Adult third culture kids: adjustment and personal development

Lauring, Jakob; Guttormsen, David S. A.; McNulty, Yvonne

doi:10.1108/ccsm-02-2019-0035

Cited by 10 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…A recent paper (Lauring et al 2019) has explored the relationship between interaction adjustment and personal development in expatriates and whether it differs for ATCKs and non-ATCKs. The results show improved experience of personal development in both groups, with a stronger effect for ATCKs when interaction adjustment increases.…”

Section: Adjustment and Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

ATCKs as expatriates: Turnover intention and adjustment examined

Mackey¹,

Evans²

2021

Preprint

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Purpose: Adult third-culture kids (ATCKs), or adults who were living abroad in expatriated families during childhood, have been theorised to possess resources to meet the increased stressors and demands of overseas assignments due to their higher cross-cultural competency, adjustment, and security in risk-taking. This research sought to compare the turnover intention of ATCKs with that of adults with mono-cultural backgrounds, in expatriate roles, and to see whether this experience provides incremental predictive validity for turnover intention over and above demographic and adjustment factors.Design: This research used a quantitative, cross-sectional design implemented through an online questionnaire (n = 206).Findings: Results reported that ATCKs showed significantly higher levels of turnover intention than those with mono-cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, this background predicted an additional 3.3% of variance in turnover intentions above that of various adjustment indices.Originality: This research provides initial evidence to dispute the claim that adults who are expatriated in childhood are more likely to be retained in traditional expatriate work and suggests future research to investigate leveraging ATCK skills in alternative expatriate contexts.Practical implications: These results may allow international organisations to better understand the potential benefits of ATCK employment as expatriates and their role in a global environment in need of increased retention and mobility.

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Section: Adjustment and Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

ATCKs as expatriates: Turnover intention and adjustment examined

Mackey¹,

Evans²

2021

Preprint

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“…While previous studies have mainly focused on (A)TCK students' work interests (typically examining their possible future expatriate potential), this study contributes to the international career literature by studying adulthood international interests and actual career choices. Moreover, where earlier studies have mainly focused on personal traits, skills and knowledge developed when living abroad (Abe, 2018;Lauring et al, 2019;Tarique and Weisbord, 2013), our study broadens the view by exploring how ATCKs' themselves narrate and explain their career-related socially developed cognitions. In particular, we study how they make sense of their childhood international experience's connection to their career related choices, their expectations for their later career, and their career ambitions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…So far, research on ATCKs has mainly focused on their suitability as expatriates (Westropp et al. , 2016), adjustment issues (Hervey, 2009; Lauring et al. , 2019; Selmer and Lauring, 2014), an international childhood's connection to personality and well-being (Abe, 2018) and cross-cultural competence (Tarique and Weisbord, 2013), and some studies have considered their actual working life and career choices (Cottrell, 2002; Bikos et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expatriate childhood as the first domino: does early international exposure lead to a later international career?

Caselius

Mäkelä

2022

JGM

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PurposeThis paper looks to study how adult third culture kids (ATCKs) perceive that their childhood international experience is linked to their career interests and choices in later adult life.Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative study is based on 34 semi-structured interviews analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The authors adopted social cognitive career theory as a theoretical framework for the work.FindingsThe findings indicate that regardless of the ATCKs field of expertise, their international childhood links to various international exposures and work experiences already in their early career. ATCK background can also be interpreted as an essential facet that promotes significant interest towards international roles, work tasks and careers because they are familiar with a globally mobile lifestyle. A global childhood was represented as a phenomenon that fosters stress tolerance, and ATCKs' unique international capabilities were perceived as an advantage for employment. The authors also found that they tended to set high goals for themselves in terms of education and career, in order to pursue high-end international positions.Practical implicationsATCKs' value interpretations of their strengths, skills and knowledge highly relate to working in an international setup. When applying for jobs, ATCKs could find it beneficial to highlight their early international experiences and explain why this is valuable experience for organizations that are seeking highly educated, globally competent, and flexible employees. Also, information about ATCKs could be included in international business course curricula, in order to foster an increased recognition of the value and benefits of hiring individuals with a TCK background.Originality/valueThis paper is the first qualitative study which empirically examines ATCKs' longer term career interests and career decisions among individuals with adult work experience. This study contributes to the knowledge about how early life international experiences are interpreted in the context of work-life decisions from a social cognitive perspective.

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“…Experiences acquired from living and working abroad have been much neglected, especially in terms of what expatriates are doing and their perceptions of work and social lives while actually living in the host environment (see Lauring et al , 2019). In consequence, the challenges faced by expatriates during their assignments have been largely unstudied.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Status and success

Guttormsen

Francesco

2019

JGM

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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine how low status expatriates (lower position, younger, female) are positioned differently compared to high status expatriates (higher position, older, male) in terms of experiencing various types of success. Design/methodology/approach Based on 424 responses from business expatriates working within multinational corporations operating in Asia, the study tests whether low status expatriates experience higher personal success while high status expatriates see more organization-related success. Findings The results demonstrate that expatriates with different status-related characteristics might experience success during an international assignment differently. Additionally, our results reveal the relevance of avoiding treating success as a single variable and of investigating the actual experiences acquired while working abroad to better appreciate how expatriates experience success differently. Originality/value The extant literature offers a limited understanding of expatriate success as the phenomenon has often been conceptualized in relatively simple terms, i.e., the completion of the international assignment contract. Our study offers an alternative view. Measuring success using a single outcome variable does not fully capture the experience. Success can be perceived in different ways, and different types of success are associated with different types of characteristics.

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Adult third culture kids: adjustment and personal development

Cited by 10 publications

References 72 publications

ATCKs as expatriates: Turnover intention and adjustment examined

ATCKs as expatriates: Turnover intention and adjustment examined

Expatriate childhood as the first domino: does early international exposure lead to a later international career?

Status and success

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