Chhaya Mani Tripathi, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, India

Tripti Singh, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology Allahabad, India

 

The Great Covid-19 Pandemic! What else grabbed the world’s attention more in the past two and a half years than this life-threatening coronavirus? Schools, colleges, offices, children, adults, social gatherings, shopping, entertainment, travel, or we say breathing in the fresh air- nothing remained unclasped from the hands of this gruesome virus. With the grey skies of the pandemic hovering over humankind, how could expatriates have remained untouched by this gloom? 

In our quest to understand how expatriates were affected during the pandemic, this article goes beyond what has already been discussed in the literature about expatriation and man-made crises. Taking inspiration from the terrorism-related two-stage stress emergence and outcomes model of Bader and Berg, we proposed a conceptual model showing how the stressors emanating from psychological and situational factors influence expatriates’ psychological well-being and performance during the pandemic. The psychological and situational stressors have been discussed in the form of fear of health and economic consequences, uncertainty accompanying the pandemic, perceived geographical distance due to travel bans, and living conditions of the host country in terms of severity of COVID-19 infection rate and death tolls.

Now, since management of any crisis is necessary, we proposed some moderating variables that, we believe, can alter the adverse consequences of Covid-19 stressors on the psychological well-being and performance of expatriates. In this regard, we discussed how resilience, social network, and support from the organization, supervisor, and family could help expatriates manage the stress and maintain their well-being in distressing times. We also emphasized the inevitability of virtual collaborations in this “new normal” and argued that it reduces the adverse effects of poor psychological well-being on the performance of expatriates.

The postulated relationships among stressors, outcomes and the moderators of this novel context have been explained through propositions. Thus, building upon the work of Bader and Berg, this study extends the expatriation literature to the events of the natural crises. Finally, the study discusses the implications and outlines the avenues for future research.

 

To read the full article, please see the Journal of Global Mobility publication:

 

Tripathi, C.M. and Singh, T. (2022), "Sailing through the COVID-19 pandemic: managing expatriates' psychological well-being and performance during natural crises", Journal of Global Mobility, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 192-208. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-03-2021-0034