1 Introduction

The global economy is dominated by the service industry, which is principally dependent on human resources. Increasingly, non-resident employees are playing an important role in service organizations, which necessitates competent cross-cultural management. Understanding the cultural environment in which the service is provided can improve the abilities and work enthusiasm of employees and can eventually improve work performance (Gunkel et al. 2014; Jung and Yoon 2014, 2017; Serrie 1992; Wang et al. 2017). As the service industry continues to diversify in terms of cultural backgrounds, effectively applying human resource management is becoming more challenging (Watson et al. 2002). Yeşil (cited in Tutar et al. 2014) indicated that having employees from different cultural and demographic backgrounds work together under the same multinational roof can lead to positive employee contributions but can also cause a number of problems. Effectively managing cultural differences involves creating a work environment that encourages employees from different cultural backgrounds to maximize their potential in line with organizational goals. Multinational companies comprise a new type of organization which have arisen as a result of economic globalization and consequent adaptations to this trend (Tutar et al. 2014).

Culture shock occurs when an individual leaves their own culture and becomes immersed in a new one. Culture shock can be understood as a necessary transitional experience (Adler 1975). When an individual, such as an expatriate, moves from a familiar to an unfamiliar environment, old habits and routines are disturbed, creating psychological uncertainty (Black et al. 1991). Culture shock leads to a series of emotional reactions, including feelings of helplessness, fear, injury, or disregard. These feelings influence the psychological status of workers, thereby influencing their physical status as well. Moreover, when people face an unfamiliar culture, they often undergo a process of emotional changes that can quickly take them from cheerful to depressed. This leads to communication difficulties during cultural adjustment (Gaw 2000; Hess 1994). Culture shock can be considered an emotional response to perceived stress (Xia 2009). Sims and Schraeder (2004) noted that one of the challenges that organizations face as they try to remain competitive in an increasingly global economy is how to best manage expatriates who are working abroad. Most of the existing literature pertaining to this topic focuses on the competencies of expatriate managers. Naeem et al. (2015) found that higher levels of perceived managerial support led to a greater level of affective commitment and a stronger desire to make an international assignment successful. A greater level of affective commitment should also increase the probability that the expatriate will make the behavioral modifications required to reduce culture shock and facilitate cultural adjustment. However, there has been scant empirical evidence about how managerial support influences the effect of culture shock. The service industry in particular needs to pay attention to the ability of their employees to adjust to a new culture (Ferraro 2006).

Employee turnover is typically high in the service industry, and this affects fundamental aspects of the employee-customer interface (Hausknecht et al. 2009). Several factors have been reported to affect employee turnover intention, such as emotional labor, job stress, and job satisfaction (e.g., Jung and Yoon 2014; Mosadeghrad el al. 2008; Gunkel et al. 2015). Previous researchers have recognized the relationships among employee emotional labor, employee job satisfaction, and managerial support (Duke et al. 2009; Iqbal et al. 2014). While consideration has been given to the effects of culture shock on employee well-being (e.g., Mio 1999; Mumford 1998; Winkelman 1994), there has been little exploration of how culture shock link to critical organizational outcomes. Job related outcomes can be affected by psychological comfort that may be experienced by an employee on a permanent new role in a foreign country (Kocak 2014). To improve work outcomes of foreign employees, service firms have seriously to face culture shock issues because of its influence on job satisfaction. Managers in service firms should understand the key issues of culture shock by foreign employees during their employment.

To address those research gaps, this study explored the effects of culture shock on emotional labor, job satisfaction, and turnover intention among foreign employees. The moderating role of perceived managerial support on the relationships between culture shock, emotional labor, and job satisfaction was also examined. Since the number of foreign employees keeps increasing, it is important for service industry companies to focus on the situation that foreign employees find themselves in and consider which human resource policies are most appropriate. Psychological adaptability also appears to influence how much success people enjoy while living overseas (Ferraro 2006). Research that investigates the effects of culture shock should therefore help elucidate a more comprehensive understanding and increase the ability of foreign employees to successfully adapt to life in their new cultural environment. The structure of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents a review of the relevant literature to develop research hypotheses and the model framework proposed by this study. Section 3 introduces the methodology. Section 4 shows the results of testing the six hypotheses. Discussions and limitations are summarized in the last section.

2 Theoretical framework and hypotheses

The study first reviewed relevant literature pertaining to key conceptual issues. Based on this review, we then developed a conceptual model to investigate the effects of culture shock on emotional labor, job satisfaction, and turnover intention among foreign employees. We also examined how perceived managerial support moderates the relationships between culture shock, emotional labor, and job satisfaction among foreign employees. (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
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Conceptual model

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2.1 Culture shock

Culture includes aspects such as sight, smell, sound, values, traditions, customs, behavior and people’s ways of thinking. Culture also affects people’s values, attitudes and behaviors. According to Gnanlet and Yayla-Kullu (2014), culture significantly influences employees’ behavior. Culture shock occurs in people who enter a different cultural environment and feel disoriented (Piet-Pelon and Hornby 1992). The term “culture shock” was first introduced by an anthropologist, Kalervo Oberg (1960). Oberg likened culture shock to an occupational disease found in people who were suddenly transplanted abroad. Some of these people could easily recover from the disease and make a good adjustment to the new environment, while others experienced difficulties adapting (Eschbach et al. 2001; Gaw 2000; Xia 2009). Following Oberg, researchers have tried to redefine and extend the original definition of culture shock. Smalley (1963) described difficulties in communication as “language shock,” while Byrnes (1966) proposed the concept of ‘role shock’. Bock (1970) indicated culture shock to be an anxiety reaction to being unable to understand, control or predict the behaviors of others. In addition, Guthrie (1975) redefined the term as ‘culture fatigue’.

In a comprehensive review of culture shock research, Taft (1977) identified six distinct aspects of culture shock: (1) strain due to the effort required to make necessary psychological adaptations; (2) a sense of loss and feelings of deprivation in regard to friends, status, profession and possessions; (3) being rejected by and/or rejecting members of the new culture; (4) confusion in role, role expectations, values, feelings and self-identity; (5) surprise, anxiety, even disgust and indignation after becoming aware of cultural differences; (6) feelings of impotence due to not being able to cope with the new environment. Black (1988) mentioned in his research that in addition to a new work role, foreign employees have to adjust to local traditions and deal with the problem of culture shock. When foreign employees leave their own countries and enter a new environment, they must adjust to different lifestyles, living conditions and business practices; this can be a long and difficult process (Hess 1994; Xia 2009), where they feel like children again and might feel that they are unable to make judgments about right and wrong (Walton 1990). The degree of culture shock experienced by foreign employees is greatly influenced by their circumstances or status. Foreign employees may have chosen to work overseas because they wish to seek better employment opportunities, or they may have been relocated by their company (Rafika et al. 2018). The former circumstance can lead to significant culture shock. However, if expatriates work in the foreign branches of their own companies, culture shock can be reduced. Accordingly, this study specifically focused on foreign employees who had not been transferred outside of their home countries by employers.

2.2 Emotional labor

The concept of emotional labor (EL) was first introduced as “with a purposeful control of feelings to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” (Hochschild 1983). Service providers may try to improve their moods by reappraising situations or fake their expressions by hiding their true feelings. Two emotion labor strategies used by service employees—surface acting and deep acting. Surface acting involves displaying appropriate emotional characteristics which are not actually felt. Deep acting, on the other hand, describes attempts to feel required emotions (Hochschild 1983). Morris and Feldman (1996) also defined emotional labor as increasing, faking, or inhibiting emotions to display the organizationally desired emotions within interpersonal communication. Service expectations in this era require service employees to handle both physical and mental responsibilities as well as to perform appropriate emotions when dealing with customers. Managers often monitor and attempt to influence employees’ emotional behavior when they interact with customers during service processes (Shani et al. 2014). It is particularly important to understand emotional labor in the service industry as the front-line employees dealing with customers’ face-to-face form a major aspect of the service offered (Cho et al. 2013), to figure the more service employees employ emotional labor, the more exhausted they are emotionally (Jeon 2016), and to provide more deep acting than surface acting due to their spirituality and cultural values of employees (Tungtakanpoung and Wyatt 2013).

Culture shock could lead to role pressure and psychological, physiological, emotional and cognitive maladjustment, affecting socio-cultural and interpersonal relationships (Winkelman 1994). Culture shock often leads to negative effects on individual psychology. The culture shock can involve such a situation where the various frustrations felt by the expatriate build up, leading to the explosion of emotions such as depression, anxiety, and feelings of helplessness (Mio 1999). Mumford (1998) pointed out that humans belong to social structures with familiar social rules and norms of behavior. When they are suddenly transplanted into a new set of cultural behaviors, they suffer disorientation and threats to social identity. If the change is rapid, a significant level of emotional disturbance can arise. Culture shock can also influence a person’s motivational factors and his/her orientation toward work, which may in turn influences his/her capacity for emotional labor (Milikic and Janicijevic 2009; Morris and Feldman 1996). On this basis, we propose our first hypothesis:

Hypothesis 1

Culture shock would increase foreign employees’ emotional labor.

2.3 Job satisfaction

There were several definitions of job satisfaction during the past researches. Satisfaction has been defined as the fulfillment of desires or conditions (Thorndike and Barnhart 1979). When one’s expectations or desires are fulfilled, we might say one is satisfied (Giacometti 2005). Past research has offered several definitions of job satisfaction. Hoppock (1935) indicated that job satisfaction as occurring when a person truly feels satisfied with his/her job in both psychological and environmental aspects, while Brayfield and Rothe (1951) pointed out job satisfaction is an affecting state or feelings of employees with their job. Wolf (1970) stated that job satisfaction is a measure of whether the physical and psychological needs of employees are being fulfilled. Although there are many external factors that affect job satisfaction, the feelings of the employee are the key effect. Job satisfaction refers to the positive or negative perceptions of employees toward their jobs. It implies that employees experience not only enthusiasm and happiness toward their job but also a sense of work achievement or success and the feeling that they will be rewarded for their performance (Aziri 2011; Kaliski 2007). Another description was given by Locke (1969), who suggested that job satisfaction is a function of the relationship between what an employee seeks or desires from his/her job and his/her perceptions of what he/she actually receives. As stated above that service industry was a ‘people industry’ with a lot of interaction between human beings, it was quite necessary for the company to consider about the employees’ desires and expectations with their job (Lee and Way 2010; Mosadeghrad et al. 2008; Spinelli and Canavos 2000).

Since employees have different personal characteristics and values toward different aspects of their jobs, there have been different approaches to research into job satisfaction (George and Jones 2008; Lee and Way 2010). Rue and Byars (2003) indicated several factors that influence job satisfaction, such as working conditions, social relationships, compensation and manager concerns. All of these are connected with job satisfaction or dissatisfaction, thus affecting employees’ commitment to the organization as well as their turnover intentions. Demographic variables such as gender, age, education level, work experience, and salary have also been proven to have an effect on employee job satisfaction (Mosadeghrad et al. 2008). However, according to Herzberg’s (1976) theory (as cited in Aziri 2011), both job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction should be considered and there are two types of factors that influence satisfaction/dissatisfaction. These are motivators for job satisfaction and hygiene factors for job dissatisfaction. Motivators include achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, and growth, while hygiene factors included company policies, supervision, interpersonal relations, work conditions, salary, status, and job security.

In Lin and Yi’s (1997) case study of international students, they found that foreigners in an unfamiliar environment experience discrimination, language barriers, adjustment difficulty, cultural misunderstandings, and loneliness. This generated bad feelings that influenced their learning ability, social relationships, and overall satisfaction. Job performance and psychological perceptions vary from culture to culture, and these factors have a strong link to job satisfaction (Ward et al. 2005). As Chen et al. (2011) noted with empirical support, the influence of cultural intelligence on performance was mediated by culture shock. Individuals with a higher cultural intelligence will suffer less culture shock and in turn influenced the laborers’ task performance. Based on the results of Tang’s (2015) research, cultural intelligence has a positive impact on employee job satisfaction, while culture shock has a negative impact on employee job satisfaction. Therefore, the following hypothesis was generated:

Hypothesis 2

Culture shock would reduce foreign employees’ job satisfaction.

2.4 Turnover intention

Turnover was defined as the employee’s exit from a company or an organization (Taylor 2002). Ajzen (1991) defined intention as an indication of the extent to which a person is willing to try to perform a particular behavior, or the effort that he/she plans to allocate performing that behavior. Intention is assumed to capture the motivational factors that influence the behavior. According to Dane and Brummel (2014), turnover intention was also described as the intention to leave, which was caused by a number of influences, such as working environment as well as some personal factors (Cardador et al. 2011; Meyer et al. 2002). Employees working in the same environment and under the same conditions might have different turnover intentions. A number of researchers have concluded that emotional labor is considered a reason for turnover intention. According to Kim and Lee (2014), emotional labor and job satisfaction are important factors affecting turnover intention. Based on the research of Goodwin et al. (2011), “surface acting” while doing emotional labor has negative effects on employee turnover. Employees who regularly engage in surface acting develop the attitude that they are in an unsuitable work environment, which ultimately compels them to leave their job or be terminated, at a cost to the organization and the employee (Grandey 2003).

Emotional labor and job satisfaction may serve not only as an antecedent to turnover intention, but as a medium between culture shock and foreign employees’ turnover intentions. Several researchers have posited that emotional labor potentially contributes to employee turnover (e.g., Côté and Morgan 2002; Grandey 2000). Employees who regularly engage in emotional labor may develop the attitude that they are in an unsuitable work environment, which may ultimately compel them to leave the organization (Grandey 2000). Focusing on employees of foodservice industry, Jung and Yoon (2014) indicated that emotional labor was as a leading variable of turnover intent. Goodwin et al. (2011) demonstrated a direct negative relationship between surface acting and employee turnover. In a service situation, among emotional labor strategies of flight attendants, deep acting reduced burnout, while surface acting increased burnout (Lee et al. 2015). In addition, as reported by Egan et al. (2004), there is a relationship between employee job satisfaction and turnover intention. In the study of Larrabee et al. (2003), job satisfaction was the main predictor of turnover intention. Tett and Meyer (1993) explored the different impacts caused by these two factors on turnover intention, finding that job satisfaction had a higher correlation with turnover intention while a lack of organizational commitment has a higher correlation with actual turnover. Employees who have intentions to leave a company might downgrade their job performance (Meyer et al. 2002). Data showed that job satisfaction has a strong connection with both organizational commitment and turnover rate, which were considered important issues by the company (Barrows 1990; Testa 2001). By examining the effects of generational differences, Lu and Gursoy (2013) indicated that reduced job satisfaction significantly predicts increased turnover intention. Focusing specifically on organizational culture, Jung and Yoon (2017) found that job satisfaction played a mediating role between error management culture and turnover intent. These support the conclusion that emotional labor and job satisfaction contribute to employees’ turnover intentions. Since emotional labor and job satisfaction predict turnover intentions, it is reasonable to suggest that employees’ turnover intention will be exacerbated by culture shock perceived by service employees. On this basis, the following hypothesis is proposed:

Hypothesis 3

Foreign employees’ emotional labor mediates the relationship between culture shock and turnover intentions.

Hypothesis 4

Foreign employees’ job satisfaction mediates the relationship between culture shock and turnover intentions.

2.5 Perceived managerial support

Managerial support is sometimes regarded as having the same meaning as organizational support, which has been defined as support from superiors and colleagues (Joiner and Bakalis 2006). He et al. (2011) indicated that managerial support refers to the actions taken by the employees’ direct manager to support and deliver rewards for good employee performance. Managerial support could be measured through the relationship between an employee and his/her immediate manager (Foley et al. 2005). Katz and Kahn (1978) stated that the working environment affects employees’ attitudes and behaviors either positively or negatively. Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002) also pointed out the importance of taking care of employees, as they are precious assets to the company, and that the company has the responsibility of providing an appropriate, supportive working environment. The key to service workers’ working lives is the relationship they create with customers, colleagues and the organization they work for. These relationships affect the employees in visible and invisible ways. Therefore, it is suggested that companies provide a support-based relationship because people often seek consideration and respect from their superiors or co-workers (Corsun and Enz 1999).

The perceived managerial support concept is related to social exchange theory and Blau (1964) has asserted that employees will make a strong effort when organizations or supervisors provide personal or material rewards. Staff performance and human resource outcomes in the service industry result primarily from organizational or supervisor support (Chow et al. 2006; Kim 2014). Several researchers have indicated that perceived managerial support is beneficial for the workforce. Previous research also showed that perceived managerial support impacted the emotions of the employees (Gu and Siu 2009; Gunkel et al. 2014; He et al. 2011), inspiring employees to be willing to perform when they perceive supportive actions and respect from others in the organization (He et al. 2011; Mosadeghrad et al. 2008). The mental health of employees is also highly related to managerial support. Cohen and Wills (1985) indicated that managerial support has a negative relationship with employee perceptions of stress levels. Naeem et al. (2015) found higher levels of perceived organizational support lead to a greater level of affective commitment to make the international assignment successful. Bennett et al. (2001) also proved that management behavior influences employees’ satisfaction as well as their anxiety. Mosadeghrad et al. (2008) declared that a supportive management system with respect, recognition and communication goes a long way to improve employee satisfaction (Sawang 2010). Thus practices focus on the managerial support could help enhance the overall job satisfaction of the employees (Babin and Boles 1998). Sawang (2010) suggests that a positive connection between managerial staff and employees raises employee emotional satisfaction, which was later proven by Stamper and Johlke (2003) to improve job performance. Several research studies, such as Stinglhamber and Vandenberghe (2003) and Krongboonying and Lin (2015), have discovered that the perceived managerial support is positively identified with a level of employees’ job satisfaction. Then, the perceived managerial support should be able to help employees' positive emotional perceptions and expand the level of satisfaction from the job. As mentioned about the consequences of perceived managerial support toward job satisfaction, it is further to explore the moderating effect of perceived managerial support on the relationship between culture shock and job satisfaction.

A number of studies have demonstrated that perceived organizational support buffers the negative effects that stress (e.g., Fried and Tiegs 1993) and work-family conflicts have on job attitudes (e.g., Parasuraman et al. 1992). In other words, perceived organizational support appears to be a key element of when employees are faced with stressful or constraining circumstances (Perrot et al. 2014). Culture shock affects a person’s psychological status, including cognition, emotional disturbances, and levels of anxiety and depression, and also influences employee motivation to work (Mio 1999; Mumford 1998; Winkelman 1994). He et al. (2011) encouraged managers to offer appropriate support and advice to employees who are experiencing problems at work. According to social exchange theory, support that managers provide to employees experiencing culture shock may constitute an “extra-role” exchange from the organization to employees (Zhou et al. 2012). Good managerial support conveys the message that managers care about employee well-being (Wayne et al. 1997). Accordingly, foreign employees can be more confident that their managers will support them when they are dealing with cultural issues at work, which may also mitigate the negative effects of culture shock. Based on the aforementioned research, we hypothesize that positive perceptions of managerial support may help bolster the confidence of foreign employees in cases of culture shock. Managerial support can also act as a buffer, reducing emotional labor and increasing job satisfaction. When facing culture shock, foreign employees who receive considerable managerial support are likely to produce a felt obligation to reciprocate the organization, which helps sustain effective performance. High levels of perceived managerial support can also reduce the uncertainty, stress, and emotional labor that employees experience. On this basis, we propose the following:

Hypothesis 5

When perceived managerial support is high, the relationship between culture shock and emotional labor in foreign employees is weaker than when perceived managerial support is low.

Hypothesis 6

When perceived managerial support is high, the relationship between culture shock and job satisfaction in foreign employees is weaker than when perceived managerial support is low.

3 Methodology

3.1 Data collection

Hotels play an important role in the Macao service industry and they employ a high ratio of foreign employees. In 2016, the number of non-resident employees working in hotels, restaurants and similar reached 49,990, while the total number of full-time employees in these industries was around 57,300 (Government of Macao Special Administrative Region Statistics and Census Service 2017). In total, non-resident employees count for nearly 42.6% of service industry employees (Government of Macao Special Administrative Region Labour Affairs Bureau 2017). Hotels were therefore chosen as the research subjects of this study. The research participants were foreign employees working in the 36 hotels currently operating in Macao. This study used purposive and snowball sampling. Although purposive sampling may be challenging to defend the representative nature of a sample, it can target niche demographics to obtain specific foreign employees and allow researchers to look at the averages in the data (Sharma 2017). The questionnaires were both paper (200 copies) and internet-based (200 copies) for a total of 400 copies. For the paper survey, respondents were reached by hired researchers in different casino hotels through their personal connections. For the online survey, the department managers of casino hotels and some of employees were reached via emails sending survey invitations and asking them to help distribute the link of online surveys to the employees. The total response rate was 63.5%, with 254 valid copies returned (171 copies from the internet-based and 83 paper-based copies).

Of the 254 participants, around half of the respondents were female (50.4%) and single (51.2%) (see Table 1). Most of the respondents were between 26 and 35 years old (42.5%) and had received a bachelor’s degree (82.7%). In terms of country/region of origin, most came from Malaysia (42.1%), then Europe (30.3%). Forty-eight percent of the participants had been employed by the hotel for 2–5 years and 40.9% for 1–2 years. Most respondents (46.5%) had a monthly income of USD $1301–USD $1950, 22.8% with USD $2601–USD $3250, 16.9% over USD $3901.

Table 1 Demographic information (n = 254)
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3.2 Measures

Questionnaires were the research instrument in this study. In accordance with the research framework and literature review, the questionnaire consisted of six sections: a culture shock measurement; an emotional labor scale; a perceived managerial support scale; a job satisfaction scale; a turnover intention scale; and demographic information. The variables in this questionnaire were measured on a seven-point Likert scale in which 1 meant strongly disagree/extremely dissatisfied and 7 meant strongly agree/ extremely satisfied.

The culture shock measurement was adopted from the culture shock questionnaire developed by Mumford (1998). It was divided into two parts: ‘core’ culture shock items and interpersonal stress items, which has been widely used in related research since its development (e.g., Chen et al. 2011; Yoo et al. 2006). Some items of culture shock are negatively phrased. The item “I feel generally accepted by the local people in the new culture” and “when talking to people, I can make sense of their gestures or facial expressions” were recoded to ensure all items move in the same direction with respect to what is low and high on the scale. Emotional Labor in this research was measured using the items related to surface acting and deep acting from Brotheridge and Lee’s (2003) Emotional Labor Scale. The perceived managerial support scale has four items and was adopted from the study of Foley et al. (2005). Job satisfaction was modified from the intrinsic components of the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ; short form) developed by Weiss and Cropanzano (1996). It is a self-report measure of job satisfaction, including two dimensions, namely, intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction. Intrinsic job satisfaction refers to those aspects of the job that are inherent to the nature of the work being performed and which are primarily experienced internally by the worker. Participants were asked to rate “how satisfied with this aspect of my job?” on a 7-point Likert scale (1 “extremely dissatisfied with this aspect of my job” to 7 “extremely satisfied with this aspect of my job”). Item responses are summed or averaged to create a total score. Turnover intention was adopted from the study done by Mobley et al. (1978) to measure intention to quit consisting 3 items. Demographic information includes the age, gender, nationality, education, length of tenure, job position, and monthly income. These various scales were originally devised for English speakers. They were translated into Chinese for the purposes of the present study and then back into English, using a combination of a professional translator and a bi-lingual scholar. This process ensured the comparability of scale content for cross-linguistic users.

4 Results

4.1 Evaluation of the measurement model

The measurement model was first evaluated using the maximum-likelihood method in Amos. Confirmatory factor analysis tested the validity of the scales. Factor loadings, composite reliability, and AVE are provided in Table 2. As Table 2 shows, all of the factor loadings of the indicators for the underlying constructs exceed 0.5 ranging from 0.59 to 0.95 and were significant (p < 0.05), which provides evidence supporting the convergent validity of the indicators (Anderson and Gerbing 1988). The composite reliability of each construct was assessed to examine the internal consistency of the measurement scale. All Composite Construct Reliabilities (CCRs) were 0.75 or higher and exceeded the cut-off value of 0.70 indicating high internal consistency of the measurement scales (Fornell and Larcker 1981). Finally, according to Kline’s (2005) method, the adequate discriminant validity correlations between sets of variables must be lower than 0.85; our results show that the discriminant validity among the variables was acceptable.

Table 2 Confirmatory factor analysis results
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4.2 Testing the hypothesized structural model

Structural equation model analysis was conducted including an overall goodness of fit test, and path analysis was conducted to simultaneously examine the relationships between culture shock, emotional labor, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. AMOS version 20 was used to conduct these analyses. The means and standard deviations of culture shock, emotional labor, job satisfaction, and turnover intention are presented in Table 3, which also depicts correlations among the variables. The results of the structural analysis of the proposed model indicate that the Chi-square of the structural model is 642.26 with df of 268, CFI at 0.92, NNFI at 0. 90, SRMR at 0.04 and RMSEA at 0.07. These results suggest an acceptable fit to the data. Path analysis was conducted to define the direct effects among culture shock, emotional labor, job satisfaction, and turnover intention.

Table 3 Means, standard deviations, and correlations
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According to Table 4, culture shock has positive impacts on emotional labor with a standardized estimate of 0.97 (t = 12.67 p < 0.001). Foreign employees with higher culture shock showed higher scores on the emotional labor. Thus, hypothesis H1 was supported: culture shock would increase foreign employees’ emotional labor. As expected, culture shock reduced job satisfaction with a standardized estimate of − 0.91 (t = − 12.19, p < 0.001). Foreign employees with higher culture shock reported lower job satisfaction, which supported H2.

Table 4 Structural model results
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4.3 Mediation analysis

To test indirect effects of emotional labor and job satisfaction in the mediation models, the researchers performed percentile bootstrapping and bias-corrected percentile bootstrapping at a 95% confidence interval with 2000 bootstrap samples. The bootstrap framework is particularly useful and may even be applied in the case of small or moderately sized samples (Efron and Tibshiran 1993). Bootstrap tests are powerful because they detect when the sampling distribution of the mediated effect is skewed away from 0 (Shrout and Bolger 2002). The researchers followed the Preacher and Hayes (2008) approach and calculated the confidence interval of the lower and upper bounds to test the significance of the indirect effects. The SEs and critical ratios for these effects and the estimates and 95% CIs (percentile and BC) are reported in Table 5. The confidence intervals in Table 5 exclude zero for emotional labor and job satisfaction, which means that they are statistically significant by conventional standards.

Table 5 Mediation of the effect of culture shock on turnover intention through emotional labor and job satisfaction
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Consistent with the expectation, the mediating effect of emotional labor on the relationship between culture shock and employee turnover intention was significant (indirect effect = 0.55, p < 0.05) with a Percentile 95% CI of 0.04 to 0.96 and a BC 95% CI of 0.03 to 0.96; thus H3 was supported. Moreover, an examination of the specific indirect effects indicates that job satisfaction is a mediator (indirect effect = − 0.65, p < 0.05), since its 95% CI do not contain zero. Therefore, we may conclude that when employee perceives culture shock, this may lessen job satisfaction and thereby enhance their turnover intention. On this basis, H4 was supported.

4.4 Moderation analysis

A multi-group analysis was performed to assess the moderating role of perceived managerial support. The analysis follows the procedures for multi-group analysis suggested by Palmatier et al. (2007). A median split was used to divide the sample into groups of high and low perceived managerial support. The first group consisted of 131 participants that reported low levels of perceived managerial support. The second group was formed by 123 respondents that reported high levels of perceived managerial support. The perceived managerial support mean for the first group (M = 2.86) is significantly lower (t = 20.63; p < 0.01) than the mean for the second group (M = 3.77), which supports the division.

In each multi-group analysis, a Chi-square difference test was applied to compare a model in which all hypothesized paths were constrained to be equal across both groups. Then we used an unconstrained model in which we permitted the path hypothesized to be moderated to vary freely across the groups with high and low levels of perceived managerial support. If the unconstrained model has a significantly lower chi-square than the constrained model and if the effect is in the hypothesized direction, the moderating hypothesis is supported (see Table 6). Contrary to expectations, the moderating effect for perceived managerial support on the relationship between culture shock and emotional labor was not supported (z = − 0.05, p = n.s.). Thus, hypothesis H6 was not supported. The multi-group moderation test reveals that perceived managerial support negatively moderated the impact of the relationship between culture shock and job satisfaction (z = 1.94, p < 0.05; for the group with low levels of perceived managerial support, β = − 0.82; for the group with high levels of perceived managerial support, β = − 0.53). When foreign employees perceived less managerial support, culture shock had a stronger negative relationship with job satisfaction (see Fig. 2). On this basis, H5 was supported.

Table 6 Multi-group analysis: perceived managerial support
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Fig. 2
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Summary of results

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5 Conclusions and implications

5.1 Theoretical contributions

The study provides several key contributions. To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study that focuses on the effects of culture shock on employee well-being outcomes and organizational outcomes in service industry. Previous study delineated the relationships among perceived managerial support, emotional labor, job satisfaction, and turnover intention, but not a cultural shock. It furthers the theoretical developments of Duke et al. (2009) organizational support-emotional labor-job satisfaction-job performance model and Iqbal et al. (2014) organizational commitment-job satisfaction-job stress-leadership support-turnover intention model. In particular, the current study provides empirical support for the expansion of the previously model to the area of foreign workers experiencing a cultural shock. The findings contribute to research on cross-cultural management and human resource management in the service context by conceptualizing and empirically testing the meditating role of emotional labor and job satisfaction as well as the underresearched moderating role of perceived managerial support influencing the effect of culture shock. It has been shown that the model is viable, thereby yielding valuable insights and making several contributions to both knowledge and practice (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
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Moderating effect of perceived managerial support between culture shock and job satisfaction

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As expected, the study findings suggest that the higher the levels of culture shock the foreign employees perceived, the higher their score on the emotional labor. They provide an elaboration of earlier research by Milikic and Janicijevic (2009) and support the view that foreign employees who encounter culture shock are more likely to experience high emotional labor such as surface and deep acting. In addition, the result linking high levels of culture shock with low levels of job satisfaction, which suggested that culture shock can predict important organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction.

Moreover, the causal relationships among emotional labor and job satisfaction and employees’ turnover intentions were consistent with findings of Jung and Yoon (2014) and Goodwin et al. (2011), namely that emotional labor was as a leading variable of turnover intent. Though some previous studies have provided support for the direct effect of emotional labor and job satisfaction on turnover intentions, the results further implied that emotional labor and job satisfaction are mediators of the effects of culture shock on foreign employees’ turnover intentions. With limited empirical support, the researchers have demonstrated that culture shock is an antecedent of higher emotional labor and lower levels of job satisfaction, which is in turn associated with foreign employees’ turnover intentions. This result contributes to the culture shock literature by showing that culture shock is not only linked to employee well-being outcomes, but also to critical organizational outcomes.

Finally, it is noted that the moderating analyses are a primary contribution of this study since little previous research has examined the moderating role of perceived managerial support between the impacts of culture shock on job satisfaction. It was found that perceived managerial support changes the nature of the relationship between culture shock in foreign employees and job satisfaction. For instance, culture shock and perceived managerial support interacted to influence employee job satisfaction, such that the relationship between culture shock in foreign employees and job satisfaction was weaker at higher levels of perceived managerial support. More specifically, culture shock had a stronger negative relationship with employee outcomes (job satisfaction) when perceived managerial support was low rather than high.

5.2 Practical contributions

In addition to theoretical contributions, this study also draws a number of managerial implications for service practice. It provides managers an enhanced understanding of the culture shock in international service firm which may help in the formulation and design of focused strategies and tactics of foreign employee performance. Then, how to solve the employees’ culture shock is one of the most issues to improve foreign employees’ job satisfaction and to reduce emotional labor and turnover intention. When foreign workers are employed in other country, they work and live in a different country or region and face different regulations and new cultural setting. While a person works in an unfamiliar working environment, she/he feels emotionally and physiologically anxious and uncomfortable because they are afraid of committing restrictions or fearing their own misbehavior. Winkelman (1994) indicated that the impact of culture, in addition to causing psychological discomfort, can also cause physiological reactions, and most of them are caused by unfamiliarity with the new cultural environment. In cultural research, different countries are considered to have different attitudes, values and cognitive attitudes. Therefore, effective cultural training provided to outsiders can help the adaptation of outsiders, and cultural training is often confirmed to be necessary (Gunkel et al. 2014; Jung and Yoon 2017; Wang et al. 2017). Griffith and West (2013) also found the association with culture shock should offer resilience trainings to strengthen stress resistance of expatriates before going abroad. Therefore, the study suggests that preparation and pre-departure cross-culture training is a more efficient tool that can effectively reduce cultural shocks. By enhancing cross-cultural adaptation and reducing cultural shocks can help foreign workers to improve job satisfaction, reduce emotional labor, and further reduce their turnover intention for the new job.

In acknowledging the reducing impact of culture shock on foreign employees’ emotional labor and job satisfaction, management has an opportunity to implement practical remediation. Managers in service firms should recognize the importance of the effect of culture shock experienced by foreign employees during their employment Black et al. (1991) indicated that considering employees’ job knowledge and technical competence alone for overseas assignments do not account for effective performance of employees working outside their home countries. For development of selection and hiring procedures, service firms should consider the role of cultural intelligence as it provides important insights to international service firms (Templer et al. 2006). Foreign employees with the ability to cross boundaries and thriving in multiple cultures help reduce the impact of culture shock.

In addition, several previous studies indicated perceived managerial support with create tension by driving and generating employee outcomes and organizational outcomes (e.g., Goodwin et al. 2011; Milikic and Janicijevic 2009; Mio 1999; Mumford 1998; Winkelman 1994). The model in this study highlights the critical role of perceived managerial support in lessening the effect of culture shock on foreign employees. Employees who perceive high levels of managerial support may believe that their organization will provide them with the resources that they need to cope with culture shock, resulting in increased job satisfaction. The findings suggest that organizational and managerial interventions designed to enhance employee job satisfaction should focus on the creation of a supportive work environment. Offering psychological training for managers to teach them how to communicate with foreign employees might also help increase the sense of support experienced by their staff. They might then be more proactive in taking more responsibility for the overall quality of the work and lives of their foreign employees.

Moreover, it is important to support the foreign employee in creating diverse culture experience links to foster their behaviors. For instance, relationships begin to be shaped and people’s lives are transformed for the better after encountering new people, new sights and sounds, new cultures and behaviors (Naeem et al. 2015). Providing employee well-being and benefit policy of perceived managerial support program (e.g., Mio 1999; Mumford 1998; Winkelman 1994) and cultural workshops or activities (e.g., Black 1988; Kocak 2014) with local people for employees might help reduce misunderstandings or emotional stress, thereby increasing their job satisfaction. Setting regular psychological consultations within the company might help employees with their emotional stress and cultural depression.

5.3 Limitations

There were limitations to this study. First, this study only focused on foreign employees in hotels in Macao within a single industry. The extent to which the findings could be generalized to culture shock of foreign employees comprises the positive aspects into another culture and other industries needs to be explored in future studies. Moreover, due to limited time and resources, purposeful sampling was used to collect the data, which could limit the generalizability of the results. Future research may conduct a random sample for better generalization of a target population. Additionally, this study used a questionnaire as a tool and the self-reporting approach which was used to assemble the data set from respondents means that contamination through mono-method bias cannot be excluded. As recommended by Semmer et al. (1996) multi-method approaches may produce more accurate measurements by protecting the anonymity of respondents. Furthermore, the results only explain conditions on the employee side and did not cover personal issues, for example some characteristics of emotional labor, further research might include depression, anxiety, helplessness, etc., as dependent variables. Although the result of the research would explain that only turnover intention is investigated, and this study does not discuss turnover behavior. Having thoughts and turnover intentions of foreign laborers do not mean that there must be turnover behaviors, because the factors that affect the production of a behavior are very complicated. In the future, researchers might conduct a qualitative study at the management level to find out about the challenges inherent in managing foreign laborers.