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Chapter 5 92 affect the extent to which they can and will – formally or informally – provide information, knowledge, emotional counselling, mentoring, supervision, or task assistance. The primary purpose of this meta-analysis is to clarify and quantify the impact of different forms of social support on expatriate success. Scholars have examined the social support of many different agents as well as multiple indicators of success. Our meta- analysis culminates these various results into an overarching understanding of the agents providing social support, their differential effects on success criteria, and the moderating influences of mobility status and physical proximity on these relationships. The next section discusses the criteria of expatriate success considered in this meta-analysis, the theoretical linkages between social support and expatriate success, and our resulting hypotheses. 5.2 Success Criteria The success of international assignments has been studied for several decades. Traditionally, assignments were considered successful as long as the expatriate remained overseas for the proposed duration of the assignment (e.g., Tung, 1987). Following a focus on completion of assignment as a criterion, Black, Mendenhall, and Oddou’s seminal paper (1991) was the start of cross-cultural adjustment as the dominant criterion of expatriate success. For a long time, adjustment, performance, and assignment completion were regarded as interchangeable measures. More recently, scholars proposed that these constructs are unique aspects of expatriate success that need to be studied separately. Moreover, scholars started to study expatriate success using more fine-grained cognitive and behavioral measures (Caliguiri, 1997; Harrison & Shaffer, 2005; Lazarova & Thomas, 2012; Thomas & Lazarova, 2006). Via meta-analysis, we can explore how these success criteria differ in terms of effect size, strength, and boundaries of their relationship with social support. This meta-analysis sought to approach expatriate success in a broad sense and to disentangle and quantify the effects of different types of support on the various success criteria. In order to balance between psychological processes and organizational outcomes, we included both dominant proximal criteria (adjustment and commitment) as well as distal criteria (performance and retention) of success. Starting with assignment completion and expatriate retention, scholars have mostly examined expatriates’ psychological withdrawal from the international assignment, from the host country/organization, or from the organization as a whole (Guzzo et al., 1994). Cross- cultural adjustment, referring to the psychological comfort that individuals experience while living abroad, has been studied in relation to the general culture, to interactions with host country nationals, and to work specifically (Black et al., 1991). Organizational commitment regards expatriates’ beliefs in organizational goals and values as well as their desire to remain a member of the organization (Mowday, Porter, & Steers, 1982). Three dimensions of commitment are often considered: affective commitment, involving the emotional attachment to the organization, continuance commitment, related to the perceived costs of leaving, and normative commitment, referring to a perceived obligation to the organization (Meyer & Allen, 1991). Expatriates’ performance behaviors involve many different aspects, including technical aptness (e.g., task expertise), managerial