Shea Fan

RMIT University | RMIT · School of Management

We incorporate psychological ownership theory and adversity literature to examine the joint effect of psychological ownership and adversity on entrepreneurs' persistence decision. The results of two experiments and one survey show that both low adversity and high psychological ownership for the venture increase entrepreneurs' likelihood of persiste...

Multinational corporations often assign expatriates who share an ethnicity with host country employees (termed ethnically similar expatriates) to work on international assignments. Although sharing an ethnicity with local employees can be an advantage, it also creates a unique identity challenge. In this article, we develop the argument that ethnic...

This project aims to showcase how Australian cities and regions can derive economic, cultural and educational benefits from ‘sister-city’ relationships with China through a survey and six in-depth case studies. Australian local governments have played a pivotal role in establishing 83 sister-city relationships with China over the last 40 years. De...

Identifying employees to represent headquarters (HQ) effectively in overseas units is a management challenge faced by all multinational corporations (MNCs). To date, management of this type of expatriate employees has accorded a central role to culture, such as understanding cultural differences, facilitating cultural adaptation and adjustment, and...

In today’s global economy, self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) and host country nationals (HCNs) both represent critical human resources for organizations operating globally. Yet, because these two groups of employees have been studied separately, little is known about how SIEs’ and HCNs’ perceptions of, and attitudes towards the organization compare...

Loneliness is a serious source of suffering for entrepreneurs. Although the negative impact of loneliness on entrepreneurs' well-being has been studied, the mechanism through which loneliness affects entrepreneurial outcomes is less known. In this research, instead of examining the negative consequences of loneliness as related to well-being, we fo...

Sister city relationships (SCRs) are a platform through which local governments (LGs) engage internationally. Increasingly, there is an expectation that such international engagement delivers economic opportunities and returns. Many LGs are therefore pursuing local economic development (LED) through their SCRs. Drawing on a national survey of Austr...

This article provides a rationale for adopting the critical realism (CR) instead of pragmatism paradigm when researching skilled migrants' (SMs) workplace integration in Australia. While the extant SM literature has provided an abundance of ‘explanations' reflecting the difficulties SMs face, it appears almost impossible for SMs to overcome some ch...

Recent scholarship has shown the prevalence of work–family conflict among social workers caused by their intense job demands. Correspondingly, academics and practitioners alike have recommended work–home segmentation as an effective coping strategy to help social workers deal with work–family conflict. Drawing on the stressor-strain-outcome framewo...

Experimental design is a powerful research method that can provide casual evidence and improve the internal validity of the results, but it is not a mainstream research method in International Business (IB) or International Management (IM) research. At the 2021 AIB annual conference and the 9th Biennial International Association of Chinese Manageme...

This article investigates how international educational experiences affect the employment opportunities of Chinese who graduated from an Australian university. Findings based on 26 semi-structured interviews highlight that Chinese students who graduated from Australia gained a web of capital (i.e., human, cultural, psychological and identity), whic...

Employing expatriates who share an ethnicity with host country employees (HCEs) is a widespread expatriate selection strategy. However, little research has compared how expatriates and HCEs perceive this shared ethnicity. Drawing upon an identity perspective, we propose HCEs' ethnic identity confirmation, the level of agreement between how an HCE v...

Ethnic similarity often generates positive interactions between host‐country nationals (HCNs) and co‐ethnic expatriates in multinational corporations (MNCs), but the potential causes of conflict between these groups are under‐studied. In two studies, we tested whether Chinese HCNs’ attitudes towards expatriates are associated with the implicit theo...

Child protection workers remain understudied in research on “frontline” workers, even though they are often exposed to the traumatic circumstances of their clients’ lives on top of their intense workload, tight deadlines and day-to-day crisis management. Extensive evidence has shown that both clients’ needs and work demands combine to diminish chil...

Over the last 10 years, the use of experimental methods has received an increasing level of attention in the field of Management and International Business. Editors of major journals have encouraged its use. However, experimental research is still under-represented in the field of International Management and is even rarer in language research. Hav...

This project aims to showcase how Australian cities and regions can derive economic, cultural and educational benefits from ‘sister-city’ relationships with China through a survey and six in-depth case studies. Australian local governments have played a pivotal role in establishing 83 sister-city relationships with China over the last 40 years. De...

In this article, we propose that the concept of ethnic identity confirmation (EIC), the level of agreement between how expatriates view the importance of their own ethnic identity and how local employees view the importance of expatriates’ ethnic identity, can explain why expatriates who are ethnically similar to host country employees are sometime...

In this chapter, we focus on how ethnic identity affects interactions between expatriates and local employees when they share an ethnicity. A large number of overseas Chinese are working in China; yet how they view their shared ethnicity might be different from how local employees view it. Such divergent perspectives are one cause of the challenges...

In this chapter, we review the main findings of our book and highlight the key implications that we can draw from our studies. While sending expatriates to China is still a common practice, MNCs clearly struggle in managing this group of employees. Expatriates themselves also find it challenging to cope with the changing social and work environment...

The previous chapters in this book have focused predominantly on the role of the host country language in China and looked specifically at Western expatriates. In this and the following chapter, we turn our attention towards issues related to culture and identity and investigate two very different groups of expatriates: Indian expatriates and overs...

Language, in particular host country language, has been ignored by both academics and practitioners in expatriate management. When it comes to issues affecting expatriate performance, there is a tendency to focus on technical details such as the job description, task-related training and leadership style and to overlook the fundamental issue of lan...

The purpose of this chapter is to present a broad-brush picture based on quantitative data on the role of expatriation, language and cultural differences in China. Contrasting this data with corresponding information for eight other host countries or regions allows us to illustrate China’s unique position. The chapter first presents an overview of...

Following the theme of Chap. 3 on the importance of host country language, here, we further explore how expatriates’ host country language skills influence how they adjust to the local environment, both in the workplace and in their out-of-work space. Based on fine-grained interviews with both expatriates and their local colleagues, we examine this...

Multinational corporations often assign expatriates who share an ethnicity with host country employees (termed ethnically similar expatriates) to work on international assignments. Although sharing an ethnicity with local employees can be an advantage, it also creates a unique identity challenge. In this article, we develop the argument that ethnic...

Employing expatriates who share an ethnicity with host country employees (HCEs) is a widespread expatriate selection strategy. However, little research has compared how expatriates and HCEs perceive this shared ethnicity. Drawing upon an identity perspective, we propose HCEs’ ethnic identity confirmation, the level of agreement between how an HCE v...

Providing fresh perspectives on managing expatriates in the changing host country of China, this book investigates expatriate management from a language and identity angle. The authors’ multilingual and multicultural backgrounds allow them to offer a solid view on the best practices towards managing diverse groups of expatriates, including Western,...

Leaders of India and China are strengthening their national level relationships; however, relationships between people of these two countries still face challenges. This article examines the meaning of acceptance between Indian expatriates and Chinese local employees in China. Based on 14 interviews with both expatriates and Chinese employees, this...

Chinese and foreign organizations operating in China employ overseas Chinese employees, believing they can better transfer knowledge between China and foreign countries. Mechanisms affecting their performance and interaction with local Chinese employees are not understood. Focusing on overseas Chinese expatriates' shared ethnic identity with local...