Structural Equivalence of a Measure of Cross-Cultural Adjustment

Abstract

This study investigated the structural equivalence of a measure of cross-cultural adjustment in culturally dissimilar samples using confirmatory factor analysis. The two samples consisted of 155 international students studying at a midwestern American university and 153 American expatriate managers on assignment in either Taiwan or Belgium. Results indicated that the hypothesized factor structure was invariant and had a relatively good fit in both samples. The implication of these results is that adjustment may have similar dimensions across cultures. If substantiated through future studies, these results would enable researchers to have more confidence in cross-cultural comparisons of mean levels of adjustment or correlations of adjustment with external variables.