Abstract:This article is one of the first to examine the long‐term effect of expatriation on careers, comparing the impact of international work experience on the career success of assigned and self‐initiated expatriates. Our sample consists of employees who were working abroad in 2004, and we examine their subjective and objective career success eight years later. Despite the “dark side of international careers” arguments associated with the repatriation literature, we find that the long‐term impacts of international … Show more
“…Hence, this is a one‐way communications network that tends to die away after the end of the assignment period (Sundström, ; Suvarierol & van den Berg, ). This is in contrast to the extant IA literature (Suutari, Brewster, Dickmann, Mäkelä, & Tornikowski, ).…”
Section: The Role Of Snescontrasting
confidence: 77%
“…In addition, the concentration on expert insights means that the value added to the organization occurs essentially during the foreign work rather than afterward. This is in stark contrast to traditional control and coordination assignments of AEs but also to the common global leadership development initiatives where the value to both individuals and organizations can endure (McNulty & Inkson, ; Suutari et al, ). Overall, the restriction to technical learning affects the outcomes for the individual, home, and host in relation to the short‐ and long‐term value these stakeholders had anticipated. Proposition 3a: In comparison to “traditional” corporate international assignees, SNEs acquire on average fewer leadership and managerial skills . Proposition 3b: The majority of the organizational value created by SNEs arises during the assignment and to the host, whereas the organizational value created by non‐skills‐gap‐filling IAs is spread between the home and the host, and occurs during and after the assignment .…”
Global mobility is an expanding field of academic research, which identifies an increasing range of modern variants of people working abroad. The community of Seconded National Experts (SNEs) in the institutions, bodies, and agencies of the European Union (EU) is a distinct category of internationally mobile employees, which has so far been neglected. This article assesses the features of this influential group of people and compares them to other communities within the generally recognized expatriate community. The unique nature of SNEs and hence the challenges that need to be considered by human resource (HR) practitioners to ensure they achieve their desired goals at organizational and individual levels are identified. The findings suggest that expatriate typologies should be extended to include this unique community and provide further guidance to HR practitioners. Finally, areas for additional research are offered, with the aim of learning from SNEs to extend international assignment theory.
“…Hence, this is a one‐way communications network that tends to die away after the end of the assignment period (Sundström, ; Suvarierol & van den Berg, ). This is in contrast to the extant IA literature (Suutari, Brewster, Dickmann, Mäkelä, & Tornikowski, ).…”
Section: The Role Of Snescontrasting
confidence: 77%
“…In addition, the concentration on expert insights means that the value added to the organization occurs essentially during the foreign work rather than afterward. This is in stark contrast to traditional control and coordination assignments of AEs but also to the common global leadership development initiatives where the value to both individuals and organizations can endure (McNulty & Inkson, ; Suutari et al, ). Overall, the restriction to technical learning affects the outcomes for the individual, home, and host in relation to the short‐ and long‐term value these stakeholders had anticipated. Proposition 3a: In comparison to “traditional” corporate international assignees, SNEs acquire on average fewer leadership and managerial skills . Proposition 3b: The majority of the organizational value created by SNEs arises during the assignment and to the host, whereas the organizational value created by non‐skills‐gap‐filling IAs is spread between the home and the host, and occurs during and after the assignment .…”
Global mobility is an expanding field of academic research, which identifies an increasing range of modern variants of people working abroad. The community of Seconded National Experts (SNEs) in the institutions, bodies, and agencies of the European Union (EU) is a distinct category of internationally mobile employees, which has so far been neglected. This article assesses the features of this influential group of people and compares them to other communities within the generally recognized expatriate community. The unique nature of SNEs and hence the challenges that need to be considered by human resource (HR) practitioners to ensure they achieve their desired goals at organizational and individual levels are identified. The findings suggest that expatriate typologies should be extended to include this unique community and provide further guidance to HR practitioners. Finally, areas for additional research are offered, with the aim of learning from SNEs to extend international assignment theory.
“…Because most multinational corporations do not have clear career‐path strategies for repatriates, the anticipated career progress may not happen (Andreason & Kinneer, ). The research evidence is mixed, and most studies among repatriates have been carried out fairly soon after repatriation, and thus longer term career impacts may be more positive than reported (Suutari et al, ). In the present study, it appeared that among expatriate DCCs, repatriation was usually a positive experience.…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…All the expatriates were sent abroad by their employers and all worked in the private sector (i.e., telecommunications, electronics, fast‐moving consumer goods [FMCG], tobacco, construction, machine building, and banking). The respondents thus represent a group of assigned expatriates in contrast to self‐initiated expatriates who head abroad on their own initiative (Suutari et al, ). On average, the couples were on assignment for 2.6 years, with a minimum time of 1 year and maximum time of 3.5 years.…”
Combining the realities of dual‐career couples (DCCs) and the requirements of international careers can be difficult. In order to improve the understanding of the repatriation experiences of international DCCs, we conducted interviews with both partners in 14 DCCs. Contrary to expectations, the majority of the interviewed couples reported very successful repatriation experiences, and only a few adjustment challenges were raised. The interviews address the factors explaining such repatriation adjustment issues, and also elicit four key factors (active self‐management of the expatriation process, earlier experience of expatriation and repatriation, the successful integration of work life and family life, and the realization of dual‐career interests upon repatriation) connected with successful repatriation adjustment experiences.
“…Systematically transferring insights from career research to the field of repatriation, our study makes several contributions to advance the theoretical understanding of varying career success among former expatriates, thereby helping to improve the strategic integration of IAs and intraorganizational careers. First, corporate IA experiences have often been considered a human capital investment per se (e.g., Benson & Pattie, ; Suutari et al, ). However, while our findings support the applicability of traditional career theory to explaining career outcomes upon repatriation, they emphasize the need to differentiate among IA characteristics when analyzing an IA's human capital implications for objective career success.…”
To increase the long‐term benefits of global mobility for multinational corporations, international assignments and intraorganizational careers must be strategically integrated. However, systematic research on former expatriates' career success upon returning to their home organization remains scarce. Hence, this study transfers findings from the career literature to the repatriation context to identify the predictors of objective and subjective repatriate career success. Integrating traditional and protean career theory, we investigate data from 295 repatriates of publicly listed German organizations. Applying partial least squares structural equation modeling, we reveal that objective career success upon repatriation is affected by international assignment characteristics with human capital implications, repatriation support provided by the organization, and the individual's self‐directed career management. Objective career success, organizational repatriation support, and self‐directed career management further affect subjective career success in terms of career satisfaction. Hence, substantiating an impact of both traditional and protean career factors on repatriate careers, our results lay the groundwork for repatriation strategies that combine organizational and individual career management. In this way, multinational corporations can go beyond managing repatriate elites to make better use of all globally experienced employees.
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