Job and Career Satisfaction of Foreign Self-Initiated Expatriates

Because of worker shortages in some industries, in a global business envi-

ronment, rms around the world sometimes must compete with

overall satisfaction with their careeron the same 7-point scale.The ratings are broken down by the respondents experience in the host country and age and the resultant data are shown below.

Time in Host Country

61 year 12 years 34 years 5 years

each other for			3	4	3	6
workers. This is especially true in industries and job designa-		3039	2	5	4	4
tions where specialty skillsare required. In order to ll such			3	3	5	5
needs, companies sometimes turn to self-initiated expatriates.			4	3	4	4
Self-initiated expatriates are dened to be workerswho are	Age	4049	3	4	4	6
hired as individuals on a contractual basis to workin a foreign			2	3	5	5
countryin contrast to individuals who are givenoverseas			4	4	5	6
transfers by a parentorganization; that is, they are guest		Over 50	3	4	4	5
workers as compared to organizational expatriates. Some			4	5	5	6
examples could be computerexperts from India, China, and Japan being hired by SiliconValley companies; American engi-

neers working with Russian companies to extract oil and gas; or nancial experts from England who are hiredby Singapore companies to help managethe stock market.How satised are self-initiated expatriates with their jobs and their careers?

In an attempt to answer that question, suppose a study was conducted by randomly sampling self-initiated expatriates in ve industries: information technology (IT), nance, educa-

tion, healthcare, and consulting. Each is asked to rate his or her present job satis- faction on a 7-point Likert scale, with 7 being very satised and 1 being very unsatised. Suppose the data shown below are a portion of the study.

IT	Finance	Education	Healthcare	Consulting
5	3	2	3	6
6	4	3	2	7
5	4	3	4	5
7	5	2	3	6
	4	2	5
		3

Suppose in addition, self-initiated expatriates are asked to report their

Managerial and Statistical Questions

1. Is there a difference in the job satisfaction ratings of self-initiated expatriates by industry? If we were to use

the t test for the difference of two independent population

means presented in Chapter 10 to analyze these data, we would need to do 10 different t tests since there are ve different industries. Is there a better, more parsimonious way to analyze this data? Can the analysis be done simultaneously using one technique?

1. The second table in the Decision Dilemmadisplays career satisfaction data broken down two different ways, age and time in country. How does a researcher analyze such

data when there are two different types of groups or classications? What if one variable, such as age, acts on another variable,such as time in the country, such that there is an interaction? That is, time in the country might matter more in one category than in another.Can this effect be measuredand if so, how?