Are Public Sector Expatriates Different in Their Cross-cultural Adjustment?

Although public sector expatriates are becoming increasingly common, research on them is very limited. There is reason to believe that public sector expatriates cross-culturally adjust differently than private sector expatriates. This study investigated U.S. Department of Defense administrators assigned to U.S. embassies worldwide. Results showed that self efficacy, role clarity and role discretion had a positive association with the psychological adjustment of the respondents while role conflict and role overload only had a marginal negative relationship with the criterion variable. Surprisingly, these findings suggest a similar picture for the expatriates from the public and private sector. Implications are discussed in detail.