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Fostering overseas success: A meta-analysis 93 performance (e.g., relationship management), prosocial behaviors (e.g., helping), and expatriate-specific behaviors (e.g., knowledge transfer; Caligiuri, 1997; Harrison & Shaffer, 2005). These criteria could have partially similar and partially different relationships with social support. 5.3 Social Support Expatriates and their families face the challenge of adjusting to a new physical, cultural, and work environment. The changes in work and family roles associated with these transitions deplete an expatriate’s resources (e.g., time, energy, emotions). Simultaneously, spouses and other family members experience a disruption of their established social network, often resulting in feelings of isolation, loneliness, depression, and stress (Copeland & Norrell, 2002). Under such dire circumstances, social support becomes increasingly important (Viswesvaran, Sanchez, & Fisher, 1999). Emotional, informational, and instrumental support may aid expatriates and their families in managing the international transition by replenishing their psychological resources, widening the pool of available resources, and replacing or reinforcing resources that are lacking (Halbsleben, 2006; Hobfoll, 1988). Many different theories have been used to explain the relationship between social support and expatriate success criteria. We identified and integrated the three most dominant theoretical perspectives into a single explanatory framework (see Figure 5.1). First, social capital and social network theories (e.g., Adler & Kwon, 2002; Lin, 1999; Seibert, Kraimer, & Liden, 2001) explain the support-success relationship from a relatively broad perspective. In general, these theories propose that valuable resources are embedded within social networks and that expatriates may access and leverage these resources when needed. The left part of Figure 5.1 represents these social networks, where a variety of supportive agents provides social resources (e.g., friendship, work advice) which expatriates may leverage to directly stimulate both proximal (e.g., adjustment; Figure 5.1, arrow 1) and distal outcomes (e.g., retention; Figure 5.1, arrow 3). Second, anxiety and uncertainty management theories (e.g., Ashford & Taylor, 1990; Gudykunst & Nishida, 2001) provide a second, more narrow perspective on the support- success relationship. This perspective poses that the transfer to a new cultural environment brings along considerable, straining uncertainty, which may be reduced by social resources that provide information about the context or elements thereof. This theoretical perspective is not limited to specific agents, but does seem focused on informational resources – cross-cultural, normative information in specific. Anxiety/uncertainty reduction involves expatriates using these informational resources to improve their direct psychological state (e.g. adjustment; Figure 5.1, arrow 1), potentially causing positive effects on other criteria in the long-term (e.g. performance, retention; Figure 5.1, arrow 2). A third explanation for the support-success relationship is provided by theories on social exchange (e.g., Gouldner, 1960; Kurtessis, Eisenberger, Ford, Buffardi, Stewart, & Adis, 2017; Raabe & Beehr, 2003; Rousseau, 1989; Seers, 1989). Social exchange theories state that expatriates may engage in exchanges with agents in their social environment. These exchanges influence the balance of the relationship in terms of the perceived and