Job Embeddedness as a Predictor of Performance of Organizational and Self-Initiated Expatriates

This study examines job embeddedness as antecedent of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and job performance in the specific case of organizational expatriates (OEs) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs). First, we tested hypotheses concerning inter-group differences in job embeddedness between OEs and SIEs. Second, we analyzed the relationship between job embeddedness with performance behaviors as predicted by Mitchell et al. (2001), a moderation effect of expatriation mode in this relationship, and a mediation effect of organizational embeddedness in the relationship between community embeddedness and performance. The results support the hypothesized higher organizational embeddedness of OEs in comparison to SIEs and a higher community embeddedness of SIEs. Moreover, we found that OEs’ and SIEs’ occupational and community embeddedness were positively related to job performance and that their organizational and community embeddedness were positively related to OCBs. However, whereas organizational embeddedness showed to be positively related to OEs’ job performance, highly organizationally embedded SIEs’ were likely to reduce job performance. Expatriation mode showed to significantly moderate the relationship between occupational and organizational embeddedness with job performance and between community embeddedness with OCBs. The implications of the findings for further research on relationship between job embeddedness and expatriates’ OCBs and job performance are discussed.