No abstract

The study of self‐initiated expatriates (SIEs) has gained pace in the last decade, focusing on these individuals, their motivations, their behaviours and their relevance to the global workforce. Published works produced between 1996 and 2011 are reviewed. A thematic analysis indicates that key topics of focus in current research cover: characteristics of the self‐initiated and their work‐related experiences and management; comparative studies of company‐backed versus self‐initiated expatriation and the self‐initiated as global talent flow. This paper identifies a need for clarification of the construct of SIEs, expands on the theoretical perspectives used to examine SIEs and offers a framework to facilitate coherence in the direction of future research and the application of knowledge to practice in this field of study.

The return that organizations derive from investments in information systems

This paper explores the motives of individuals to accept international assignments. It uses a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods to further our understanding of how important a variety of items are in the decision to work abroad. Employing a mutual dependency perspective it contrasts individual motives and organizational perspectives. Organizations significantly underestimate the importance of career, work/life balance and development considerations and overestimate the financial imperative and some family motives. The analysis showed that for individuals some of these factors significantly relate to outcome variables in terms of the perceived career capital accrued from assignments. The paper presents a more nuanced picture of influence factors on the decision to go and advocates the use of contextsensitive, multiple perspectives. Practical implications for multinational organizations are discussed.

Purpose: This paper moves towards clarification of the self-initiated expatriate/expatriation construct with the aim of extending and deepening theory development in the field. Design/Methodology/Approach: Drawing on Suddaby's (2010) think piece on construct clarity, this paper applies his proposed four elements; definitional clarity, scope conditions, relationships between constructs and coherence, in order to clarify the SIE construct. Findings: The discussion examines the 'problem of definition' and its impact on SIE scholarship. The spatial, temporal and value-laden constraints which must be considered by SIE scholars are expounded, and the links between SIE research and career theory are developed. From this, potential research agendas are proposed. Originality/Value: Although the definitional difficulties of SIEs have been identified in previous literature, this is the first attempt to clarify the boundaries of SIE and its interconnectedness with other related constructs.