The Relationship Between Cross Cultural Adaptation and Turnover Intention : A Study of Lao Employees in Foreign Enterprises

With a variety of local advantages, a large number of foreign investments into Laos, Lao’s employees in foreign enterprise began to be concerned about their turnover. However, research in this part is still blank. Since most of the researches based on the employees and the organization are belong to the same cultural background, we try to find out if the cultural factor also is one of important factor which impact to local employee’s turnover intention. The relationship between cross cultural adaptation and turnover intention is main discussing topic on this study, local employee in foreign enterprise as the research subjects for this study. Based on survey data to calculate the cross-cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index, then regression analysis to find out the relationship of both index. The results proved that cross cultural adaptation and turnover intention was negatively correlated. This means cross-cultural adaptation is not a small obstacle but it’s one of the most important factors to determine Laos’s employees who work in foreign enterprises to leave or stay.


Introduction
Lao People's Democratic Republic was established in 1975, economic reform and opening up in 1983 and overall economic development in recent years.With a variety of local advantages (infrastructure conditions, low labor costs, Policy advantage ... etc.), a large number of foreign investment into Laos, Lao employee in foreign enterprise turnover issue began to be concerned about.However, research in this part is still blank.
Previous studies of employee turnover issue focused on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational support...etc.as main measure.Practice a lot of achievements in this field have also been applied in.But most of the researches based on the employees and the organization it belongs to the same cultural background.Therefore, what would happen if employee and the organization come from different cultural backgrounds?Are the traditional theory and research methods are sufficient to explain all the phenomena?Or some factors more prominent?Based on the above ideas, local employee in foreign enterprise as the research subjects for this study.To investigate if the employee and the organization were from different cultural backgrounds, the cultural factor will have an impact on employee turnover intention or not?Since previous studies have not been studied turnover intention of Lao employee, especially Lao employee in foreign enterprise.Therefore, this is a new attempt.In order to better reflect the impact of cultural factor to turnover intention, these papers introduce the concept of cross-cultural adaption and analyze the relationship with turnover intention.Redfield el al. (1936) defined cross cultural adaptation as "Composed by individual and between two group which from different cultures.It had persistent and direct cultural contacts, resulting in one or both of the original cultural patterns change phenomenon."Zhao Qing (2010) believes that cross-cultural adaption is the progress of integration and coordination between two different cultural groups.

The Concept of Cross-Cultural Adaption Ability
environment changed dramatically will break the original balance".The further explanation by Yu Wei and Zheng Gang (2005) mentioned that "Psychologically unbalanced phenomenon, will inspire individuals to restore the balance between them and the environment".Those who enter a completely different cultural environment will face the role conversion process.This conversion caused by psychological imbalance makes individuals need to be adjusted in order to rebalance the state.Sam and Berry (2010) believe that the cultural adaptation process will be a cultural and psychological change.On the cultural level, the individual's collective activities and social customs will change.On the psychological level, the daily behavior criterion and the stress experience.In the process, the individual usually takes integration, assimilation, separation or marginalization coping strategies.Previous cross-cultural adaptation studies based on individuals unable (or do not want) to leave the environment as a basic condition.However, in the present study, individuals (employees) able to leave the cultural environment (working environment of foreign enterprise) at any time, this cultural environment is also a non local cultural environment.Therefore, once the individuals (employees) are not adapted to the cultural environment (working environment in foreign enterprise), the individuals (employees) may have thought of leaving the environment and then generate turnover intention.Porter and Steers (1973) represents "turnover intention" is the next withdrawal behavior after employees experience dissatisfied.Mobley (1997) believe that the next withdrawal behavior after employees experience dissatisfied is "Thinking of quitting".Turnover intention is the last step before the turnover behavior after several step (thinking of quitting, looking for new job, comparison to other job opportunities).Mobley el al. (1978) believe that turnover intention is the comprehensive reflect of job dissatisfaction, thinking of quitting, the tendency to looking for other job and other job possibilities.This is also the definition of this study.Price's (2001) turnover process model has better predictive capability which examines the impact of environment, individual, structural and process variable on turnover.Price's turnover theory has the additive property, empirical Research added more variables.Price (2001) noted that further research should be strengthened in the intermediate process; pay more attention to the value of the adjustment function and some of the possible interaction between the variables.Alfonso el al. (2004) research showed that there are differences in turnover factors and turnover process of employees those from different regions, different industries, different enterprise nature and different cultural background.However, the reason for this difference is not yet produced in-depth study.

The Concept of Turnover Intention
Previous turnover intention studies based on employees and organization are from the same cultural background.However, we know that there are differences in turnover factors and turnover process of employees those from different cultural background.Therefore, if employees and organizations are from different cultural backgrounds, cultural factors should also affect turnover intention and behavior.

Method
According to the above reasoning, we try to prove if there is a causal relationship between turnover intention and cross-cultural adaptation and how it is affected.In order to better measuring, we will quantify the turnover intention and cross-cultural adaptation.

Measurement Index Defining
Cross cultural adaptation index is an indicator that reflects the adaptation ability of individual in the different cultural environment.Base on the result of cross-cultural adaptation questionnaire and principal component analysis; calculate the corresponding evaluation of individual cross-cultural adaptability.The final data of the cross culture adaptation questionnaire was analyzed by the principal component analysis method using SPSS software in order to calculate the individual's cross cultural adaptation ability evaluation results.
Turnover intention index is an indicator reflects the possibility of employee turnover.Base on the result of turnover intention questionnaire and principal component analysis; calculate the corresponding evaluation of individual turnover intention possibility.The final data of the turnover intention questionnaire was analyzed by the principal component analysis method using SPSS software in order to calculate the individual's turnover intention evaluation results.

Cross Cultural Adaptation Index Selection and Questionnaire Design
This paper selected six indicators to reflect the sample Cross cultural adaptation.Mastery of a foreign language has a certain impact on the cross-cultural adaptation, so questionnaire design also adding "Your mastery of a foreign language" and "your education level".2) Sometimes you feel tired with your current job and want to change your job; 3) If you have suitable jobs I will accept; 4) I will leave the current company within a year.
Zhang Yue (2007) used two indicators to reflect turnover intention.
1) I will look for others job opportunities; 2) If you have suitable jobs I will accept.

Investigation Process
The subjects of this study are local employees (Laotian) who work for foreign enterprises in Laos (Included European, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Southeast Asia … etc.).500 invited, 300 recruited samples, 248 valid samples (82.66% of valid data).
We target to local employees who work for foreign enterprises in Laos base on the relationship with several associations (Lao students Association in Japan, Lao student association in China, Lao student association in Australia … etc.).We used online survey to collect sample for this study.
Used below screening questions, only those respondents who are full time worker and work for foreign enterprises able to access to the main survey.
S1. Please select your working status: 1) Full time worker; 2) Part time worker; Only those select option 1 "Full time worker" on S1 will able to continue the survey, all of other option will be terminated.
Only those select option 1 "Foreign company" on S2 will able to continue the survey, all of other option will be terminated.

Scale Test
To ensure the validity of both turnover intention and cross cultural adaptation scales we use, we use the SPSS software to perform the following validation.

Mean Analysis
Table 3 presents the result of mean analysis of cross cultural adaptation, various factors concentrated in medium and medium high level.Middle high included "You can accept any change", "You like the challenge", "You like to make friends with foreigners", "You agree with the corporate culture in the organization you work for", "You can accept foreigners strange behavior", "You proficiency in a foreign language", "You like watching a foreign film", "You can easily make friends with foreigners", "You can understand their jokes and humor", "You can endure the harsh reality".The highest is "You can accept any change" and lowest is "You can endure the harsh reality".
Medium level included "You like to solve problems independently", "You think foreigners are friendly", "You quite understand some acts of foreigners", "If someone hurt you, you can accept his/her apology", "You can stand on their (foreigners) perspective on the issues", "You like foreign food", "You can accept a foreigner pursuit", "You can easily communicate with foreigners", "You feel excluded by foreigners".The highest is "You like to solve problems independently" and lowest is "You feel excluded by foreigners".Table 4 presents the result of mean analysis of turnover intention, various factors concentrated in medium and medium high level.Medium high included "I will leave the current company within 3 year" and "If you have suitable jobs I will accept", "I will leave the current company within 3 year" is highest.
Medium level included "If the salary is same with state-owned enterprises, you will leave foreign company.","I will look for others job opportunities", "Sometimes you feel tired with your current job and want to change your job" and "I will leave the current company within a year".The highest is "If the salary is same with state-owned enterprises, you will leave foreign company."And lowest is "I will leave the current company within a year".

Factor Analysis
In order to calculate the cross cultural adaptation and turnover intention index, we first verify the following questionnaire data and pre calculation.Based on the output of eigenvalues greater than 0.5.Using factor analysis, we got 14 factors from Lao employee cross cultural adaptation scale, cover 90% of all information.The third column shows the factor after rotation, total variance contribution rate unchanged, indicating that does not affect the original Common degree.
Table 7 presents the result of Component Score Coefficient Matrix on cross cultural adaptation scale obtained.Sig. .000 Table 8 presents the result of KMO and Bartlett's Test on turnover intention scale obtained.KMO index is 0.819 which greater than 0.5 and Bartlett test value is 0.000 which less than 0.05.Indicating that the scale has construct validity and suitable for factor analysis.
Table 9 presents the result of total variance explained on turnover intention scale obtained.Based on the output of eigenvalues greater than 0.5.Using factor analysis, we got 4 factors from Lao employee turnover intention scale, cover 88.055% of all information.The third column shows the factor after rotation, total variance contribution rate unchanged, indicating that does not affect the original Common degree.

Index Calculation
Base on above pre calculated of both cross cultural adaptation and turnover intention, we have both index calculation processes below:

Cross Cultural Adaptation Index
To get the cross cultural adaptation index of Lao employee who work in foreign enterprises.We need to calculate the standardization scores of each factor using below formula:

Turnover Intention Index
To get the turnover intention index of Lao employee who work in foreign enterprises.We need to calculate the standardization scores of each factor using below formula:

Results
Base on above calculated result of both cross cultural adaptation and turnover intention index.Using SPSS software for correlation analysis and regression as follows to find out whether there is linear correlation and regression model between both indexes.

Correlation Analysis
Figure 1 presents the result of correlation analysis between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index obtained.Base on Table 10, using SPSS "Scatter" module to find out if there is a linear relationship between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index.
Figure 1 result showed that there is a strong negative correlation between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index.

Figure 1. Relationship between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index
Table 11, Table 12 and Table 13 presents the result of a linear regression between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index obtained.Base on the result of a linear regression between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index obtained.Cross cultural adaptation index each increase of 1 unit, turnover intention index will be reduced for 1.249 units.
F test: Base on Table 12.We got F test significant value is 0 which less than 0.05, description that our regression model has statistical significance, regression results is significant.
T test: Base on Table 13.Sig. of dependent variable (Cross cultural adaptation index) is 0 which less than 0.05, description that the interpretation of cross cultural adaptation index to turnover intention index has statistical significance, the correlation of both index is significant.
Correlation coefficient: Base on Table 11.The correlation coefficient of cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index is 0.673, Durbin-Wastson index is 2.295, linear correlation between both indexes is significant.
Base on above.We found that there is linear correlation between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index and there is a strong negative correlation.For the target people of this study, cross cultural adaptation is an important factor of turnover intention.

Theoretical and Practical Implications
Previous studies about turnover issue focused on job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational support...etc.Moreover, most of previous researches based on the employee and the organization are belong to the same cultural background.
The results of this study show that there is linear correlation between cross cultural adaptation index and turnover intention index and there is a strong negative correlation.This means that the cultural factors can directly affect to the turnover issue of Lao employees who work in foreign enterprise.Cross cultural adaptation is not a small obstacle but it's one of the most important factors which is able to determine employees to leave or stay, especially for employees and organization are from different cultural background.
Working environment in foreign enterprises those running business in Laos is rather special, especially cultural environment which influenced by foreign enterprises their own enterprise culture, native culture and local culture, such culture even different from any single culture.
Since employee belongs to local culture background, which has different working culture environment; such differences included information handling, information understanding level and mindset.Under a particular traditional culture and living environment, people have common distinctive features.In order to properly train employees, improve their own efficiency and reduce the hidden costs by turnover; Enterprises should have an open mind and good learning ability.Enterprises not only need to understand the performance characteristics of its distinctive shape, more is needed to understand there are a lot of factors behind; contact between them and its impact.
We can reduce turnover intention by increasing cross cultural adaptation.However, cross-cultural adaptation was the result of employees and businesses from different cultural backgrounds, this issue is generated after employees joined foreign enterprise.Therefore, we know the following: (1) Cross cultural adaptation issue is the result of the mutual influence of both employees and foreign enterprise; (2) Babiker et al. (1980) proposed that the psychological and cultural adaptation of the problem is precisely because of the differences between home culture and the new culture.Those who feel a greater cultural difference will be faced with a greater change in life in the process of cross-cultural adaptation, which will give them more stress, depression and other adaptation problems.According to Babiker's theory, we predict that Employees work in different types of foreign enterprise (For example: European enterprise, American enterprise, Japanese enterprise, Korean enterprise, Chinese enterprise, etc.) will have different level of cross cultural adaptation issue; (3) While the cultural environment of foreign enterprise impact to the local employees, the local employees also impact on the cultural environment of foreign enterprise.Therefore, in order to reduce cross cultural adaptation issue, foreign enterprise should establish an effective way to communicate and cultural exchange mechanism.

Limitations
As in any study, there are some limitations in our study as well.Definitely, the larger sample size would enable us to attain more generalizable results.Secondly, using convenience sampling method, our sample may have some deficiencies in terms of variability and representability of the population.

Suggestions
We empirically articulate the manifestation of cross-cultural adaptation as a variable.Yet, it may have some other systematic influences on the above-posited relationships.First, we suggest researchers consider a moderated mediation effect into their research based on modeling.Second, it is better to replicate this research with a larger sample size in order to validate our results.Third, in future, the role of other individual factors such as organization type and personality traits on cross cultural adaptation can be investigated.

Table 1
presents the result of cross cultural adaptation scale test obtained.Cronbach's Alpha index is 0.811 which greater than 0.7.Description the scales has good reliability.
Table2presents the result of turnover intention scale test obtained.We have 0.827 Cronbach's Alpha index which greater than 0.7.Description the scales has good reliability.

Table 4 .
Turnover intention descriptive statistics

Table 5
presents the result of KMO and Bartlett's Test on cross cultural adaptation scale obtained.KMO index is 0.682 which greater than 0.5 and Bartlett test value is 0.000 which less than 0.05.Indicating that the scale has construct validity and suitable for factor analysis.

Table 7 .
Component score coefficient matrix

Table 9 .
Total variance explained

Table 10
presents the result of Component Score Coefficient Matrix on turnover intention scale obtained.

Table 13 .
Coefficients a