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The purpose of this study is to develop a conceptual model explicating the development of expatriate social capital and its influence on expatriate effectiveness in terms of knowledge transfer and adjustment. Drawing upon social capital theory and weak tie theory, we elucidate the process through which expatriate social capital facilitates expatriate knowledge transfer and adjustment via greater access of role information and social support.

This study reviews and distills research on expatriate social capital development and proposes a conceptual model of expatriate effectiveness and suggests potential research avenues for global mobility scholars.

This study contributes to the understanding of the development of expatriate social capital in the host country and its impacts on expatriate effectiveness as a process. With regard to expatriates’ social capital accumulation, this study also highlights the important but less-known role of accompanying spouse/family members as expatriates’ weak tie enablers. We articulate a framework that outlines the sources of social capital for expatriates and the processes through which social capital transmits (via expatriates’ access to role information and social support) and then enhances expatriate effectiveness. This conceptual model aims to establish a basic “roadmap” for use by practitioners and researchers.

Before the proposed conceptual model can be theoretically refined or extended by future research, its veracity needs to be tested empirically. Although we do not incorporate “time,” “personal characteristics” and “context” in our model, we recognize their potential importance and urge future researchers to incorporate them in studying the role of social capital on expatriate effectiveness.

A conceptual model is presented that enables multinational corporations (MNCs) to map their current (and future) strategies to enhance expatriate effectiveness by further strengthening the expatriate social capital.

Drawing upon social capital theory and weak tie theory, this paper links various sources of expatriate social capital to expatriates’ access to role information and social support in supporting expatriate effectiveness. From this, several avenues of future research are drawn.

In expatriate-reliant countries, the challenge of attracting and retaining overseas talent remains, despite the COVID-19 global pandemic restricting international travel. Expatriates depend on formal organizational and host country national (HCN) support to facilitate their adjustment when moving abroad. To date, there has been a limited focus on the centrality of language in spanning boundaries between HCNs and expatriates that enables bridges to be formed. This study explored how language influences the social capital accrual and the support received by expatriates from HCNs.

Rooted in social constructionism, the authors used semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of 20 Nigerian HCNs from two Italian organizations in the construction industry.

The findings highlight how language is key to effective social capital bridging and show how HCNs act as boundary spanners between local talent and expatriates on assignment. In this study, HCNs have superior language skills and can thus fill the semantic void in communication between the two parties. It emerged that expatriates receive more significant support and higher levels of social capital accrual than HCNs from this relationship.

Consideration should be given to providing formal language training to both expatriates and HCNs. Embedding networking relationships, such as buddying schemes or reverse mentoring, would enhance the social capital of both parties and improve performance. In addition, global talent management policies should be adjusted to provide definitive career paths and clearer promotion criteria for HCNs.

The authors find that through their language ability, HCNs may have more power over expatriates than previously considered, repositioning their status from a talent perspective. The authors argue that expatriates should not be considered by organizations the only source of global talent in such a context, and that organizations need to offer more definitive talent policies and support that accounts for both expatriates and HCNs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the psychological adjustment process of expatriates from Chinese multinational enterprises, including how their social capital affects this process.

This qualitative investigation was based on semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 26 Chinese expatriates. The grounded theory method was applied to guide the data collection and analysis.

The psychological adjustment process of Chinese expatriates includes three periods: crisis, self-adjustment and self-growth period. In addition, bonding capital (including organizational, family and co-cultural colleagues’ support) is more conducive to Chinese expatriates’ psychological well-being than bridging capital (e.g. host-nationals’ support). Finally, a separation acculturation strategy is more conducive to psychological adjustment, rather than an integration strategy.

This study focused on expatriates themselves. Future research should consider other stakeholders (e.g. organizations, family), and examine expatriate adjustment from new perspectives (e.g. strategic human resource management, work-family balance). This study had a small sample and focused on only one organization. Future research could usefully add other Chinese multinational corporations, and other Chinese expatriates to expand the generalizability of the current findings.

This study suggests the possible benefits of management practices for expatriates. Organizations can develop an “expatriate bubble” to help structure basic life overseas. Organizations could develop family-support programs and make them expatriate-supportive. Organizations should also strengthen the connections between expatriates and local colleagues.

Few scholars have elaborated on how different support groups (based on their cultural backgrounds) influence the psychological adjustment of expatriates. Until now, mainland Chinese expatriates have received little attention. In addition, this research takes a significant step forward by illuminating the psychological adjustment of Chinese expatriates from a social capital perspective.

This exploratory research aims to identify the types of social networks established by German and French expatriates.

The authors use the concepts of social capital and social networks, as well as the societal and cultural approaches, to investigate the way expatriates develop their social networks. The authors' empirical study is based on 40 semi-structured interviews conducted with German and French expatriates.

The authors' findings show that German expatriates mainly establish professional networks, whereas their French counterparts also focus on personal networks. They further indicate that managing social capital lies within the individual responsibility of German expatriates, whereas it is part of higher education institutions in France.

The authors highlight the way German and French expatriates manage their social networks and provide novel insights into the role played by higher education systems and the cultural characteristics of their home country context.

This article aims to examine the challenges faced by highly skilled expatriates (i.e. professionals and managers) from the Indian subcontinent (i.e. India and neighboring countries) as they attempt to advance their careers in Australia. Extant literature has revealed significant gaps between policies for skilled migration proposed by governments in developed countries and the response to policies by organizations in those countries. By employing the theories of habitus, disembedding, sensemaking and acculturation as frameworks for analysis, the authors explore and explain how these expatriates settle and integrate into their new lives and careers as they resolve their experience of habitus.

This study employed phenomenology and narrative research techniques using 21 in-depth, semistructured interviews with expatriate professionals from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to explore and examine their expatriation experiences and their occupational progress in Australia.

The findings reveal that on migrating to Australia, expatriate professionals are uprooted from their home country habitus and thrust into new conditions that cause them to lose their cultural, economic, intellectual and social capital, which further leads them into a state of “disembeddedness.” These highly skilled expatriates then rely on sensemaking and acculturation to resolve their crisis of habitus. The authors also found that gender is a significant factor in this process, as female expatriates faced more career-related barriers compared to their male counterparts.

This article brings into focus previously unexamined avenues of expatriation research and proposes a novel theoretical framework that is instrumental in explaining the settlement and integration process of highly skilled professionals from emerging nations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of expatriate’s social capital and knowledge sharing on multinational companies’ (MNCs) financial performance, with a specific focus on the influence of trust, commitment, organizational support and the four elements of balanced scorecard (BSC).

A quantitative questionnaire survey was conducted using expatriates of MNCs in Taiwan as the respondents.

Trust and organizational support are significant predictors of knowledge sharing and social capital, which further facilitate their influence on learning and growth, customer satisfaction, internal process improvement and financial performance of MNCs. Besides, social capital serves as an accelerate agent to promote the influence of trust on knowledge sharing, and customer satisfaction serves as a catalyst on the influence of learning and growth and internal process on a firms’ financial performance.

This study provides a clear articulation of the role of knowledge sharing on the financial performance and its moderation effect on the elements of BSC. Trust and organizational support are essential for knowledge sharing and expatriates’ social capital. The roles of social capital and knowledge sharing are critical for expatriates to be success in the overseas market places.

Since the evidences regarding expatriate performance rarely integrate the variables of social capital, knowledge sharing and BSC into a more comprehensive framework, the results of this study can be an important reference for academicians to do further validation. These results are also critical for practitioners to develop dispatching policies for the expatriates in the oversea market places.

As the dynamic competition in the global marketplace becomes increasingly severe, multinational firms have no choice but to improve their competitive advantages and enhance productivity through innovation, learning and leadership. One essential issue is the capability of expatriates to support knowledge sharing and transfer from organizations headquarter to their subsidiaries through expatriates; however, there are few studies on this issue. This study attempts to identify the antecedents, consequences and moderators of knowledge sharing.

Using a questionnaire survey approach, data were obtained from 234 expatriates working for Taiwanese multinational enterprises. The hypotheses were tested by SmartPLS 3.0.

The empirical results indicate that opportunity and ability have a significant impact on expatriates' knowledge sharing. Trust, commitment and social capital also have significant influences on expatriates' collecting and donating of knowledge. The level of tacitness, specificity and complexity of knowledge have a negatively impact on knowledge sharing. Knowledge collecting can positively promote the outcome of knowledge sharing, including learning and growth, internal process, customer satisfaction, and financial performance. Furthermore, organizational support and the richness of transmission channels served as two of the moderators that can amplify the influences of the antecedents on knowledge sharing and the influences of knowledge sharing on outcomes.

The results of this study can provide valuable references for academicians and professionals when deciding how to facilitate knowledge transfer from the company headquarters to subsidiaries through expatriates.

The purpose of this paper is to review empirical research on the relationship between organization-based social support and the success of international assignments (IAs).

Four search engines were used to obtain empirical studies relating organization-based social support to success criteria. Studies were compared based on type of theoretical foundation, criteria of success, source of social support and study design.

The reviewed studies draw on three theoretical paradigms – based on stress, social capital and relational exchange. The results demonstrate that expatriates receive social support from multiple organization-based sources and that these sources’ proximity to the expatriate influences the relationship between social support and success. Regarding geographical proximity, sources in the home and host countries fulfil different supportive functions and therefore stimulate different success criteria. Additionally, the success criteria stimulated by organizational support depend on the type of supportive practices offered. The impact of support from organizational members is further influenced by their hierarchical proximity to the expatriate, with supervisory support relating most strongly to success. In addition to proximity, characteristics of the expatriating employee and the assignment (e.g. expatriate motivation and assignment hardship) influence the value of social support. Finally, social support relates most strongly to expatriates’ satisfaction, commitment, and adjustment and these frequently mediate its effect on expatriates’ retention and performance.

Although only organization-based sources were considered, this review demonstrates that a multidimensional perspective is warranted when examining the effects of social support during IAs.

This review provides insights into the ways organizations could and should assist (self-initiated) expatriates when aiming for specific outcomes.

This in-depth examination of social support in the work environment of expatriates combines several theoretical paradigms and investigates multiple criteria of success.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors needed for the development of global human resources for leadership assignments in foreign subsidiaries. The paper aims to find an answer to enhance expatriate mission accomplishment rate at subsidiaries abroad.

This study examines the development of global human resources. In-depth face-to-face interviews were employed to collect data from eight senior HR managers in three financial institutions in Taiwan, while data from 28 expatriates in the overseas subsidiaries were obtained from asynchronous e-mail interviews. Conventional content analysis was used to code categories directly from the data.

The results of the study revealed that organizational policies do not focus on developing global human resources. To portray a global image, the focus is on staffing overseas subsidiaries with foreigners and Taiwanese that can speak English. Development to prepare staff for expatriation is limited to pre-departure training that focused mainly on language and cultural awareness training. However, organizational support during expatriation and repatriation is important. Expatriates view security briefing crucial and familiarization visit helps them to decide whether or not to accept expatriation. Organizational policies favor those that were not expatriated in terms of career progression deter managers from accepting international assignments.

It highlights some best practices in developing global human resources taking into consideration the herd mentality and social perspective. Social support, social learning and social capital are instrumental in developing global human resources as these hasten cultural adjustment.

The purpose of this article is to enhance understanding of influences on interaction between corporate personnel and development specialists and line functions associated with expatriating managers. Line managers are expected to accept greater responsibility for people management and development. But line managers' strategies for managing risks inherent in supervising expatriate managers may cause to surface incompatibilities with specialists' corporate “policy conscience” role. A pluralistically inclined perspective on “managerial interest streams” offers insights into inter‐group perceptions and behaviour.

Focusing on organisational actors' interpretations, a non‐standardised survey by e‐mail, covering a small sample of expatriate managers (n=20) employed in various countries by a large UK‐headquartered healthcare retail group, was complemented by semi‐structured interviews with personnel and development specialists in a further seven large multinational companies.

Potential tensions around the application of corporate expatriation policy may be attributed to factors “educating” line and specialist orientations to expatriate managers.

The value of the paper is in the development of an original model sketching pluralistically located interaction around expatriation management. While limited to an exploratory empirical investigation, the practical implications derive from specification of opportunities and threats to partnership building between those involved in expatriating managers.