Sustainable global careers: the role of career adaptability and cultural difference in expatriate health, happiness, and productivity

This study examines how career adaptability relates to career sustainability among expatriates and whether cultural differences between home and host countries moderate these relationships. Drawing on sustainable career theory, we conceptualise career sustainability through three interrelated indicators: health, happiness, and productivity. Given sustainable career theory’s emphasis on agency, we draw on career construction theory to conceptualise career adaptability as a psychosocial self-regulatory resource. Cultural difference is further theorised as a contextual feature of high-density global work that can influence the relationship between career adaptability and career sustainability. Using survey data from 325 expatriates and multiple linear regression analyses, we test direct and moderated relationships. The results show that career adaptability is positively associated with health, happiness, and productivity. Cultural difference moderates the relationship between career adaptability and happiness: larger cultural gaps strengthen this association. Additional analyses suggest that the direction of cultural difference, that is, whether host-country cultural values are higher or lower than those of the home country, may also matter. The study extends sustainable career research to expatriate work by identifying cultural difference as a contextual condition influencing when career adaptability relates most strongly to career sustainability.