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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 11
Publication Date: November 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/assrj.911.13475. Wu Y. (2022). Study on Cross-cultural Adaptation of Expatriates: A Case of GJWJ in India. Advances in Social Sciences Research
Journal, 9(11). 395-414.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Study on Cross-cultural Adaptation of Expatriates: A Case of GJWJ
in India
Yiming Wu
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China
ABSTRACT
As the world's leading and largest producer of stationery metal parts, GJWJ has
entered India for more than 20 years and occupies more than 70% of the Indian
stationery manufacturing market. This paper takes the expatriates of GJWJ in India
as the research object to identify the problems of cross-cultural adaptation of these
expatriates and explore some influencing factors through questionnaires and
interviews. It is found that expatriates’ education, work experience, English
proficiency, social support, social contact and religious factor are all related to
psychological adaptation and sociocultural adaptation;among these related factors,
expatriates’ education, work experience, English proficiency and religious factor
have significant influence and predictive effect on cross-cultural adaptation;there
are some problems of expatriates in cross-cultural adaptation during the
assignment, such as problems in psychological adaptation, in religious beliefs, in
cross-cultural training, in cultural integration, in work management and in social
support.
Keywords: cross-cultural adaptation, expatriates, Chinese enterprise, India
INTRODUCTION
Along with the rapid expansion of India-China bilateral trade and cooperation, more and more
Chinese companies enter into Indian markets. According to information available with the
Embassy of India, more than 100 Chinese companies have established offices or operation
centers in India, which is followed by the increasingly number of Chinese expatriates who have
been assigned to the country. However, practical experience in recent years has shown that
there are problems such as the low actual performance of expatriates and the large loss of
expatriates, which may result in the low success rate of expatriates.
The key factor in the expatriate failure is that expatriates cannot adapt to the new cultural
environment. Cultural difference between China and other countries has obviously been major
obstacles for the expatriates. However, cross-cultural adaptation is challenging, as expatriates
working in cross-cultural contexts need not only to adapt to new positions in subsidiaries, but
also to become accustomed to the overall living conditions of the host country, such as climate,
transportation, and food. At the same time, anxiety and psychological pressure caused by
cultural shock should also be paid attention to. Poor adaptation on either side of the above may
makes it difficult to complete the assignment and return home early.
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 11, November-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
This paper aims to explore the status quo and existing problems of cross-cultural adaptation of
expatriates in India and tries to give some practical suggestions for improving the cross-cultural
adaptation of expatriates in India.
Research Process
Found in 1979, GJWJ enterprise has obtained extensive experience in the design and
manufacture of ring mechanisms for over 30 years of vigorous development. The headquarters
have been located in Hong Kong, and the manufacturing facilities now extend to China and
India.
In August 1997, with total investment of 15 million yuan, GJWJ enterprise established a factory
in Tamil Nadu, the southeast part in India. After establishing a factory in India, the company
occupied more than 70% of the Indian stationery loose leaf ring binder metals manufacturing
market. The factory has more than 2,000 employees, including more than 200 Chinese
expatriates. The factory's front-line technical staff and some mid- and high-level technicians
and managers are Indians, and the Chinese expatriates are mainly mid- and high-level
technicians and managers. Each year, GJWJ enterprise sends Chinese expatriates to India twice
for technical and managerial coaching, each with more than 20 people. With the fast
development of GJWJ enterprise in recent years, the demand for expatriates has increased from
more than 20 to over 40 persons.
Research Process
Questionnaire design
In order to collect quantitative data, the questionnaire is mainly derived from three scales: the
Revised Sociocultural Adaptation Scale, the Self-Rating Depression Scale of Zung (1965, pp. 63-
70), and the Perceived Social Support Scale. All items of questionnaire are objective.
The first part is demographic information and includes seven questions. It mainly involves the
respondent's age, gender, education, language ability and work experience in cross-cultural
context.
The second part is the scales related to cross-cultural adaptation, which is used to test the
current status quo of cross-cultural adaptation of GJWJ enterprise' expatriates in India. The
content of this part of the questionnaire is mainly based on the two-dimensional cultural
adaptation model (Ward & Kennedy, 1994, pp. 329-343). The Revised Sociocultural Adaptation
Scale mainly measures the social adaptation of expatriates, including interpersonal
communication, work performance, personal interests & community, involvement, ecological
adaptation, and language proficiency. Foreign languages are needed in international
assignments and expatriates in this enterprise in India communicate with local Indian people
in English. Therefore, two language-related questions are presented to test the English ability
of expatriates. For interpersonal communication, six items are included to test expatriates’
ability to express emotional information and emotional cultural intelligence. As for ecological
adaptation and personal interests & community involvement, there is a total of four items. The
rest four items for work performance are developed to reflect expatriates’ competence in work
context and the relationship with local colleagues. This scale is made by Wilson (2013, p. 239-
240) and is widely used in cross-cultural studies. The scale includes a total of 16 questions. All
options are designed according to the Likert five-point scale from low to high. 1 indicates the
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Wu Y. (2022). Study on Cross-cultural Adaptation of Expatriates: A Case of GJWJ in India. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(11). 395-
414.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.911.13475
lowest degree of competent and 5 points indicates the highest degree of competent. As for the
psychological adaptation scale, the Zung’s (1965, pp.63-70) Self-Rating Depression Scale is
used. There are 20 questions in total, which are generally divided into four levels according to
the frequency of symptoms, rarely, sometimes, often, and continuously, counted as 1, 2, 3, 4
points in order.
The third part is the Perceived Social Support Scale, first developed by foreign scholars G. Zimet,
Dahlem, S. Zimet, & Farley (1988, pp. 30-41). Its main content is to focus on the individual's
social support in terms of self-understanding and self-experience. The scale mainly includes
three sub-dimensions of family support, friend support and other support, and measures the
individual's social support from the perspective of individual perception. The scale has a total
of 12 questions. The final part is other factors, which includes religious factor and social contact.
Each part has two questions. For religious factor, the two questions are aimed to roughly
understand whether expatriates know the religions and the attitude to the local religions. For
social contact, the two questions are aimed to know the length and frequency of expatriates’
contact with host country people.
Semi-structured interview design
To gain a deeper understanding of the cross-cultural adaptation of expatriates, combining with
colleen Ward’s cross-cultural adaptation model and the influencing factors, some expatriates
from GJWJ companies in India are interviewed to know more and collect specific experiences
about sociocultural adaptation and psychological cultural adaptation.
The outline of this interview is mainly to know more about the specific situation of the cross- cultural adaptation of the interviewees during their overseas assignments in India from the
aspects of sociocultural adaptation, psychological cultural adaptation and other influencing
factors. Interviewees are encouraged to give examples to answer the corresponding questions
and describe the difficulties encountered, such as food, clothing, living and transportation,
religious beliefs, work and other aspects. The initial framework of interview is as follows:
1)What are your expectations and impressions of India before departure?
2)Do you think the cultural differences between China and India are great? What is the Indian
attitude towards the Chinese? What do you think of Indians?
3)Do you think you have been accustomed to life in India? Are there any difficulties (including
local customs, food, climate, transportation, living environment, etc.)?
4)Do you use English or Tamil to communicate with local colleagues or residents during your
work and life in India? Are there any communication difficulties?
5)What do you think of the religious beliefs of Indians?
6)Are you satisfied with your work in India? Are you satisfied with the local working
environment and the working habits of your local colleagues?
7) Can you easily communicate with your local colleagues or residents and actively participate
in various community activities or make friends with them?
8)Do you have any leisure and entertainment in your spare time? How is it done in India?
9) Have you ever thought about returning home early? Why?
Data collection and analysis
For the collection of questionnaires, this study mainly sends the mail to the HR mailbox or input
the questionnaire into the "Questionnaire Star" platform, and then sends the link to the contact
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 11, November-2022
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person of case enterprise, requesting the assistance in the distribution of the questionnaire. For
the purpose of ensuring the validity of the questionnaire, the study will delete the questionnaire
with filling time less than 90s. A total of 92 questionnaires are sent out and 67 are received,
meaning the valid return rate is 73%.
For the collection of interviews, it is collected through contacting four middle level technical or
management expatriates of case enterprise and conducted semi-structured interviews through
WeChat voice call or text interview.
Questionnaire results
(1) Description of demographic information
For the questionnaire, the total distributed number 92 and the valid number is 67, meaning the
valid return rate is 73%. Among the 67 valid questionnaires, there are 65 male respondents
and just 2 female respondents, meaning that 97% of the expatriates are males and 3% are
females. It can be easily found that there is a huge difference between the number of female
with the number of male, meaning that gender may not be considered as the influencing factor.
In terms of the age, the result can be seen from the table 5-1. It can be showed that the majority
of the expatriate in this enterprise are 36-45 years old, accounting for 58.2%. On the contrary,
there is no one that is above 45 years old. Moreover, 16.4% of the expatriates are at the age
group of 20-25 and 25.4% of expatriates ranging from 26 to 35 years old. From the data, it can
be analyzed that this enterprise tends to send young males to complete international
assignments.
As for education, many respondents are junior college students and undergraduates, occupying
over 80%. Only 14.9% of respondents are masters. In Tamil Nadu, Tamil is the most widely
used language. However, it is difficult for expatriates to learn. During working period,
expatriates in this enterprise always communicate with local colleagues in English. Therefore,
for language ability, there are two questions to ask respondents. One is to ask the English
proficiency and the other is to ask the Tamil proficiency. It can be easily found that many
expatriates’ English is better than Tamil. Most of the respondents think that their English
proficiency while more than 45% of the expatriates think they can only use simple words and
sentences and their Tamil proficiency is not so good. For the working experience, more than
90% of the expatriates have been expatriated for less than five years.
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Wu Y. (2022). Study on Cross-cultural Adaptation of Expatriates: A Case of GJWJ in India. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(11). 395-
414.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.911.13475
Table 2-1 Demographic Information of Respondents
Demographic Variables Frequency Percentage(%) Valid
Percentage(%)
Gender male 65 97.0 97.0
female 2 3.0 3.0
Age
20-25 11 16.4 16.4
26-35 17 25.4 25.4
36-45 39 58.2 58.2
above 45 0 0 0
Education
junior college student 29 43.3 43.3
undergraduate 28 41.8 41.8
master 10 14.9 14.9
English Proficiency
poor 3 4.5 4.5
being able to use
simple words and
sentences
27 40.3 40.3
slightly skilled 31 46.2 46.2
very proficient 6 9.0 9.0
Tamil Proficiency
poor 19 28.4 28.4
being able to use
simple words and
sentences
32 47.8 47.8
slightly skilled 13 19.4 19.4
very proficient 3 4.5 4.5
Experience of Working in
Cross-cultural Context
(cumulative)
no 10 14.9 14.9
less than a year 20 29.8 29.8
1-3 years 15 22.4 22.4
3-5 years 17 25.4 25.4
more than 5 years 5 7.5 7.5
Besides, there is still a question to ask about the cross-cultural experience. Four kinds of
experience has been listed: 1) study, work, travel abroad; 2) communicate with foreigners
many times on social platforms such as Facebook or twitter; 3) have direct cross-cultural
communication activities with foreigners at international academic or business events held in
China, such as formal discussion or negotiation of an academic topic or business project,
exchange of business cards, etc; 4) become friends with foreigners in China due to work needs,
language improvement and other factors. According to the data collected, over 80% of
respondents express that they haven’t had or just have had one kind of experience.
In sum, there are some characteristics after analyzing the data about demographic information.
The first one is that this enterprise tends to assign young male expatriates. The second one is
that most of the respondents are not so familiar with English or Tamil, but they are better at
speaking English than speaking Tamil. The third one is that most expatriates have experience
of expatriation for less than five years.
(2) Reliability analysis and correlation analysis
To test the reliability of the questionnaire, SPSS is used in this thesis and Cronbach alpha value
is regarded as standard. In this study, most of the variables are categorized on the basis of