Individual-level Antecedents of Int

Individual-level Antecedents of International Assignee Success
Personality Characteristics
Researchers have found that successful and well-adjusted international assignees tend to share certain personality traits (e.g., Black, 1990; Caligiuri, 2000a; 2000b; Church, 1982; Mendenhall & Oddou, 1985, Stening, 1979). Certain personality characteristics enable international assignees to be open and receptive to learning the norms of new cultures, to initiate contact with host nationals, to gather cultural information, and to handle the higher amounts of stress associated with the ambiguity of their new environments (Black, 1990; Church, 1982; Mendenhall & Oddou, 1985) – all important for international assignee success. While many personality characteristics exist, research has found that five factors provide a useful typology or taxonomy for classifying them (Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1992, 1993; McCrae & Costa, 1987, 1989; McCrae & John, 1992). These five factors have been found repeatedly through factor analyses and confirmatory factor analyses across, time, contexts, and cultures (Buss, 1991; Digman, 1990; Goldberg, 1992, 1993; McCrae & Costa, 1987; McCrae & John, 1992) and are labeled "the Big Five." The Big Five personality factors are: (1) extroversion, (2) agreeableness, (3) conscientiousness, (4) emotional stability, and (5) openness or intellect. Each of the Big Five personality characteristics has some relationship to international assignee success (Ones & Viswesvaran, 1997; Caligiuri, 2000a; Caligiuri, 2000b).
Some personality characteristics predispose international assignees to form stronger social bonds, which can encourage a higher level of cross-cultural adjustment (Caligiuri, 2000a). International assignees who are able to assert themselves enough to establish some interpersonal relationships with both host nationals and other international assignees tend to be more likely to effectively learn the social culture of the host country (Abe & Wiseman, 1983; Black, 1990; Caligiuri, 2000a; Caligiuri, 2000b; Dinges, 1983; Mendenhall & Oddou, 1985; 1988; Searle & Ward, 1990), therefore, extroversion is important to help international assignees learn the work and non-work social culture in the host country relates to international assignee success. Agreeableness may also be important given that the ability to form reciprocal social alliances is achieved through this personality characteristic of (Buss, 1991). Expatriates who are more agreeable (i.e., deal with conflict collaboratively, strive for mutual understanding, and are less competitive) report greater cross-cultural adjustment -- and greater adjustment on the assignment (Caligiuri, 2000a; Caligiuri, 2000b; Ones & Viswesvaran, 1997; Black, 1990; Tung, 1981).
Other personality characteristics may also predispose international assignee for success. For example, trusted and conscientious employees are more likely to become leaders, gain status, get promoted, earn higher salaries, etc. In the domestic context, this has been supported through studies demonstrating a positive relationship between conscientiousness and work performance among professionals (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991; Day & Silverman, 1989). This finding has been generalized to international assignee performance (Caligiuri, 2000a; Ones & Viswesvaran, 1997) and has been found to be a predictor of those who will be effective in international assignments.
In addition to the three personality characteristics described above, emotional stability may also be important for international assignee success. Emotional stability is the universal adaptive mechanism enabling humans to cope with stress in their environment (Buss, 1991). Given that stress is often associated with living and working in an ambiguous and unfamiliar environment (Richards, 1996), emotional stability is an important personality characteristic for international assignees’ adjustment to the host country (Abe & Wiseman, 1983; Black, 1988; Gudykunst, 1988; Gudykunst & Hammer, 1984; Mendenhall & Oddou, 1985) and completion of an international assignee assignment (Ones & Viswesvaran, 1997).
Perhaps the most intuitively useful personality characteristic, as it relates to international assignee success, is the characteristic of openness or intellect. For an international assignee, the ability to correctly assess the social environment is more complicated given that the host country may provide ambiguous social cues (Caligiuri & Day, 2000). Successful international assignees will likely need to possess cognitive complexity, openness, and intuitive perceptual acuity to accurately perceive and interpret the host culture (Caligiuri, Jacobs, & Farr, 2000; Dinges, 1983; Finney & Von Glinow, 1987; Ones & Viswesvaran, 1997). Openness is related to international assignee success because individuals higher in this personality characteristic will have fewer rigid views of right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, etc. and are more likely to be accepting of the new culture (e.g., Abe & Wiseman, 1983; Black, 1990; Cui & Van den Berg, 1991; Hammer, Gudykunst, & Wiseman, 1978).
Collectively, these personality characteristics could be included in a valid selection system for prospective international assignees. It is important to note however, that the absolute level of each personality characteristic would be contingent upon the type of international assignment under consideration. For example, the necessary level of openness and extroversion would be much higher for an executive in a networking role than it would be for a technician working predominantly with a system or machine. A better understanding of the level of necessary characteristics for given international contexts would be useful focus for future research studies.