Impact of Expatriate Well-being on Innovative Work Behaviour with Mediating Role of Expatriate Engagement

Abstract

This research examines the influence of expatriate wellbeing on innovative work behavior with specific reference to the moderating effects of expatriate engagement. The study further evaluates the negative impact of human capital flight due to skilled workers’ migration and the positive impact of remittances on Pakistan’s current account. Essentially, the study seeks to help elucidate how the innovation of expatriates can be fully utilised and the impact of emigration on the socio-economic subsystems of the originating societies with reference to Pakistani expatriates. In this regard, a quantitative research method was adopted, and questions were generated by Google to administer questionnaires from 470 Pakistani expatriates working in Western countries. The study applied descriptive analysis, correlation, reliability, Validity as well as hypothesis testing using SPSS and AMOS. Expatriate shows that well-being has a positive and significant relationship with innovative work behavior and expatriate engagement has a mediating role on the relationship. For the expatriates to be innovative, high well-being and engagement were suggested to be vital. The study therefore underscores the need to intervene and support expatriates for them to have a positive impact on innovation in organizations that host them. Such revelations are invaluable in designing interventions geared towards SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth), and SDG 10 (reducing inequality) bearing in mind brain drain. The study lacks generalization due to its sample which was restricted to Pakistani expatriates living in Western countries and the use of cross-sectional design. Another limitation involves self-reporting and the elimination of potential other influences, which could be cultural, as well. Subsequent studies should involve expatriates from different nations, use cross-sectional designs, and consider other factors such as organizational support and cultural dissimilarity to provide comprehensive knowledge of expatriates’ nuanced dynamics of innovation.