The Study on Reverse Culture Shock and Workplace Learning among Chinese Returnees

An increasing number of students have returned to China after graduating from foreign educational institutes. People would face reverse culture shock when returning to their native culture after having lived in other countries. South Korea also has observed many returnees after overseas study working in Korea; however, China has a highly increasing number of returnees and provides with more distinct data since Chinese relatively recently interact with foreign countries compared to South Korea. This study aims to examine the impact of reverse culture shock on Chinese returnees’ workplace learning attitudes and activities. In this study, in-depth interviews were conducted with 25 returnees who are currently working in China after having studied in different countries for more than one year in order to identify the impact of reverse culture shock on workplace learning. It was found that returnees who were under a high degree of reverse culture shock after returning to China have a high possibility to have lower workplace learning intentions and less workplace learning activities. The interpersonal factors, control factors, intrapersonal factors and five other factors except the culture similarity factor have been found to affect one’s degree of reverse culture shock. In short, a high degree reverse culture shock may lead to the low intentions on workplace learning and consequently be a barrier to one’s socialization to a new environment. Most of the returnees experienced reverse culture shock after they came back, but those with a positive attitude, and the willingness to adapt to a new environment overcame it much easier