International assignments are becoming more prevalent in the workplace and there is a common belief that they are a stepping stone to faster promotion. But Professor Jing Zhu noticed something: there has been little or inconclusive evidence to back up this claim.

“Often when people talk of going on international assignments, they feel excited because they will experience a new culture and may take up new challenges. Many believe it will fast-track their career path. A survey last year found almost 50% of people believed this. 

“But there are some problems. We often hear of failure stories. These may be early returns, which are very costly to organisations, or assignees leave the company to go work for another organisation, or they may have difficulty adapting to the host location.”

To find out what was going on, she tracked and surveyed 179 expatriates from before their international assignment, once every month for the first nine months into the assignment, and then one and a half years later. She focused on the trajectories of work adjustment and perceived career benefits over time as the main contributors to expatriate success.

Her results overturned some myths. First, she tested the assumption that expatriate adjustment followed a U-shaped curve – that is, that people had an initial honeymoon period, experienced culture shock which caused their adjustment and positive feelings to plummet, then learned to adapt until finally, they felt comfortable in the new environment.

In fact, no such curve was evident among Dr. Zhu’s participants. Instead, on the average, they tended to adjust rapidly during the first few months, then slowed down and levelled off by the sixth month.

“They experienced a positive trajectory, which can be understood if we understand adjustment to be a process of uncertainty reduction. At the beginning, the uncertainty level is highest because you don’t know anything. But once you start to learn and get familiar with things, this uncertainty is reduced and that’s when adjustment increases,” she said.

Another unexpected finding was that people’s perceptions of the career benefits of international assignments declined over time. Dr. Zhu attributed this to the “sobering effect” in which expectations are adjusted closer to the point when an outcome will be revealed.

Next she looked at what personal resources expatriates brought to their assignments in terms of previous culture-specific work experience and personality, to see how these affected the findings. “The two trajectories for adjustment and the perception of career benefits are averages and it’s unrealistic to expect that one trajectory fits all,” she explained.

Previous culture-specific work experience led to better work adjustment at the beginning because people had some familiarity with working in the host culture and started with lower uncertainty, but they went through slower subsequent increases in work adjustment over time because they had smaller room to grow. Rookie expatriates have more to learn, but they eventually reach the level of their veteran counterparts. This is only the case if the experience was culture-specific and work-related. Study and travel overseas did not matter. Prior experience did not affect trajectories of perceived career benefits.

Personality, as measured by positive self-beliefs through “core self-evaluations” (CSE), also set people up to have higher levels of adjustment from the outset, a faster adjustment trajectory and higher and less decline in perceived career benefits over time. In fact, the combination of high CSE and rapid adjustment was a key marker of success because it led people to feel positive about the overseas experience and to stay with the company, resulting in lower job turnover and greater job promotions a year and a half later.

“This finding is interesting given that experienced expatriates start at a higher level of adjustment and go through a slower increase, which suggests they are less likely to be promoted. Why is that? We think the reason is that even if you start lower, a steep, fast increase in adjustment could be a motivator for you to make more efforts and a good signal of your potential,” she said.

Professor Zhu suggested several takeaways for firms. Where possible, include CSE in the selection criteria for overseas assignments or at least incorporate positive self-evaluations into pre-departure training. Send experienced expatriates on assignments that involve trouble-shooting or quickly getting “up to speed” because they need less time to adjust than others. And finally, if individual development is more important than getting individuals up to speed quickly, it may be useful to select individuals with less culture-specific work experience as accelerating adjustment for the less experienced will reap positive benefits.

“The rise in trajectory in adjustment really matters for expatriate turnover intention and their future promotion. You want to find ways to help them adjust as quickly as possible,” she concluded.