Mittuniversitetet

The current thesis is devoted to study the adjustment of European expatriates in Russia. The research emphasizes the role of social networks, cultural knowledge, and cultural distance in the expatriates’ adjustemnt and their interrelation. To reach a purpose semi-structured interviews with expatriates from such European countries as UK, Germany, Italy, Latvia and Ukraine were conducted. The interviews were analysed based on the concepts of the social network theory by Granovetter, Hofstede’s six dimensions of cross-cultural differences and his two types of cultural knowledge specification stated in the theoretical framework. The findings of this research show the positive influence of social networks and cultural knowledge and partial negative affect of cultural distance on the expatriates’ adjustment. During the process of analysis untested model of chain reaction of considered factors was developed. According to this model through social networks expatriates increase their knowledge about the host country’s culture and as a result reduce the cultural distance between home and host cultures and lead to the successful adjustment. The investigation of expatriates’ adjustment from only European region is the main limitation of this research. In the future it is recommended to examine expatriates’ adjustment in Russia from other regions of the world.