Abstract

With a population of 1.2 billion, mainland China has become a major target country for many foreign companies looking to expand their businesses because of its inexpensive labor and large market.  In 2009, there were 77,642 companies from Taiwan operating in mainland China with fiscal expenditures exceeding US $47.77 billion dollars. If Taiwan’s foreign direct investment (FDI) and offshore investment expenditures were included, Taiwan would have had the second largest FDI in mainland China. The purpose of this study is to investigate the difference in job characteristics, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment depending on family location of Taiwanese expatriates working in mainland China.  The entire accessible population of 6,156 Taiwanese expatriates was invited to participate by e-mail - resulting in a valid sample of 389 responses.  The methods of data analysis used in this study consisted of exploratory data analysis (EDA), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), internal consistency reliability, and two-tailed independent t-tests. Findings indicated that variety and autonomy, intrinsic job satisfaction, affective commitment, and normative commitment were identified as having positive significant differences between Taiwanese expatriates who were living with family in China and those not living with family in China. Further study to replicate the research in different countries in order to explore the relationships among job characteristics, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment of expatriates was recommended.

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