Assessing global satisfaction of Portuguese expatriate workers using PLSc-SEM

The impacts of globalization and changes in the paradigms of the international workforce have led to an increasing trend in the number of expatriates (either those who do so by decision of the company for which they work, or those who do so on their own initiative). This reality applies to Portuguese expatriate workers, with positive and negative points for the development of their career and personal life. For a better understanding of this phenomenon, a survey was carried out using a questionnaire (validated in previous studies) with manifest variables expressed in a Likert-type scale of seven categories, which resulted in a sample of 207 observations. We used the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to study the relationship between the available latent variables and we applied the consistent Partial Least Squares (PLSc) estimator, which provides a correction for estimates and retains some of the advantages of the traditional PLS, to estimate the proposed reflective model. The results obtained show that for Portuguese expatriate workers the Personal Satisfaction and Satisfaction with Destination Country have a statistically significant direct effect on their Global Satisfaction.