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This paper aims: to undertake a systematic literature review on SIEs, examining twenty years of literature published between 2000 and 2020, focusing on the most-cited empirical work in the field; to analyse the topics covered by these studies; and to propose a research agenda.

We conducted a systematic literature review, identifying the 20 most-cited empirical articles through citation analysis during the period and, because citations accrue over time, the six most-cited empirical articles of the last three years. We then used content analysis to examine the main themes they address and identify the research gaps.

The most common themes addressed in the SIE literature are: analysis of the types and distinctions of SIEs, motivation to undertake self-initiated expatriation, SIEs' adjustment to the new country, and SIEs' careers and outcomes.

This paper provides a first opportunity to look back at 20 years of research into a relatively new topic, highlighting the main research themes and knowledge gaps, and setting directions for future research. The paper expands knowledge on SIEs, assisting SIE scholars and IHRM practitioners to develop a global, critical understanding of SIEs' issues, and hopefully energising future research in this field.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the contextual determinants of transition from expatriation to migration (TEM) among ministers of religion originating from the developing world.

The authors used in-depth analysis of narratives of four African religious ministers working in France, plus interviews with their five superiors and three host country national colleagues.

The findings point to personal-level, organisational-level and country-level contextual determinants, which come into play as levers or barriers in the “TEM” process.

The study identifies a new category of global mobility research at the intersection of expatriation and migration and develops a theoretical framework which points to the positive and negative influence of three-layered contextual determinants on how expatriated low-status church ministers from the developing world become migrants. The authors found a so far unreported determinant of the personal context: the role of a world view: very visible as “God centrality” in the participants. Results also shed new light on the international careers of this overlooked category of “non-traditional expatriates” from Africa.

This paper aims to conceptualise a framework of “transnational human resource management” (HRM) and to demonstrate the validity of the model.

Evidence is drawn from survey of 93 large Japanese multinational companies (MNCs). Data are analysed through descriptive statistics, hierarchical multiple regression analyses and mediation effect analyses.

The analysis reveals that the practices for normative and systems integration are associated with increasing levels of social capital and geocentric staffing, respectively, and the social capital and geocentric staffing fully mediate the relationship between normative and systems integration and transnationality.

The research extends the integration theory in international HRM and demonstrates the validity of our framework for transnational HRM. The authors also shed light on the reality of the integration aspects of international HRM in Japanese MNCs.

This study explores whether expatriation type (assigned expatriates (AEs) versus self-initiated expatriates (SIEs)) is linked to job exhaustion via possible differences in required efforts for their jobs and the rewards they gain from them, and/or the balance between efforts and rewards. Adopting effort–reward imbalance (ERI) and job demands/resources (JD-R) theories, the authors study the possible role of ERI as a mediator between expatriation type and job exhaustion.

An online survey was carried out in co-operation with two Finnish trade unions, providing representative data from 484 assigned and SIEs. The authors test this study’s hypotheses through latent structural equation modelling, and the analysis was conducted with Stata 17.0 software.

The results show that ERI between them are correlated with the job exhaustion of expatriates in general and there are no direct links between expatriation type and job exhaustion. The required effort from AEs was higher than that from SIEs though no difference was found for rewards, and the match between effort demands and rewards is less favourable for AEs than SIEs. AEs experienced higher job exhaustion than SIEs because of the higher effort demands and greater imbalance between efforts and rewards.

The study examines the work well-being of two types of expatriates and explores the underlying mechanisms that may explain why they may differ from each other.

This paper aims to discuss multiple uses of the concept of “bubble” as a metaphor to refer to different experiences of foreign working communities and suggests a more flexible and comprehensive approach.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at different locations, the authors propose changing the use of the bubble metaphor from an analogy of living in isolation to a way of conceptualising the changing contexts and characteristics that impact the porosity and permeability of communities.

The paper suggests that when using the metaphor as a concept, the following considerations need to be taken into account: (1) the conventional thinking that “expat-bubbles” are isolated places, (2) any simplistic notion that different internationally mobile workers will be less or more immersed in the local community and (3) the use of the bubble metaphor without a careful delineation and reference to its permeability and porosity.

The paper helps to visualise a different dimension of the traditional taken-for-granted representation of the bubble. The bubble emerges as a rich analogical concept not to explain binomial representations of integration-separation. Rather than a simple “open” or “closed”, bubbles became more or less porous and permeable depending on the experiences of foreign working communities.

The pandemic emphasised the importance for society of the “hidden” workforce – cleaners, delivery drivers, security guards or hospital porters. This paper explores the well-being of low-status expatriates in the international workplace exemplified by the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This is one of the first studies examining the well-being of people at the bottom of the pyramid, living in difficult circumstances, and undertaking work that is hard and sometimes dangerous.

The authors adopt an exploratory approach. Using semi-structured interview data from 21 low-status expatriates, the authors examine their experiences in the UAE in relation to their well-being, allowing the authors to suggest the need to develop our understanding of the concept of well-being and the concept's application.

Low-status expatriates live restrictive lives, away from their family and friends for extended periods, and subject to rigid terms and conditions of employment. Difficult circumstances, long working hours, late or arbitrarily reduced salary payment and a lack of voice affect their personal well-being and sacrificed to consideration for their family well-being. Applying the concept of well-being in such cases requires the authors to develop the notion beyond the individual to encompass the wider family.

This exploratory analysis opens new avenues for well-being studies and highlights the need for contextualised research. Future research might benefit from quantitative methods being used alongside qualitative methods and collecting multiple perspective data, including the views of managers and policy makers and data from the “left-behind” families of these low-status expatriates.

There is plenty of scope for managers of low-status expatriates to improve the latter's well-being. Given the lack of interest in doing so, the authors suggest that policy makers may need to modify extant legalisation to ensure a greater focus on low-status expatriates.

The authors believe this to be the first study to examine the impact of family orientation on the well-being of low-status expatriates, encouraging the authors to challenge and suggest developments to current understandings of well-being.

This study aims to examine whether and why subsidiary-unit managers’ prior international work experiences across multinational enterprises’ (MNEs) home and host countries impact their subsidiary-unit performance, considering the mediating effect of their advice networks.

A survey on 222 subsidiary-unit managers (154 parent country nationals [PCNs] and 68 host country nationals [HCNs]) of a Korean MNE operating in China, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Hungary and Slovakia was conducted. The authors analyzed the data using partial least square structural equation modeling, multigroup analysis and bootstrapping techniques.

PCN subsidiary managers with more prior international work experience manage better-performing units due to the strength of the manager’s advice networks across local parties. However, for HCN subsidiary managers, this study did not find such mediating roles of the size and strength of their advice networks in the MNE home country.

This study provides novel insights and empirical evidence about the effect of the length of prior international work experience of subsidiary managers on their advice-seeking networks and subsidiary-unit performance. In addition, it draws on and add to social capital theory about how international work experience impacts dealing with local businesses and the relationship with corporate headquarters.

The evolution of firm level practices over time has always been a keen area of interest for management scholars. However, in comparison to other social scientists, particularly economists, the relative dearth of firm level panel data sets has restricted the methodological options for exploring inter-temporal changes.

This paper applies a pseudo panel methodology to investigate the evolution of training spend at the firm level over time.

The analysis is framed within a varieties of capitalism lens and by adopting a more meaningful approach to examining changes over time it leads us to question some of the “truisms” linked to firms expected behaviours within different national institutional frameworks.

As with any large-scale quantitative analysis, it would always benefits from a larger number of observations and/or a longer time period, in this instance access to annual data rather than 4 or 5 year intervals would have been helpful.

By adopting a different, and more appropriate, approach to analysing existing cross-sectional data over time this empirical research helps to achieve a deeper understanding of the complex issues that influence decision making at the firm level.

At the firm level, in line with the practical implications above, this will enable decision makers to achieve a deeper understanding of the evolution of the external context in which they operate and the likely influence of that evolution within their own organisation.

This approach enables a more meaningful exploration of inter-temporal changes in situations where longitudinal data does not exist.

The literature on international staffing in multinational enterprises (MNEs) often focuses on staffing choices based on nationality categories (e.g. parent-country nationals, host-country nationals, third-country nationals) for key positions in subsidiaries when examining their impacts on subsidiary outcomes. Considering both nationality and international experience, the purpose of this paper is to suggest an integrative typology to identify and classify various types of traditional and alternative subsidiary staffing options and evaluate them in relation to social capital and knowledge flows across MNE organizations.

Based on a social capital view of MNEs, the authors propose a typology of subsidiary staffing options founded on the dimensions of nationality and the location of prior international experience of incumbents of key positions. Then traditional as well as alternative staffing options from the literature are identified and evaluated corresponding to each type of staffing option in the framework.

The typology identifies nine types of subsidiary staffing options. It includes and classifies the traditional and alternative staffing options, while highlighting types which need further research. The study also suggests impacts of the traditional and alternative staffing type on social capital and knowledge flows in MNEs.

The new typology identifies various types of subsidiary staffing options comprehensively and evaluates them systematically. HRM specialists can classify subsidiary managers based on the typology and examine which staffing option would be desirable given a specific subsidiary context. The research also provides novel insights on what needs to be considered to select and develop subsidiary managers who can build internal and external social capital in MNEs.