Cross-Cultural Career Development: East Asian Immigrant Professionals in the U.S.

Abstract: Abstract
East Asian first-generation immigrants in the United States face additional career development challenges in the workplace compared with other groups of employees. For example, native Mandarin speakers in the U.S. lack social networks in multiethnic working environment (Lu, 2022) and lack leadership role models for career development in organizations (Lu et al., 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic also worsened the East Asian role models shortage (Hua et al.,2021) because of organizational downsizing. Untranslatable cross-cultural contextual resources, such as social capital, require them to invest more time and effort to self-reflect and learn the U.S. workplace culture. Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) explains that distal and proximal contextual factors influence individuals’ learning experience produced by the interactions between themselves and the environment (Lent et al., 1994; 2002; Lent & Brown, 2008). Distal factors include race, gender, and economic conditions that expand or limit individuals’ opportunities, and proximal factors encompass the environmental support and challenges such as mentoring and discrimination. The learning experience affects individuals’ career interests, choice, performance (Lent, 2013), work satisfaction and well-being (Lent & Brown, 2006).

East Asian “edu-immigrants” (EAEI) in the U.S., typically formal international students who completed their graduate degrees, secured a long-term employment, and established their permanent residency in the U.S., face unique career development hurdles (Schlosser et al., 2021). For example, native Mandarin speakers with STEM academic backgrounds, are not considered underrepresented minorities (Alfred et al, 2019) when addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion issues. They also are not considered as managerial candidates in the workplace (Leong & Tang, 2016). Nationally, EAEIs have also been directly and indirectly affected by discrimination and visible Asian hate crimes since the pandemic.

In the existing literature, most career development theories, including SCCT, were developed in the western world. Although some studies have explored college students' career development with cultural contextual influences (Dentakos et al., 2017; Gao, 2021; Kantamneni et al., 2018; Liu, 2012; Park & Hald, 2018) in the U.S. and globally (Sheu &Bordon, 2017), only limited research has addressed adult immigrant professionals (Osman-Gani, 2014; Yongo, 2021). The influx of international students from East Asia studying abroad and joining to the U.S. workforce after their graduation has exposed a research void in the current scholarly work. On the other hand, it has also generated an opportunity to examine cross-cultural career development in the workplace.

The purpose of this study is to examine how EAEIs make sense of their career development in the U.S. workplace through the application of SCCT. The four main research questions guiding this study are: (1) Based on EAEIs’ cultural backgrounds, how do they perceive the concepts of career and career development? (2) How do the self-identities of EAEI working professionals create perceived advantages and disadvantages in the workplace? (3) What career development obstacles do EAEI working professionals face? (4)What resources do they use to facilitate their career development? To answer these questions, a basic qualitative research design (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016) will guide the study to uncover and interpret individuals’ experiences, in particular focus on how uniquely each EAEI is affected by contextual factors.

Semi-structured interviews are currently being conducted in order to collect rich information by recruiting the participants using a purposeful snowball sampling strategy (Patton, 2015). The criteria for the participants include being 18 years or older, having a graduate degree in the U.S., and having 5-10 years of working experience and currently residing in the U.S. To ensure the rigor of the study, a pilot study invited one EAEI to test the research instrument and process, followed by 10-20 semi-structured 60-minute virtual interviews via Zoom until the study reaches its data saturation. A thematic analysis will be used for analyzing interview data. The initial 12 codes are generated from literature is first used for deductive thematic analysis (Swain, 2018). Then, contexts beyond the 12 codes coverage will be analyzed with inductive thematic data analysis. To establish the study's trustworthiness, a member checking, two stages of memoing, and a codebook development with two other doctoral students will be executed.

The findings of this study will expand HRD career development topics in the cross-cultural workforce with EAEIs, and further develop SCCT in career development through a cross-cultural lens. These two contributions will fill the current HRD and career development research gap in addressing cross-cultural issues within career development (Osman-Gani, 2014; Stebleton & Eggerth, 2012). Finally, this study will further explore SCCT applications in the career development of immigrants who study abroad and establish their personal and professional life in the U.S.