Abstract: | While research suggests a link between individuals' prior international experiences and their future participation in global work, we know little about how and the conditions under which this relationship occurs. Drawing on career motivation theory, we conceptualize global identity as a mediator between individuals' density of prior international experiences—defined as the extent to which time spent in culturally novel countries has provided individuals with developmental opportunities—and their global work aspirations, which in turn leads to their global work involvement. Further, this multi-stage mediation model holds mainly when individuals receive positive feedback regarding their intercultural competencies (i.e., cultural intelligence) from their peers. We test our model using a multi-wave multi-source dataset spanning 6 years. We discuss implications for the literatures on prior international experiences and global careers. |