Happily (mal)adjusted: Cosmopolitan identity and expatriate adjustment

As an increasing portion of the world's population identifies itself as cosmopolitan, we examine whether cosmopolitan identity involves openness and adaptability to new environments or instead favors maintaining a global lifestyle that persists across environments. Based on a field study of expatriates, we find that the expected duration of sojourn is a crucial moderator of cosmopolitan behavior. In short-duration sojourns, cosmopolitans adjust more to new environments than non-cosmopolitans. In long-duration sojourns, non-cosmopolitans adjust more to the host country while cosmopolitans tend to retreat into a global lifestyle. We find that these adjustment choices are correlated with well-being, contrary to the claims in existing literature on expatriates that adjustment should be the preferred behavior regardless of consumer identity. © 2012 Elsevier B.V