Japanese expatriates and their coping strategies in overseas Japanese companies

Research has shown that Japanese expatriates experience various types of role stress in overseas Japanese companies. However, little is known of the coping strategies adopted to deal with the role stress, or the effectiveness of these strategies. Therefore, the aim of the current study is to examine the effectiveness of the coping strategies used to alleviate Japanese expatriate' role stress. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 31 Japanese expatriates. The findings showed that cultural background is related to the effectiveness of coping strategies. Avoidance strategy is found to comprise two facets, relationships building and cultural adaptation. Contrary to the literature, we found that avoidance strategy is a form of effective coping strategy.