Purpose: The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how self- initiated expatriates (SIEs) integrate themselves into the foreign workplace, adapt to a new life, and be competent for their jobs. The following research questions are proposed: What are the relationships among cultural intelligence (CQ), perceived insider status, overseas work adjustment, and in-role performance with respect to SIEs? Can perceived insider status and work adjustment sequentially mediate the positive relationship between CQ and in-role performance? Can perceive organizational support moderate the indirect relationship between CQ and in-role performance via perceived insider status and overseas work adjustment such that the indirect relationship becomes stronger when perceived organizational support increases? Method: Due to the specificity of our target participants, an online questionnaire was established and delivered through the Internet via the Facebook community site, email, and communication software. A screening question was designed in the demographic section to check if the participants were self-initiated expatriates or corporate expatriates. In addition, a lucky draw was planned to encourage participation. SEM was applied for data analysis and latent moderated structural equation (LMS) was used for moderated mediation analysis. Results: We analyzed the data and tested the hypotheses using SEM via Mplus 8.3. A bootstrapping method was used to evaluate the direct and indirect effects. For the moderated mediation hypothesis, we followed the procedures for testing moderated mediation as described by Cheung and Lau (2017). The results indicated that perceived insider status and overseas work adjustment sequentially mediated the relationship between CQ and in- role performance. In addition, the moderated mediated effect of perceived organizational support was also supported. The conditional effect at various levels of POS was plotted with the Johnson-Neyman technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...