Cultural identity threats and identity work of skilled migrants in multinational corporations

Abstract

While skilled migrants (SMs) are increasingly valuable human resources in organizations, little is known about their cultural identity threats and work in multinational corporations (MNCs). This study draws on the identity work perspective and interviews with 163 SMs to examine how and why SMs use identity work to cope with encountered cultural identity threats and what types of SMs’ identity work can be identified in MNCs. Our analysis shows that SMs respond to identity threats in the forms of cultural tightness, value conflict, and stigmatization by protective identity work (i.e., differentiating, detaching, distancing, and rejecting) or adaptive identity work (i.e., shifting, revising, extending, and suppressing).