Abstract: Repatriation adjustment is the readjustment of expatriates after they return to the parent enterprise. Expatriates need experience readjustment process due to cross cultural influence. However, repatriation adjustment is often ignored by Multinational Corporations, and result in the phenomenon that the repatriates' creativity and innovation capability cannot be effectively utilized. Therefore, it is necessary to uncover the impact mechanism of repatriation adjustment on repatriates' innovation behavior.We first analyze the meaning of repatriation adjustment, and classify repatriation adjustment into three dimensions, which are work adjustment,interaction adjustment and general adjustment. Specifically, work adjustment is the degree that repatriates adapt to the assigned work or task, and interaction adjustment is the degree that repatriates adapt to the interpersonal relationships with other employees, while general adjustment refers to the adaption of repatriates to the non-working environment. Second, we discuss the theoretical background and hypotheses, and put forwarded eleven hypotheses and a moderated mediation model. On the one hand, we analyze the impact of work adjustment, interaction adjustment and general adjustment on repatriates' innovation behavior, and suggest that three dimensions of repatriation adjustment are all positively related to repatriates' innovation behavior. On the other hand, we explore the mediation role of knowledge transfer as well as the moderation role of creative self-efficacy in the relationships between repatriation adjustment and repatriates' innovation behavior, and then we propose that knowledge transfer mediates the links of work adjustment, interaction adjustment, general adjustment and repatriates' innovation behavior, and creative self-efficacy moderates the relationship between knowledge transfer and repatriates' innovation behavior. Third, in order to examine the hypotheses, we conduct an empirical study, and issue the questionnaires to 300 repatriates and their 53 leaders coming from 20 Multinational Corporations in China. We receive 197 matching questionnaires, after deleting the incomplete ones, we obtain 160 valid questionnaires. By conducting confirmatory factor analysis, the discriminant validity are assessed, and variable's mean, standard deviation and correlations are calculated, and then, hierarchical regression analyses are applied to examine the main effect, mediating effect and moderating effect, while bootstrapping method are used to prove the moderated mediation effect. Lastly,the results confirm that work adjustment, interaction adjustment and general adjustment are the important antecedents of repatriates' knowledge transfer, and they all have significant positive effect on knowledge transfer, while knowledge transfer in turn has significant positive impact on repatriates' innovation behavior. Moreover, the results indicate that knowledge transfer plays a partial mediation role between work adjustment, interaction adjustment, general adjustment and repatriates' innovation behavior. Therefore, work adjustment, interaction adjustment, general adjustment not only have direct impact on repatriates' innovation behavior, but also have indirect effect on repatriates' innovation behavior via the mediation of knowledge transfer. This result, on the one hand, expands the existing research about the relationship between repatriation adjustment and repatriates' innovation behavior, and enriches the repatriation theory of Multinational Corporations; on the other hand, further proves that repatriation adjustment plays a vital role in facilitating repatriates' innovation behavior, and uncover the black box that how three dimensions of repatriation adjustment promote repatriates' innovation behavior through the mediation of knowledge transfer. Furthermore,from the perspective of social cognitive theory, we take the psychological factor of creative self-efficacy as a moderator variable. The results show that creative self-efficacy plays moderation role in the relationship between knowledge transfer and repatriates' innovation behavior, and moderates the mediated relationships between each dimensions of repatriation adjustment and repatriates' innovation behavior via knowledge transfer. This means that knowledge transfer can facilitate repatriates' innovation behavior, but knowledge transfer alone cannot lead to innovation. Therefore, the innovation behavior can occur only when repatriates are willing to transfer knowledge and have high creative self-efficacy. The result will further expand the existing research on innovation behavior, and reveal the boundary condition that how creative self-efficacy affects on innovation behavior.

Key words: repatriation adjustment, knowledge transfer, innovation behavior, creative self-efficacy