Cultural shock or shocking culture: An exploration of the main obstacles encountering Syrian newly returned academic staff from abroad

This study explores and empirically investigates and classifies the major reverseculture shock aspects, difficulties that Syrian returning academics encounter once they come back to their sending universities, and their previous cultural exposure when they studied abroad. The data is collected using a questionnaire developed for the purpose of this study and distributed to more than one hundred academics who returned within the past 49 months to Damascus University. Seventy eight academics responded. From the perspective of newly appointed academic staff, the questionnaires basically investigate the extent of study abroad exposure, aspects of reveres cultural shock, and major difficulties academics face from the date of returning until the date of being a full member of academic staff. A cross-sectional comparative analysis based on personal information is accomplished. To further investigate the three dimensions of the study, both factor and cluster analysis are employed. The results are presented in a three dimensional grid models. This study is the first analytical study in this field in the Syrian higher education sector. However, it is limited to data collected from only one public university in Syria. Implicitly, the study highlights the importance of maintaining academic staff attheir institutions. It also provides suggestions and recommendations to university managers for better elimination of the high risk of brain drain in developing countries.