Abstract:Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the health-related well-being of public sector expatriates paying particular attention to the family situation.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among the entire staff of the German Foreign Service (GFS), resulting in a response rate of 35.5 percent (analytical sample n=1,390). Partnership status, childlessness, and experiences of partnership break-ups were analyzed by gender and by age. Using OLS regression, the authors examin… Show more
“…Nevertheless, a number of pioneering studies on German emigrants have already been conducted and gathered valuable information. Their strategies to reach the target population, however, are often very complex and resource intensive (Ette et al, 2020), presuppose access to specific infrastructures or governmental institutions (Schupp et al, 2008;Waibel et al, 2018) respectively the assistance of private sector actors that could function as multiplicators (Pfeiffer & Heimer, 2007). These approaches are often successful in recruiting German emigrants who have left the country only quite recently and live in European countries, the United States of America, and Canada.…”
Migration research faces many methodological challenges. This is already true when the focus is on newcomers (immigrants) in a single or a small number of countries. A major difficulty in this regard is finding, contacting, and convincing members of the target population to participate. But what if we would even want to go further and beyond a hand full of countries to survey emigrants (say, from Germany) on a near global scale? In this project, Steffen Pötzschke and Bernd Weiß explored whether social networking sites might be of any help in this regard.
“…Nevertheless, a number of pioneering studies on German emigrants have already been conducted and gathered valuable information. Their strategies to reach the target population, however, are often very complex and resource intensive (Ette et al, 2020), presuppose access to specific infrastructures or governmental institutions (Schupp et al, 2008;Waibel et al, 2018) respectively the assistance of private sector actors that could function as multiplicators (Pfeiffer & Heimer, 2007). These approaches are often successful in recruiting German emigrants who have left the country only quite recently and live in European countries, the United States of America, and Canada.…”
Migration research faces many methodological challenges. This is already true when the focus is on newcomers (immigrants) in a single or a small number of countries. A major difficulty in this regard is finding, contacting, and convincing members of the target population to participate. But what if we would even want to go further and beyond a hand full of countries to survey emigrants (say, from Germany) on a near global scale? In this project, Steffen Pötzschke and Bernd Weiß explored whether social networking sites might be of any help in this regard.
“…In addition, McNulty et al (2017) called for more research on overlooked occupational groups such as diplomats for a better understanding of the differences between business and governmental expatriation (e.g. Waibel et al , 2018). Our study, thus, contributes to the severely under-researched form of expatriation, namely diplomatic assignments, which are among the oldest types of expatriate profession (Fliege et al , 2016; Groeneveld, 2008; Davoine et al , 2013).…”
PurposeThis paper aims to explore the interplay between burnout, national identity and career satisfaction among diplomats. In particular, the authors focus on the roles of home and host country identification as an emotional resource for overcoming the negative effects of job-related burnout.Design/methodology/approachSurvey responses from 123 diplomats were used to assess the moderating role of home and host country identification on the relationship between burnout and career satisfaction.FindingsVarious combinations of high or low home or host country identification were tested, and the findings suggest that the negative effect of burnout on career satisfaction is reduced for those individuals that have high identification with both the home and the host country, while this is not the case for other combinations. This points to the beneficial effects of dual national identifications even for diplomats – a group that would normally be expected to identify strongly with the home country alone.Originality/valueNo existing study that the authors know of has explored the relationship between burnout, national identity and career satisfaction among diplomats or other types of expatriates. This is unfortunate because a better understanding of national identity could guide practitioners in finding ways to reduce the negative consequences of burnout in international organizations.
“…In our study, this is exemplified by the positive association we found between RL and affective wellbeing at work. Extant expatriation research frequently tends to associate well-being with family and personal life (e.g., Mäkelä et al, 2017;Waibel et al, 2018) rather than with work-related leadership. Thus, RL may be viewed as a leadership approach that potentially reconciles various domains of social support.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…For example, Lazarova, Westman, and Shaffer (2010) associated adjusted expatriates with an overall sense of well-being, while Shaffer et al (2012) classified subjective well-being as an intrinsic career outcome. Some expatriation research incorporates well-being in terms of family and personal life aspects (e.g., Mäkelä et al 2017;Waibel, Aevermann, & Rueger, 2018). For instance, Lämsä et al (2017) argue that parent companies should see travelling families as stakeholders, and that they need to develop and apply a holistic well-being orientation to show stakeholder responsibility.…”
Adopting a responsible leadership (RL) lens and drawing on intergroup behavior and social identity theory, we analyze a sample of 111 expatriates using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Our findings indicate that RL enacted by host-country supervisors is positively associated with international assignees' cross-cultural adjustment and affective wellbeing at work, in turn leading to better expatriate performance. RL may thus facilitate adjustment and well-being in the host country. We emphasize the support potential when expatriates' supervisors are guided by a strong values foundation and exhibit stakeholder engagement. In this way, we aim to provide a perspective for studying leadership dynamics in the expatriation context that goes beyond leader-follower dyads within organizations. We believe that expatriation research can benefit from adopting a broader stakeholder view on leadership that considers business-society interrelations and outline some direction that might take.
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