Why do self-initiated expatriates quit their jobs: The role of job embeddedness and shocks in explaining turnover intentions

Retaining self-initiated expatriates is a challenge for many organizations. Self-made expatriates tend to be mobile. They are willing to manage their own careers and to take up opportunities to live and work in countries of their own choice. Despite their importance as a source of human capital there are few studies on the work experiences of self-initiated expatriates and on the factors that affect their decisions to stay or leave their jobs. This article examined the effects of both job embeddedness and shocks on the turnover intention of self-initiated expatriates. Drawing on a sample of 204 self-initiated expatriates working in public healthcare organizations in the United Arab Emirates we found that both on-the-job embeddedness and shocks played a key role in predicting turnover intentions. The study also revealed that off-the-job embeddedness moderated the relationship between shock and turnover intentions such that self-initiated expatriates were more likely to consider leaving their organizations when they were firmly embedded in their community. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings.     

Person-environment fit and emotional control: Assigned expatriates vs. self-initiated expatriates

Studies exploring the difference of assigned expatriates (AEs) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) have recently started to emerge. However, so far few results have been connected to theory developed in this area. In the current study, we use responses from 324 business expatriates in China and take departure in the two elements of the person-environment fit theory, supplementary fit and complementary fit. We use the supplementary fit element of this theory to explain why emotional control (low dispositional anger and high self-control) increases performance and satisfaction in China. We rely on the complementary element of person-environment fit theory for understanding why this effect may vary between AEs and SIEs. Our argument is that as opposed to SIEs, AEs could add contact and knowledge from the parent company to the local organization thus complementing it. Our findings, with regard to supplementary fit, show that self-control has a positive association with both job performance and job satisfaction while trait anger has a negative effect on job satisfaction. In relation to complementary fit, also as expected, we found a buffering moderation effect of being AE, meaning that the negative effect of their trait anger on job satisfaction was diminished for this group.     

How host organizations prepare for and learn from expatriate assignments

This article reveals what goes on inside host organizations prior to and during expatriate assignments. On the basis of analyzing organizational documents and conducting 43 interviews with host country nationals (HCNs) and expatriates in 30 Vietnamese organizations that host external foreign assignments, we provide a detailed account of HCNs' experiences and unearth sophisticated preparation and management activities designed to maximize these organizations' learning. We depict what we call “a host organization lifecycle” and extract five lessons: (a) host organizations prepare carefully in advance to learn as much as possible from expatriates; (b) HCNs experience quite dramatic adjustments and burdens during expatriates' placements; (c) mutual trust between expatriates and HCNs is a prerequisite for HCNs' learning; (d) most of HCNs' learning occurs informally via interactions with expatriates or observing how they work; (e) host organization managers actively manage HCN–expatriate relationships. Our findings outline a “wish list” of practices that expatriate‐using organizations could consider deploying for expatriate assignments that focus on the benefit of the host organization' development.     

Who is an expat-preneur? Toward a better understanding of a key talent sector supporting international entrepreneurship

The conceptualization of immigrant entrepreneurs has recently expanded to consider some of them as a sub-type of self-initiated expatriates that move across national borders to engage in entrepreneurial activities and opportunities. Known as “expat-preneurs,” and in spite of their growing numbers, this segment of the immigrant entrepreneur population has received far less attention than other types of immigrants in the international and diaspora entrepreneurship literature, and even less attention in the self-initiated expatriate field of study. In this article, we seek to address the gap in empirical studies about expat-preneurs as an important, albeit under-researched, segment of the immigrant entrepreneur and self-initiated expatriate diaspora. While we acknowledge that there may be controversy as to how our entrepreneurship lens is accepted in the international entrepreneurship domain, we see particular value in engaging with the ongoing and emerging discussion within JIEN about what international entrepreneurship can be. To advance the study of expat-preneurs from a theoretical standpoint, we demonstrate empirically that aggregating various kinds of self-initiated expatriates without first ensuring that they are demographically comparable (i.e., that there can be different types) can potentially contribute to poor construct clarity and validity about this field of research in general. More importantly, it can diminish the important role of expat-preneurs in particular within the international entrepreneurship domain, for example, by ignoring that their motivation to engage in entrepreneurial activity differs from the majority of necessity-based diaspora entrepreneurs. To illustrate our point, we surveyed self-initiated expatriates in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore and compared personal characteristics. We found differences regarding their age, position, time in current job in the host location, time as an expatriate, and time in the host location overall to suggest that not all self-initiated expatriates are the same. While we found no intergroup differences for educational level, gender, or marital status, clear distinctions emerged showing that expat-preneurs are different from company-employed self-initiated expatriates. We discuss theoretical implications arising from these findings.     

Why are women left at home: are they unwilling to go on international assignments?

Increasing numbers of women may be climbing the corporate ladder, but when it comes to sending managers on overseas assignments, women are staying home. Is it that women are not interested in international careers, that for some reason companies are reluctant to send women abroad, or that women in foreign countries experience prejudice that prevents them from being effective on their jobs? Our results, based on an extensive survey of female expatriates and their supervisors, indicate that the key may lie in the significantly different views the women and their supervisors hold on the women’s interest in pursuing international assignments and in their expectations concerning the prejudice they are likely to encounter. In short, these parties typically do not openly discuss the issues surrounding this important management decision. In addition to presenting the results of our survey, this article discusses strategies to encourage companies to consider women for international assignments and that women can use to increase their chances of being considered. It also presents suggestions for future research.     

Contemporary Sports Marketing

Abstract

The term ?sports marketing“ developed in the United States as a way to analyze and implement strategies in which innovative as well as tried and true marketing techniques are used to financially support amateur and professional sports. With costs increasing, purveyors of ports must look for additional revenue beyond ticket sales and television fees. Corporations are searching for ways to increase the effective use of the advertising dollar. The partnership of the two parties has never been stronger than today, in the U.S. and abroad. In fact, sports collectively currently make up the 11th largest industry in the country. This article reviews the various aspects of the sports marketing mix including sponsorships, partnerships, the athlete, as well as the upcoming role of the web. The implications to corporations, the rising female athlete, and future challenges and opportunities are discussed     

Are Corporate Career Development Activities Les Available to Female Than to Male Expatriates?

Despite the growing interest in female expatriates, few empirical studies have focussed on corporate career development activities available to women. Given the faltering corporate support for female business expatriates in general, one may presume that such organizational activities are less available to women than to men. To test this proposition, a large number of Western female and male business expatriates assigned to Hong Kong responded to a mail survey. Controlling for differences between the two gender groups, three significant gender differences were found, all indicating a lower availability of these corporate activities to women than to men, partially supporting expectations. These corporate career development activities were fast track programs, individual career counseling and career planning workshops. Implications of these findings for globalizing firms as well as for their female employees are discussed in detail.     

Social support abroad: How do self-initiated expatriates gain support through their social networks?

On arrival, expatriates need to establish new social ties in order to succeed in the host country. In this study, we are investigating the social networks of self-initiated expatriates, focusing on the process of how they source social support. Building on information seeking theory, we have created a model connecting specific characteristics of network members (host country knowledge, employment status and host country origin) with the frequency of contact and support they provide. The model was tested through multilevel mediation analysis on 165 expatriates and their 575 network members. We contribute to the existing knowledge on expatriate networks by a theoretically driven categorization of network members and a detailed empirical analysis on the level of a relationship/tie. Our results show that expatriates rely on different network members for different types of support. Practical implications include the use of mentors to facilitate expatriate access to higher status individuals who can offer important support.     

中国国际投资引力、动力和惯性分析

对国际投资引力、动力和惯性的研究表明,我国国际投资的引力和动力虽在不断增加但系数仍然较小,国际投资惯性基本处于零投资惯性阶段。而与此同时,发达国家的国际投资引力和动力却在不断增加,且其国际投资惯性已从零投资惯性向正投资惯性转变。当前,中国已由一个引进外资的国家逐渐转向对外投资的国家,因此有必要进一步提高中国的国际投资引力和动力系数,保持国际投资的持续性,克服国际投资中的短期行为,强调引进外资规模的适度性。     

Why Do Gen Y Students Study Abroad? Individual Growth and the Intent to Study Abroad

We propose that Generation Y college students’ motivations to study abroad are rooted in the desire for individual growth, which, combined with other motivation factors—gender, parents’ educational level, prior international experience, age, and household income—drives the intent to study abroad. The study samples juniors and seniors in business majors, thereby attempting to shorten the temporal distance between study abroad intent and action. A significant number of students declare intent to study abroad as freshmen, yet fail to act on those intentions when the opportunity presents itself a year or two later. Results showed that the desire for individual growth was significantly and positively related to Gen Y business students’ intention to study abroad. Students’ prior experience visiting foreign countries and younger age positively moderated the effect of the desire for individual growth on intent to study abroad. The time lag between intent and action, and the fact that study abroad is a high involvement activity creates promotional challenges on how to best promote study abroad to Gen Y students. The article suggests practical implications and suggests how schools might increase study abroad participation among Gen Y college students.     

Entrepreneurs and internationalization: A study of Western immigrants in an emerging market

Our interview-based study began as an investigation of Westerners residing in Vietnam. Our sample fell into three groups: local expatriates, expatriate entrepreneurs, and hybrids (those who worked for a multinational while owning a local company). Based on this finding, we re-examined the data to explore expatriates as employers. Two themes emerged. The first revealed expatriate entrepreneurs and hybrids as active market players who were competitors for local talent and/or potential local distributors or partners in Vietnam. The second theme indicated a parallel process: the internationalization of firms entering a foreign market and the internationalization of individuals entering that same market. Our contribution is the opening of the ‘homogeneous’ black box of Western immigrants and the expansion of the concept of the expatriate entrepreneur, thus reinserting the role of the individual in the process of firm internationalization.     

International Executives,Identity Strategies and Mobility in France and China

The strategies of multinational firms increasingly rely in Asia Pacific Region on processes of socialising their employees, who are seeking to develop and reinforce a “global” company culture, without endangering the cultures of local subsidiaries. Specialists have coined the term “cross-cultural management”. A role of “company ambassador” is allocated to a new generation of international executives in Asia whose mission will be to play an effective role as interface between head office its the subsidiaries – and between the subsidiaries themselves – once they have been suitably “impregnated” with the company culture and the particular features of different markets.

The repeated experience of international mobility that executives live through means that the individual may well be living in conflict with previous identities. It is true to say that nobody stays long in an internationally mobile situation without running the risk of there being strong divergence between the domestic and residential worlds, the life of the community and the world of the company. This article has been written as a result of in-depth research into the way executives of a large French oil company built up their identities and as a result of a study examines intercultural learning based on French expatriates' experience in China. We consider how French expatriates experience China and what imaginary underlies their perception. Analysis of daily socialization and interaction processes shows intercultural competence develops along distinct immersion stages: immersion–adjustment, immersion–comprehension, and immersion–integration. Individually, adjustment and comprehension support intercultural practice. The ultimate immersion stage leads to enlightened pragmatism stemming from “nomadic intelligence”. Where a researcher in the social sciences or a business man might have expected to have found an homogenous international elite, international executives building an “international system”, the heterogeneous nature of the identity strategies of international executives give the lie to the myth of the large company as a space for the irreversible assimilation of its members. At an individual level, being an international executive is a unique way of living the experience abroad, or rather, several different ways of experiencing identity strategies linked to the manipulation of one's ethnicity in a context of significant geographical and functional mobility.     

Successful female expatriates as agents: Positioning oneself through gender,hierarchy, and culture

While most studies on female expatriates take a structural approach, this study considers female expatriates as active agents, capable of producing effective professional identities when interacting with men. We propose that female expatriates are agents who selectively interpret interactions with male actors and actively position themselves within these interactions. Within these two processes of interpreting and positioning, we examine how they draw from gender, hierarchy and culture as three power-laden identity discourses that not only constrain but also enable their actions. Through the analysis of in-depth interviews with successful female expatriates, we show how these women counter their (perceived) lower status along one identity discourse by strategically positioning themselves through a more empowering identity.     

Of bears, bumble-bees, and spiders: the role of expatriates in controlling foreign subsidiaries

This article investigates the role of expatriate managers in multinational companies. We discuss three key organizational functions of expatriation: position filling, management development, and organization development. In the last function, organization development, international transfers are used as an informal coordination and control strategy through socialization and the building of informal communication networks. The article explores this role of international transfers in greater detail, but also discusses a more formal way in which expatriates can control subsidiaries. The following metaphors for these different control functions of expatriation are introduced: “bear” (formal direct control), “bumble-bee” (socialization), and “spider” (informal communication). A large-scale mail survey offers empirical evidence for the bear, bumble-bee and spider roles and shows under which circumstances they are most effective. Being aware of the different control functions of expatriation and the circumstances under which they are most effective can help managers to use expatriate assignments as a more strategic tool.     

Franchising in African markets: Motivations and challenges from a Sub‐Saharan African country perspective

The purpose of this article is to explore and understand the motivations and challenges of franchising in an African economy. While interest in franchising is increasing in African markets, there is a paucity of research on franchising from the perspective of local African firms participating in these international relationships. The motivations and challenges of franchising from the perspective of African businesses have not been largely investigated so far. Using in‐depth interviews, we allow motivations and challenges at play to emerge. Convenient and snowball sampling techniques were used for choosing the unit of analysis, which resulted in four respondent firms. A thematic approach was adopted for analyzing the data from the field. Support services, brand name, and franchisor's experience are identified to be the motivations for franchising. Financial assistance from the franchisor, demand, and competition also play a key role in an African firm's decision to franchise. Legal constraints and infrastructure constraints were the key challenges faced by franchisees in Ghana. The findings of this study may hold for franchisees in other African markets. However, contextual differences may be considered in the application of these findings.     

How does the negotiation between “me” and “we” in professional identity influence interpersonal horizontal knowledge sharing in multinational enterprises: A conceptual model

Professional identity is an identity that includes two aspects, the personal self (“me”) and the social self (“we”), which are in constant negotiation with each other. The interplay of these two aspects is important because it can shift identity-related motivation and behavior but has received relatively little attention in international business research to date. Recognizing identity dynamics can enrich our understanding of the motivations and behaviors of subsidiary employees in sharing knowledge with overseas colleagues. We develop a conceptual model to reveal the relationship between identity dynamics and interpersonal horizontal knowledge sharing in multinational enterprises. Specifically,- we propose that the different negotiation states between the personal self and the social self of professional identity are related to with whom an employee shares knowledge and what type of knowledge they share. Our article contributes to the knowledge sharing literature by uncovering the psychological mechanisms that influence the behavior of individuals in horizontal knowledge diffusion.     

A multi-dimensional analysis of the subjective well-being of self-initiated expatriates: The case of Nigerian expatriates in Germany

This paper examines the role of four types of influences on the Subjective Well-Being of Nigerian self-initiated expatriates in Germany: (1) Individual, (2) Group, (3) Social, and (4) Organizational. Based on survey data from 377 respondents, we find that variables in all four categories influence subjective well-being. Our findings generally agree with the results predicted by the theory, albeit a few counter-intuitive findings. Above all, our results indicate the potency of social- and group-level influences. The individual- and organizational-level influences, too, are significant, although to a slightly lesser extent. Overall, our results suggest that “soft” factors play an important role in augmenting perceptions about one's own well-being in the context of international assignments.     

Expatriates' identity salience,work stressors,and work–nonwork conflict: Moderating role of gender and marital status

Drawing from identity theory, we proposed individuals with high work salience experienced high work stressors (interpersonal conflict, workhours, and workload), resulting in positive work‐nonwork conflict (WNWC), and individuals with high nonwork salience experienced lower work stressors, resulting in negative WNWC. Furthermore, we tested for the moderating role of gender and marital status in the relationship. The sample for this study consisted of 415 Indian expatriates working in the U.S. information technology (IT) industry. Findings supported the proposed model where work stressors completely conditioned the relationship between work/nonwork salience and WNWC. Work‐salient men worked longer hours compared to work‐salient women and were more prone to WNWC. In married individuals (in both work‐ and nonwork‐salient individuals), increased workload was positively associated with WNWC and long working hours were negatively associated with WNWC. These findings further suggested nonmarried individuals faced more WNWC when compared to married individuals when managing long working hours. Therefore, being married does not necessarily lead to higher levels of all forms of WNWC. Additionally, the participants in this study identified themselves to be more nonwork‐salient. We argue that identity salience predicts role behavioral intentions and emphasize the importance of differentiating expatriates based on their salience. This in turn could help organizations contextualize various challenges faced by work‐ and nonwork‐salient individuals and manage issues in a cost‐effective manner.     

“Should I stay or should I go?”—Why the future of global work may be less binary: Lessons on approaches to global crises from the experiences of expatriates during the COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 has significantly impacted expatriates, affecting their ability to work effectively and their personal and family lives. This study explores their experiences in different phases of the pandemic, and their perspectives on the future of international living in light of such global disruption. Involving over 600 expatriates in 48 countries, the research shows shifts in motivation and priorities as a result of the crisis and reveals how family (extended and immediate) topped expatriates' concerns. The study examines if and how support systems worked and looks at coping mechanisms, skills, traits, previous experience, and attitudes which participants found useful. A common theme was “falling between two stools”—where expatriates were ineligible for support in either their home country or in their host country. Others described being “pulled in different directions” or “torn by a dilemma” with pros and cons in either choice. The study contributes to the questions about the future of global work with results of the survey revealing changing norms for expatriation and global mobility raising the possibility of more nuanced approaches to global projects and less binary options for global professionals and their families.     

Would you work abroad? The effect of English proficiency on Chinese employees’ willingness to accept international assignments

The process of globalization has led to a considerable number of expatriates working abroad. In this article, we investigate whether those with a higher level of English proficiency are more willing to accept international assignments. To examine our hypotheses, we conducted a time-lagged survey of 239 employees from Chinese multinational corporations (MNCs). The results reveal that employees’ English language proficiency is positively related to their willingness to accept international assignments, and that their openness to corporate globalization mediates this relationship. In addition, employees’ foreign language anxiety (FLA) moderates the mediating effect of English language proficiency on willingness to accept international assignments via openness to corporate globalization. Implications and future research directions are discussed.