Expatriate managers returning to their parent company from overseas assignments have a fairly high turnover rate - an estimated 20 percent quit within one year of coming home. Multinational companies wanting to prevent this situation should offer expatriates more support overseas so as to strengthen their commitment to the firm, according to research by Riki Takeuchi, Mo Wang, Sophia V. Marinova and Xin Yao.

The researchers focused on 165 expatriate managers working in multinational enterprises located in China at three different periods, and found that perceptions of company support (called "perceived organizational support", or POS) in both the workplace and off work, ultimately affected job performance. This was due to the links between POS, employees' adjustment to working and living in a foreign environment, and their subsequent attachment to their employer.

POS reflects employee beliefs about the extent to which their organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. Both on- and off-the-job POS were found to be important to employees' adjustment and the authors said companies would gain if they invested support in both domains.

"Expatriates need well-rounded support from their employer, not targeted support. It may sound counter-intuitive, but multinationals may be able to increase the overall return on their investment in supporting expatriates, by spending more and putting more effort into ensuring expatriates receive support in both job-related and off-the-job matters," they said.

Notably, they found suggestions that employers may pay more attention to off- rather than on-the-job support for their expatriates. Those in their survey rated off-the-job POS 4.46 on a seven-point scale, against 3.72 for on-the-job POS.

"Although it's not appropriate to statistically compare them as they measure different constructs, to some extent the difference may reflect the general practice of paying more attention to supporting expatriates off the job than in the workplace. This may be because the difficulty of adjusting to the foreign living environment is more salient to supervisors who are themselves expatriates. Nevertheless, the findings suggest it is also important for an organisation to support its expatriates in work domains," they said.

One of the key distinctions of the study is that it is longitudinal. It surveys expatriates at two separate intervals, one year apart, and also includes a job performance reported from their supervisors.

The results from this study support the idea that POS on the job affected employee commitment, thereby affecting job performance. Interestingly, those who dropped out of the second survey or whose supervisor did not provide job performance ratings, gave a lower average POS rating to their employer in the first survey than those who stuck with the study. (For dropouts, the POS average was 3.38 against 3.80 for those who replied both times, on a seven-point scale. For those with no supervisor ratings, the average was 3.51 against 3.83.)

The authors said multinational companies should consider the findings in light of the turnover rate when expatriates are repatriated to their parent company.

"The percentage of expatriates who quit within one year of returning has been estimated at 20 percent. When this happens, the multinationals don't receive any long-term return on their substantial investments in expatriates," they said.

"Assuming that positive outcomes after repatriation are likely to result from expatriates' overseas experience, multinationals are likely to receive a worthwhile return on the cost of providing continued support both on and off the job. Once this is recognized by the employees, they will reciprocate with attitudes and behaviours favourable to the organization."