Expatriates’ Embeddedness and Host Country Withdrawal Intention: A Social Exchange Perspective
基于社会交换理论和互惠规范，研究了451名在阿联酋的自我发起外派人员的职业与社区嵌入性如何通过增强制度信任和宽容职场歧视态度影响其东道国撤离意向。
ABSTRACT In this study, we conceptualize the thus far little explored relationship between expatriate and host country as a form of social exchange governed by the norm of reciprocity. Drawing from social exchange theory and our analysis of 451 self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) living and working in the United Arab Emirates, we examine whether the degree of SIEs’ career and community embeddedness explains their host country withdrawal intention via enhanced perceived institutional trust and a more tolerant attitude toward workplace discrimination. Our results provide general support for our theoretical model and most of our hypotheses. In this way, our article makes three contributions. First, it suggests a novel way to conceptualize the relationship between SIEs and host country as a form of social exchange. Second, it differentiates between two dimensions of embeddedness and explicates how the two contribute to SIEs’ intentions to stay in the host country. Finally, the analysis theorizes and empirically tests two previously little explored mechanisms of enhanced institutional trust and a more tolerant attitude toward workplace discrimination through which SIEs’ host country embeddedness influences their host country withdrawal intentions.