The Relationship between Expatriate Job Deprivation and Thriving at Workplace: Examining the Antecedents, Moderator, and Outcomes

Due to the continuous pressures emanating from today’s global economy, multinational corporations (MNCs) expanded their internationalised operations by placing substantial amounts of foreign direct investment (FDI) in a myriad of developing host countries. One of these developing countries is Egypt that was ranked in the top 5 host countries in the North Africa region, receiving the largest amount of FDI. This, in turn, increased the likelihood of relocating expatriates in the country and the necessity of effectively managing their international assignments. However, not all international assignments are successful due to several reasons, such as maladjustment issues, the inappropriate selection of the right expatriates with the necessary personal resources in their talent pipeline to navigate stressful events during assignments, and the lack of thriving driven by job deprivation issues. This study seeks to shed further light on the precise causes of this condition. Thus, drawing on the central tenets of the institutional theory, the two integrated relative deprivation and self-determination theories, and the conservation of resources theory, the present study contributes to the extant expatriation and international business literature by examining a set of relationships: (1) the institutional distance (ID) between Egypt and the expatriate’s home country and expatriate’s job deprivation regarding autonomy, competence, and relatedness; (2) adjustment and expatriate job deprivation; (3) job deprivation and thriving at workplace; (4) the moderating role of cross-cultural psychological capital (CC-PsyCap) in the expatriate job deprivation-thriving relationship; (5) CC-PsyCap and thriving; and (6) expatriate thriving and willingness to share knowledge with local employees, intention to renew current international assignment in Egypt, and performance. Data were collected from a sample of 313 business expatriates who work in the foreign subsidiaries of foreign organisations in Egypt. Using structural equation modelling to test the hypothesised model, the empirical results demonstrated that ID had a differential effect on the three aspects of job deprivation (autonomy, relatedness, and competence). Results also unfolded that expatriates’ adjustment had a significant negative effect on job deprivation. Additionally, job deprivation had a significant influence on thriving. Although the direct effect of CC-PsyCap on thriving was significant, its moderating effect on job deprivation-thriving linkage was not significant. Finally, expatriate thriving was found to be a significant catalyst for knowledge sharing willingness, current assignment renewal intention, and performance. Accordingly, the study’s results suggest that expatriates’ success on international assignments entails crafting a thriving host workplace where they should possess high levels of psychological resources in their talent pipelines and their host jobs’ needs should be highly fulfilled relative to their previous home jobs’ ones.