dc.description.abstract | Background and aims: Information and communication technology (ICT) is one of the largest
sectors of multinational corporates (MNCs). The information and communication technology
sector employs highly skilled expatriates. For instance, 50% of the workforce in the USA and
53% in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is
represented by these skilled expatriates. Information and communication technology represents a
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 6.6% per year in Australia (DIGI, 2019), and about USD 11.5
trillion globally (Henry-Nickle et al., 2019), becoming an essential driver of productivity and
innovation in the knowledge economies. In this knowledge-based economy, skilled expatriate
employees are becoming an expensive commodity in a highly competitive environment, where
financial gain has become particularly important and employee wellbeing is not necessarily a
prerogative.
The fast-paced, aggressive nature of the ICT industry often does not provide employees with the
necessary resources and support which is highly costly and detrimental to their success upon
arrival in the host country. Recent evidence indicates that significant challenges faced by highly
skilled expatriates are related to occupational stress and strain, and this leads to adjustment
difficulties in the host nation, which is the primary reason for expatriate failure. Besides
sociocultural adjustment issues, i.e., the capacity to ‘fit in,’ recent research indicates that
expatriates are increasingly experiencing low psychological adjustment, resulting in mental
health issues. Examining psychological adjustment among expatriates is particularly important
due to the unique challenges that they experience in the host country. Therefore, advancing our
understanding of the role that psychological adjustment plays in expatriate success is crucial.
Thus, in this thesis I examine the role of job characteristics on psychological strain and how
these in turn affect work and behavioural outcomes via the job demand-resources model. | en_US |