EKONOMI OCH SAMHÄLLE ECONOMICS AND SOCIETY ON BECOMING BICULTURAL LANGUAGE COMPETENCE, ACCULTURATION AND CROSS- CULTURAL ADJUSTMENT OF EXPATRIATES IN CHINA LING ELEANOR ZHANG Ekonomi och samhälle Economics and Society Skrifter utgivna vid Svenska handelshögskolan Publications of the Hanken School of Economics Nr 290 Ling Eleanor Zhang On Becoming Bicultural Language Competence, Acculturation and Cross-cultural Adjustment of Expatriates in China Helsinki 2015 < On Becoming Bicultural: Language Competence, Acculturation and Cross-cultural Adjustment of Expatriates in China Key words: Expatriate, biculturalism, language, adjustment, acculturation, China © Hanken School of Economics & Ling Eleanor Zhang, 2015 Ling Eleanor Zhang Hanken School of Economics Department of Management and Organisation P.O.Box 479, 00101 Helsinki, Finland Hanken School of Economics ISBN 978-952-232-285-2 (printed) ISBN 978-952-232-286-9 (PDF) ISSN-L 0424-7256 ISSN 0424-7256 (printed) ISSN 2242-699X (PDF) Edita Prima Ltd, Helsinki 2015 i To my families in China and Finland, and to my friends and colleagues around the world, who supported me during this very meandering journey i i ii i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Writing this thesis – a veritable journey, both literally and figuratively – started out from my curiosity about my own life. I am perhaps one of those “me-searchers”, who is inspired by issues which, in some way, may bring about a deeper understanding of oneself. The complexities of working and living in foreign lands are most certainly among these issues. Thus, my interest in expatriate management stems from my own expatriation experiences, as well as from my personal experiences of working with expatriates in China and Finland. The pursuit of this Ph.D. thesis would not have been possible without the support of many people. First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisors, Professor Jeff Hearn and Professor Ingmar Björkman, who have provided me with an enormous amount of support during this journey. Jeff, thank you for having always been genuinely interested in my work and encouraging me to explore wherever my heart takes me. I never feared the uncertainties created by my choice of a relatively unexplored research topic, knowing that I could always turn to you, and you would guide me in solving the puzzles one by one. Every time I walked into your room and sat in the chair across your desk, a certain sense of tranquillity settled in my mind, and all the anxieties would vanish in time. You always had the knowledge, patience and wisdom to lead me through the various phases. Ingmar, you have been my employer, degree supervisor and thesis supervisor at different times of my study and work life. I am profoundly grateful that I could always reach out to you. Thank you for having directed me not only to acquiring a Ph.D. degree, but also to an exciting academic career which I had no idea before that I would enjoy so much. The high standards you have set for my work have not only improved this thesis, but will be with me for the rest of my academic career. I would also like to gratefully acknowledge Professor Zhixue Zhang from Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, who was part of the supervising team during my fieldwork period in China. Zhixue Laoshi, thank you for your unfaltering support and the extremely valuable opportunities to learn and grow together with your PhD students, despite my chosen research topic and methodology being somewhat unconventional in the field of management research in China. I also gratefully acknowledge the enormous support from Professor Anne-Wil Harzing during my visitorships in London. I have been fortunate to be able to pursue this thesis not only at Hanken School of Economics and Peking University, but also at Department of Management, King’s College London, and Department of Management, Birkbeck, University of London. Anne-Wil, it has been truly a privilege to work with, and for you. You have opened my eyes and mind in so many senses. I am most thankful for the excellent example you have provided as a successful woman scholar and professor. Thank you for being such a caring and inspiring mentor to me, and for keeping me grounded in my academic life. I am honoured in having had Professor Rebecca Piekkari and Associate Professor Yih- teen Lee, as my pre-examiners. I am deeply grateful for their highly valuable and extremely encouraging comments to this manuscript. A special thank you to Associate Professor Yih-teen Lee for agreeing to be my opponent. I would also like to thank my co-authors of three (out of five) essays that form parts of this thesis: Dr. David Guttormsen, Professor Anne-Wil Harzing, and Dr. Vesa Peltokorpi. Thank you all for having faith in me. iv My deep gratitude also goes to members of the TEKES (the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation) Project Team “Cross Border Competence Management”: Dr. Wilhelm Barner-Rasmussen, Dr. Alexei Koveshnikov, Dr. Kristiina Mäkelä, and in particular Dr. Mats Ehrhrooth. Thank you for the very helpful opportunity to learn from you all. I owe a further special thank you to Professor Eero Vaara, from whom I have learnt a great deal about devotion and dedication to research. Eero, I have fond memories of our work trip together to China in 2006, which opened my eyes to the realities of fieldwork. I am also very grateful for your insightful and valuable comments on the essays of this thesis at different stages. I will forever be thankful to the eminent scholars, who have greatly enlightened me: Professor Mark Peterson, who has guided me towards the topic I became passionate about and helped me discover my own strength in research; and Professor Mary Yoko Brannen, whose pioneering work on biculturalism in management has made it possible for me to embark on my doctoral research in this fascinating area. Thank you both very much for all the extremely helpful conversations throughout my PhD journey. The very same thanks also go to Professor Rodney Jones, Professor Liisa Salo-Lee and especially the late Professor Ron Scollon, who have nurtured my interest in language and culture since my very first contact with academic research. I also gratefully acknowledge the extremely helpful and inspiring mentoring from Professor Davide Ravasi and Dr. Vesa Peltokorpi. Davide, thank you for all the insightful mentoring on publishing qualitative work, and for having supported me at times of uncertainty. Vesa senpai, thank you for believing in me and coaching me in producing quality journal articles. This PhD journey is not only an individual venture in terms of writing the thesis, but also an introduction to the professional academic realm. I would like to thank everyone I have met and kept in touch with during various conferences, research and network seminars, in particular the Biculturalism Symposia, Language in International Business Workshops and Symposia, Expatriate Management Tracks, London Female Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour Research Network, Organisation Theory Research Group, and the Hanken Research Group on Gender Relations in Organisations, Management and Society. A special thank you goes to Dr. Andy Chiou, Dr. Stacey Fitzsimmons, Dr. Angela-MinhTu D. Nguyen, and Dr. Helene Tenzer for all the inspiring discussions about biculturalism and language research. I also keep fond memories of conversations with Professor Jean-Luc Cerdin, Dr. Chris Chu, Professor Kevin Corley, Professor Tony Fang, Dr. Wendy Hein, Dr. Fanmin Kong, Professor Peter Li, Dr. Li Ma, Dr. Reuben Mondejar, Professor Riccardo Perccei, Dr. Ren Run, Professor Jan Selmer, and Dr. Ying Ying Zhang. Thank you all for having shared with me your wisdom about research and academia. I would also like to thank Professor Samuel Aryee and Professor Nelson Phillips for the privilege of learning and buliding research networks at King’s College London and Imperial College Business School. This research is about individuals’ work lives and it was only made possible by the help of expatriates and host country employees, who cannot be named here due to the assurances of anonymity given. I am deeply indebted to the interviewees and companies who participated in this study. I am also most grateful to the various business and governmental networks of expatriates and host country employees in China, without the cooperation of which the observations of this study would not have been possible to carry out. The completion of my thesis would not have been possible without the funding I received during my time as a Ph.D. student at the Department of Management and Organisation, Hanken School of Economics. I am most grateful to the Finnish v Foundation for Economic Education, Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, Hanken Foundation, and Department of Management and Organisation (Institutionen för företagsledning och organisation/FLO), Hanken, for having provided me with funding that not only made it possible for me to complete my thesis but also to be active in attending conferences internationally and to benefit from academic visitorships outside Finland. A special thank you goes to Mathias Björklund for the professional advices on writing up funding applications. I have been extremely lucky to have had wonderful colleagues at Hanken School of Economics. I would like to thank all FLOsters, whom I have met over all these years, no matter where you are now. Thank you all very much for having made the department a special place for me, and for having always accepted me no matter how long I was away. There are so many memorable moments that I shall cherish forever – inspiring seminars, relaxing lunches, joyful Thursday coffee with cakes (torsdagsfika), festive Friday cheese and wine, and all those indelible PhD graduation celebrations (karonka). FLO has and will forever have a special place in my heart, no matter where my academic career might take me in the future. Please do forgive me for not mentioning all your names in this acknowledgement, as it terrifies me to even think that I might have left out any of you either by negligence or by the formal rules. If I may, let me just especially thank Annamari and Mikko, for your friendship and support during all the various stages of my work and life. I would also like to thank colleagues working on expatriate issues at University of Vaasa. It has been truly joyful to see you at various conferences every year. A warm thank you also goes to my cohortians at Peking University and King’s College London, and the wonderful writing retreat group at Birkbeck, University of London. I would like to especially thank David, Nathalie and Raija. It has been a delightful journey to pursue a Ph.D. at the same time with you. You have provided me with enormous support despite the physical distances between us over the years. I am also deeply grateful to my friends outside academia. Anthi, Flora, Nancy, Saana, Xiaona and Weiwei, thank you for always being there for me. Finally, I would like to thank my deeply loved Chinese and Finnish families, for having inspired me to pursue this research and for having made me who I am. A special mention goes to my Mom: thank you for having insisted that I write a diary every day since the age of seven. I am sorry that it took me so long to realise what it was for. Also, my lovely cats, Jellis and Dangdang: you both have made all the sleepless writing nights so much more enjoyable in Beijing, Helsinki and London. And finally: Juho, you are behind each word that I have written on these pages. This thesis would not have come into being without the learnings and inspirations that have come from sharing my life with you around the world. From Pohjoisranta to Guanghualu to Fernshaw Road, thank you for accompanying me on this transnational journey, and for being my soul mate and anchor in life. Helsinki, 15 June 2015 Ling Eleanor Zhang v i CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 11 1.1 Rationale and research questions ..................................................................... 11 1.2 Structure of the thesis .......................................................................................14 1.3 Context of the thesis .......................................................................................... 16 1.3.1 China as the host country...................................................................... 16 1.3.2 Expatriates ............................................................................................ 18 1.3.2.1 Dynamics and diversities of expatriates ................................ 18 1.3.2.2 Self-initiated expatriates, skilled migrants and transnational workers ................................................................................... 19 2 THEORIES AND CONCEPTS ............................................................ 21 2.1 Culture ............................................................................................................... 21 2.1.1 Culture as a shared symbolic meaning system ..................................... 21 2.1.2 Culture as a multi-layered concept .......................................................22 2.1.3 Culture as a dynamic entity...................................................................23 2.1.4 Summary on the conceptualisation of culture ..................................... 24 2.1.5 Further problematisation of the concept of culture..............................25 2.2 Cultural identity and cultural schema ...............................................................26 2.3 Biculturals and multiculturals: a clarification of terms ....................................27 2.4 Biculturalism and multiculturalism ..................................................................29 2.4.1 Acculturation-based biculturalism research .........................................29 2.4.2 Definition of biculturalism: various approaches ..................................32 2.4.3 Understanding biculturalism in the context of expatriates: a contextual approach ..............................................................................37 2.5 Language ...........................................................................................................37 2.6 Cross-cultural adjustment .................................................................................38 3 METHODOLOGY..............................................................................40 3.1 Research philosophy: ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions...................................................................................................... 40 3.1.1 Epistemological assumptions and development.................................. 40 3.1.2 Methodological assumptions ............................................................... 42 3.1.3 Summary .............................................................................................. 43 3.2 Research design ................................................................................................ 45 3.3 Initial study: 2006-2007 .................................................................................. 47 v ii 3.4 Main Study: 2012-2013 .................................................................................... 47 3.4.1 Grounded Theory methodology ........................................................... 47 3.4.2 Method justification ............................................................................. 48 3.4.3 Research context ................................................................................... 51 3.4.4 Data collection.......................................................................................52 3.4.5 Data analysis .........................................................................................57 3.4.5.1 Starting with pen and paper during the data collection ........57 3.4.5.2 Continuing with NVivo Software ...........................................58 3.4.5.3 Finishing the ‘clustered’ analysis using Microsoft Word .......59 3.4.5.4 Complementing the interview data with observation and questionnaire data................................................................. 60 3.5 Research ethics ................................................................................................. 60 3.5.1 Before and during the data collection .................................................. 60 3.5.1.1 Regarding the interviews ...................................................... 60 3.5.1.2 Regarding the observations....................................................62 3.5.2 After the data collection ........................................................................62 3.5.3 Summary ...............................................................................................62 3.6 Limitations ........................................................................................................63 3.7 Reflection on gender..........................................................................................63 3.8 Reflection on the researcher’s role ................................................................... 64 4 FINDINGS ........................................................................................ 65 4.1 An overview .......................................................................................................65 4.2 Summary of the main findings ..........................................................................65 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION .................................................... 76 5.1 Implications on theorising biculturalism ..........................................................76 5.1.1 Multi-faceted-ness ................................................................................76 5.1.2 Multi-layered-ness ................................................................................76 5.1.3 Context-embedded-ness .......................................................................77 5.1.3.1 Influences of others and the group ........................................77 5.1.3.2 Interplay of work and non-work elements.............................78 5.1.3.3 Home and host country contexts ...........................................78 5.1.4 A dynamic process.................................................................................79 5.1.5 Different types of biculturalism ........................................................... 80 5.1.5.1 Marginal biculturalism.......................................................... 80 5.1.5.2 Multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism ................................. 81