Factors Hindering Employees’ willingness to Accept Expatriation: A Survey in Chinese MNCs

Expatriation willingness can be regarded as a critical predictor for successful global assignments in MNCs. However, previous surveys reveal low expatriate willing remains a tricky issue to select suitable candidates for international assignments. Relevant studies on expatriate willing mainly focused on western-developed countries such as the US and Germany with rich experience while little in developing areas. Hence, this research is intended to explore the potential factors resulting in low expatriate willing in developing China that has a growing demand for overseas assignments. This quantitative research on expatriate willing collected data via 180 valid online questionnaires, targeted at 120 employees working in large-scale Chinese MNCs. Statistical tool SPSS was then utilised to conduct data analyses. The results proved expatriation willingness could be affected by some demographic factors including material status, education and overseas experiences. Nevertheless, the impacts of gender and age might not be significant. Then, factors related to family issues, cultural distance and policy dissatisfaction could all exert negative implications on employees’ overseas intentions. Worth noting, the influence of family barriers such as opposed attitudes of family members might be the most significant compared to cultural and policy aspects. Besides, potential correlations might exist among the effects of factors from family, culture and policy dimensions. In a nutshell, this paper highlights the negative implications of factors concerned with some demographic variables, family barriers, cultural distance and policy dissatisfaction on expatriate willing. It is stressed that family barriers might be the most major concerns for the acceptance of overseas assignments. These influencing factors could explain the possible reasons why employees were unwilling to accept overseas assignments in China. Furthermore, it could provide reliable bases for improving expatriate willing and selection of appropriate candidates, contributing to the future effective management of expatriation in developing countries