Working in Hostile Environments: Exploring the Effect of Job Stressors on Expatriate Adjustment in International Construction Projects

Expatriates employed to work on international construction projects face high levels of stressors in the workplace, and adjustments often need to be made to improve their job performance. We investigated whether and how expatriate resilience mediates the effect of job stressors on expatriate adjustment. We put forth a series of consistent and contradictory hypotheses by combing the challenge-hindrance stressor framework with the job demands-resources theory. Data collected from 2123 expatriates of international construction projects were used to evaluate the theoretical model, and the data were separated into two groups (low-level hostile environment group and high-level hostile environment group) based on the hostility level of their assigned locations. These results confirm that the impact of the two categories of stressors varies in different hostile environments. In all contexts, hindrance stressors are "bad"stressors as they impair expatriate resilience and adjustment, whereas challenge stressors exert different effects on expatriate resilience and adjustment depending on the level of hostility of their environments. In the high-level group, challenge stressors had a negative effect on expatriate adjustment and resilience. In contrast, challenge stressors were "good"in the low-level group. Moreover, both challenge and hindrance stressors significantly mediate expatriate adjustment via expatriate resilience, highlighting the value of considering expatriate resilience. These results add to the growing body of knowledge on the relationship between expatriate adjustment and occupational stressors. Our research furthers our understanding of the challenge-hindrance stressor framework by finding results contradictory to those of the original framework. © 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.