The effect of international work experience on the career success of expatriates: a comparison of assigned and self-initiated expatriates

Date

2017-07-12

Supervisor/s

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Wiley

Department

Type

Article

ISSN

0090-4848

Format

Citation

Suutari V, Brewster C, Mäkelä L, Dickmann M, Tornikoski C, The effect of international work experience on the career success of expatriates: a comparison of assigned and self-initiated expatriates, Human Resource Management, Volume 57, Issue 1, 2018, pp. 37-54

Abstract

This paper examines 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 work experience on career success are generally positive and mainly unrelated to whether the work experience was acquired as an assigned or self-initiated expatriate. Companies recruit employees with international experience externally but are much more likely to offer further internal jobs to assigned expatriates. This reinforces the need for further research and for companies to see all those with international experience as important elements of the workforce.

Description

Software Description

Software Language

Github

Keywords

Careers, International work experience, Career success, Expatriates, Self-initiated expatriates

DOI

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

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