Abstract:

South Africa is facing a major staffing shortage in scarce skills disciplines. Expatriate academics have been sourced by universities to run programmes in these disciplines to create ‘home grown’ talent to solve this problem. This study is based on Lazarova, Westman and Shaffer’s (2010) model relating to expatriate work and family performance. It seeks to examine the experiences of academics at UKZN, as well as provide recommendations on how to improve their experience. The key question of the paper, deals with the how expatriate academics have adjusted to their new environment based on job and work environment challenges, family and lifestyle challenges, organisational support and contextual challenges in the host country. The results showed that the majorityof respondents are well adjusted in terms of their relationships with their host country colleagues and their relationships with family and friends in their home country, as well as in terms of the fulfilment of their workplace expectations. Their experience of organisational support could however be improved. It was found that they did not share close ties with other expatriates or local South Africans at the university or in their communities. The study is exploratory and involves a single professional group, as such the findings are not generalisable to other contexts or respondents. A descriptive quantitative analysis of the career experiences of 83 expatriate academics was done. The study was unique in that it examined all levels of academia in conjunction with management and takes place in a South African context. To improve organisational support, the institution should establish support systems for international faculty Furthermore, it was suggested in the study, that there should be the creation of a mentorship or buddy programme by the university to support the adjustment of new international staff. University management should set up an international staff office similar to the International Student Office manned by dedicated staff who deal only with matters concerning expatriate academics.

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