Encountering Reverse Culture Shock: A Study on Returnee Faculty Members in Universities of Balochistan, Pakistan

Abstract

The study explores the challenges that returnees face at universities in reverse culture shock, role of supervisors’ support and the over all impact on job satisfaction and turnover intentions of the returning faculty members. Returnee-faculty of universities tend to leave their institutions and intend to find a better job after completing their foreign degree. This creates problems for universities in Pakistan regarding retaining employees after completion of their degrees abroad. This quantitative research is based on survey data, collected from 160 respondents. Snowball sampling technique was used to collect the data and was analyzed using PLS-SEM technique. Results indicated that the reverse culture shock faced by the returnee-faculty of universities of Baluchistan has a negative impact on job satisfaction and a positive impact on their turnover intentions. However, perceived managerial support does not impact the relationship between reverse culture shock-job satisfaction and reverse culture shock-turnover intention relationships. The findings suggest that the repatriation process of faculty returning after completing degrees from other counties should be made more compatible with the professional and intellectual needs of these faculty members, so that the employee turnover rate in Universities in Pakistan could be reduced.