Expatriate management in hostile environments from a multi-stakeholder perspective – a systematic review
ISSN: 2049-8799
Article publication date: 30 May 2020
Issue publication date: 12 June 2020
Abstract
Purpose
The successful management of business expatriates and their families in hostile environments (HE) is a current concern for academics and human resources (HR) practitioners alike. Terrorism and other forms of violent crime have become salient topics on the public agenda, and international organizations are increasingly affected. Hence, scholarly interest in the HR implications for organizations sending staff to HEs has recently grown, and a nascent research area has emerged. This paper is the first systematic review synthesizing emerging literature in the field of expatriate management in HEs and its theoretical foundations, applying a multi-stakeholder perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Following accepted review procedures, systematic searches were conducted across three major databases. Manual search in target journals provided additional scrutiny.
Findings
After analysing 28 articles, four main stakeholders were identified as follows: environments, expatriates, assigning organizations and the expatriates' social networks. Findings reveal the ways of how all stakeholders can affect expatiation success or be affected so that the success of the assignment is jeopardised.
Originality/value
Our paper illustrates how these diverse articles can be linked within a comprehensive multi-stakeholder framework and provides avenues for future research. We also shift attention to neglected theoretical perspectives that might further improve the understanding of expatriates in HEs while offering actionable guidance for managerial and organizational practices.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC-2029538).
Citation
Faeth, P.C. and Kittler, M.G. (2020), "Expatriate management in hostile environments from a multi-stakeholder perspective – a systematic review", Journal of Global Mobility, Vol. 8 No. 1, pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-07-2019-0035
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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