Drawing from the Job Characteristics Model, this study elucidates the joint effects of job autonomy and job clarity on expatriate academics’ job satisfaction and explores if the combined effects of job autonomy and job clarity vary depending on perceived cultural novelty. Based on a sample of 428 expatriate academics, we test our hypotheses using moderated polynomial regression and response surface analysis. Findings show that job satisfaction was highest when both job autonomy and job clarity were pronounced. In a situation of imbalance, higher levels of job satisfaction were found when job clarity exceeded job autonomy, indicating that job clarity is more important than job autonomy. Further, analyses provide tentative support for the moderating role of perceived cultural novelty, thus, showing that the relative importance of job clarity for job satisfaction increased/decreased when perceived cultural novelty was high/low.