

You had to go and do company work… and you had to go through with it, (and get) people on board, by understanding them in the first place."

Role Novelty:

"It was a new job – I was invited to set up a European structure for which there was no predecessor. Then set up a team of 60 people, scattered all over the various countries. I had to recruit 12 directors, one for each country, and for the first three months, this is what I did.

Travel, interview people and manage the business, but more focused on the recruitment side."

Role Clarity:

"Now, the greatest difficulty was, without doubt, understanding and having to change the vision that the organization had of the job... management control has two functions:

reporting and supporting. The function had been seen mostly as simply reporting, and I wanted to make it more like supporting, for the company, for the other departments, the Managing Director. I think I succeeded."

Host Management Team:

"My project director was not my boss in the factory. We had a central function. I had to persuade him that we should have a consultancy firm to do the recruitment for us. Because he would say: - no, you can do this yourself. We aren’t going to spend money on hiring consultants. They are expensive … this gave me lots of work, do the whole range of the job and have to justify and argue. And all this was very tiresome, though at the same time challenging because I had to adapt to a different way of working."

5.4.2.3 Organizational factors perceived to influence work adjustment

Organizational factors were also perceived to influence work adjustment, and were summarized in six categories: host work habits, home and host company solidarity, organizational culture and host company sociability, as illustrated below.

Organizational Culture:

"Another matter that was quite a big shock for me was in the company itself, which, being a multinational I was expecting to find a more or less common culture – but no. It is a…

the most traditional of the whole group (…) it’s a very conservative host company, extremely resistant... and as it is a company that has been bought, from the state system, from the regime... the old regime mentality is extremely strong in the sense that it means there is total mistrust between people, in the sense that there is a resistance to change, because they went through many years in a certain way. There’s a lot of lack of initiative because they were never supposed to show initiative."

Home Company Solidarity:

"For example, this question of us feeling somewhat abandoned, well, it might not actually be abandoned, but that is how we felt. The Chairman, since he started three and a half years ago, went twice and with me went once. One of the other Board Members went there when I arrived. He then returned… maybe three times in two years. But there’s no real relationship with the central office – nobody ever made the journey. It was me who had to

recruit staff for the maintenance area. They came here to train and for some recycling courses. But in fact this is the point I’m making: apart from the Chairman and the other Board Member I haven’t seen anyone else take the slightest interest."

Host Company Solidarity:

"Because the problem I had was having nobody to back my opinions. I couldn’t go to my boss ... I’m thinking of doing such and such … if you think it’s the best solution … I don’t know, I can’t help you. I had no help at all! On many occasions. I went through all this insecurity. Well, I was used to working with a mature team, who could question our decisions and make us really think about them … and then, all of a sudden I had no-one to do this…

nobody to give me feedback on what I say or do."

Host Company Sociability:

"There I knew a lot more about my other colleagues’ families (...) there was great team spirit in the company there. After work we’d all go out together. We met up together a lot.

There were events. We had lunch together. Even me… And afterwards even after the social activities we’d hang out together. We’d leave at 5 P. M. and we’d agree to meet: let’s go there…we’d socialize a lot – much more there than here."

Host Company Disorganization:

"It was hard for me to adapt professionally, in the sense that they were completely lost, I wasn’t integrated and so it was difficult to find any way to help them. And during the first five or six months our professional relationship was very difficult."

Host Work Habits:

"Their way of working is so slow. They do things so slowly. The people I work with in the administrative area – some are qualified, others less so. There is a first rate worker who works his pants off and others who would do nothing if they could. But I think that this may be a general thing."

5.4.2.4 Individual factors perceived to influence work adjustment

A single category was identified, relative to the perceived influence of the country-of- origin, or the fact of "being Portuguese". The following statement illustrates this view.

"But I felt that the management was made up of seven people and I was the eighth.

They were all French except one who came from the group that was in Finance, and was Argentinean or Italian or a mixture of both or something. The rest were French… and… on all levels… So it was a company with four hundred or so employees and there were exceptional

people on all levels. I think I was accepted... for my work, and not for my background, because if this had been the case I would obviously have had more difficulties (…). You hear some comments... for example, as everywhere else we have a lot of Portuguese people in the factory. I put it this way: if we had lots of Angolans working here, we probably wouldn’t have any in management. They’d be all working on production. Or instead of Angolans, read Africans. If someone from Africa came to Management, then those in Management, when they wanted to make another joke... they’d associate the two things, wouldn’t they? That’s not to say that your place isn’t here, or there… but there’d be connotations that would lead you to this conclusion… The factory there had some Portuguese workers. And me, during management meetings. I was sort of associated…"

5.4.2.5 No work adjustment difficulties:

Among interviewees, 16 people (22 references) mentioned not having had relevant work difficulties as follows.

"For this reason, I’m saying, for me it was no real effort. It was the company itself, the people… the many people I was working with, I knew them, also… from the past. They are colleagues in the area of marketing that I know. So for me it was very easy."

"I didn’t have to make an effort. I hardly felt this shock: new colleagues, totally different, new realities. I didn’t feel this. I could say that I was an expatriate with some... or at home. I didn’t feel this shock. I practically never experienced it. Or rather I went through some difficulties in adaptation due to family rather than professional factors."

Even if it is not the purpose of this content analysis to highlight quantitative data, this study revealed that the number of individuals who were positive regarding work adjustment was higher than the number of interviewees who claimed to have experienced no interaction or general adjustment difficulties. Overall, results indicate demographic characteristics did not co-occur with these references, which indicated work adjustment was unrelated with individual variables.

5.4.2.6 Key findings for work adjustment

In summary, the factors perceived to influence work adjustment were mainly work related (such as assignment mission, leading people, role novelty, role clarity and host management team) and organizational related (through host company disorganization, host work habits, home and host organizational culture, namely the solidarity dimension). The

single anticipatory factor mentioned was host language fluency and the single individual factor was country-of-origin. Non-work factors were absent from the references of all interviewees.

These findings indicate anticipatory, individual and non-work factors were not much represented or even absent from the discourse of participants, while work and organizational factors were richly cited. Furthermore, most interviewees claimed a fairly easy and positive work adjustment, which was unrelated with individuals' demographic characteristics.