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Extant expatriate literature largely adopts a global north/western focus and expatriate-centric approach in investigating spousal/partners’ motives for supporting expatriation. Contrastingly, this study focuses on the lived experiences of dual-career female partners from an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting a partner’s international assignment (IA) to a developed country.

This investigation adopts a hermeneutic interpretive phenomenology research design. Twelve career-oriented female partners from an emerging global south economy (Brazil) who supported a partner’s IA to a developed country (USA) participated in this study. The data included semi-structured interviews and field notes.

The study indicates that societal constraints, gendered career experiences and career and life stage reasons influenced women’s decision to engage in career opt out and/or interruption in support of their partners' IA. Further, patriarchal long-lasting structures and ideologies shaped women’s career experiences; women perceived IAs as a means of acquiring embodied and institutionalized cosmopolitan capital for themselves and their families in order to gain a better position in a transnational/globalized world.

Although the sample size of this study is appropriate for the methodological choice adopted, future studies should include more participants and address different socioeconomic, political and cultural contexts.

This study highlights dual-career female partners' lived experiences in an emerging global south economy and a patriarchal society as it relates to motives for supporting IAs.

This study aims to contribute to the enrichment of the literature by examining the impact of cross-cultural training on expatriates’ adjustment of Nigerian bankers on expatriate assignments in other African countries.

Data on cross-cultural adjustment from expatriate employees in five banks that collectively accounted for over 80 per cent of Nigerian banks with subsidiaries in other African were systematically selected for the investigation. This data was collected quantitatively via a survey instrument. Independent sample t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA) and regression analysis were deployed in analyzing the data.

The study found that cross-cultural adjustment varied significantly across the different categories of gender, age, marital status, previous expatriate training, previous expatriate experience, and duration of expatriation. The study concludes that in order to attain higher levels of adjustment African banks and other organizations should provide a more comprehensive cross-cultural training program that mirrors the needs of employees following a detailed needs analysis. Also, the training must be sequential and not a one-off approach.

The literature though still nascent is largely focused on expatriate preparation and adjustment for expatriates moving from Western-to-western contexts and very little exists in the literature on how multinationals from Non-Western contexts like Africa prepare their staff for expatriation and its consequent impact on their adjustment. This study aims to enrich the literature by examining the impact of cross-cultural training on expatriates’ adjustment of Nigerian bankers on expatriate assignments in other African countries.

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.

Drawing on the whole-life perspective of career development and the conservation of resources theory, the authors consider whether self-initiated expatriates' (SIEs’) cultural intelligence (CQ) is a general, cross-domain resource that helps SIEs gain resources in the work and nonwork domains. The authors contend that CQ will be associated with greater levels of organizational and community embeddedness, which in turn will facilitate their career satisfaction. The authors also propose the role of perceived host country community diversity climate as an environmental condition that, when low, strengthens the relationships between CQ and organizational and community embeddedness.

The authors examine the study hypotheses based on two distinct samples of SIEs (Sample 1: 169 Asian SIE professionals; Study 2: 147 SIE academics).

SIEs' CQ positively relates to their organizational and community embeddedness, which in turn is associated with greater levels of career satisfaction. The authors also find that SIEs with high CQ are more likely to experience community embeddedness and career satisfaction when they perceive that the host country community diversity climate is low.

First, this study goes beyond existing literature that rarely examines nonwork inputs to SIE career success. Second, extending previous CQ research with a strong organizational focus, the authors investigated how CQ influences SIEs' work and nonwork embeddedness. Third, the authors found that the absence of a peripheral ecological condition, perceived host country community diversity climate, may strengthen the direct relationship between CQ and embeddedness and the indirect relationship between CQ and career satisfaction.

This paper aims to explore the Spanish Self-Initiated Expats’ (SIEs) motivations and factors involved in the choice of the host destination.

Through an exploratory and qualitative study, drawing upon SIE literature on motivations and careers, 22 Spanish SIEs were interviewed in a semi-structured way.

Most SIEs clearly detailed the line of reasoning behind the host destination choice (specific destination); a second group considered a limited number of potential countries to relocate to (alternative destinations), and the smallest one did not choose a specific location. Career motivations were the most mentioned ones and different degrees of career planning were found: those with a very defined career planning process relied upon one potential destination, while those with a less defined one considered several alternative host destinations. The European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students experience was one of the most mentioned factors influencing the choice of the host destination, which may be common to other European Union (EU) nationals. As to the limiting ones, the visa requirements outside the EU were identified. Other factors were particular to Spain, such as the perceived need for English proficiency for a successful global career and the degrees of career planning.

These findings may assist Talent Management Managers to align organizational strategies with SIEs motivations. They may also help future Spanish and European SIEs in their individual career management process.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the expatriation motivations and factors influencing the destination location of Spanish SIEs, adding to the SIE and global career literature.

In this systematic review of the literature on women’s entrepreneurship education, this paper aims to examine the current state of the field. The authors analyze publication trends, identify major themes and propose an agenda for future research.

The authors review 363 articles published between 1993 and 2023, to develop a synthesized overview of women’s entrepreneurship education, complete with insights into the journals that have provided the most coverage of this topic, as well as how it has emerged over time.

The authors tracked the evolution of research themes and collaboration networks over a 30-year period. Results show there has been significant growth in research on women’s entrepreneurship education, as evidenced by a surge of publications on the topic and the total number of citations.

The authors categorized and analyzed six thematic clusters within the literature: entrepreneurial intention, ethical perspectives, gender-specific barriers, gender stereotypes, rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Building on these thematic clusters, this study discusses future research directions to advance the field.

Grounded in social cognitive career theory (SCCT), this study aims to examine the influence of contextual factors on the relationship between career satisfaction and organizational commitment, within the banking sector in Kuwait.

This study used a cross-sectional design analyzing a self-report questionnaire (N = 278).

This study investigates affective, normative and continuance commitment in relation to career satisfaction, within the banking sector in Kuwait. Findings indicate a positive relationship between career satisfaction and all of affective, normative and continuance commitment; although the relationship that appears to be the strongest is between career satisfaction and normative commitment.

The single site, cross-sectional approach is a limitation. The data were collected before the COVID-19 pandemic. Future research into career satisfaction and organizational commitment in different sectors is necessary and a replication of this study in a post-COVID context would also be valuable.

Human resource development (HRD) policies in contexts such as Kuwait should prioritize career progression initiatives to enhance career satisfaction and contribute to increased organizational commitment. More attention is necessary to organizational HRD career planning and development policies and processes. Effective line manager development programs to equip managers to provide feedback and constructive performance management are recommended, as is the organizational provision of career counseling and guidance to support career development policies and processes.

This study combines the use of established constructs with an SCCT theoretical lends to contribute new theorization of the relationship between career satisfaction and organizational commitment in non-Western cultural contexts. It challenges assumptions in current theorization of the relationship between career satisfaction and commitment that privilege affective commitment over other dimensions.

Drawing on experiential learning theory, this study seeks to understand how the perceived cultural difference in a foreign country and learning flexibility, which enables more integrated experiential learning from international experience, influence expatriates’ cultural intelligence (CQ) and consequently their adjustment and job performance.

Survey data were collected from 169 expatriates in China. Polynomial regression analyses were employed to test curvilinear relationships between cultural difference and CQ and between learning flexibility and CQ. Mediation hypotheses were tested either by the MEDCURVE procedure if a curvilinear relationship was confirmed or by the Haye’s Process procedure if a curvilinear relationship was not confirmed and instead a linear relationship was confirmed.

The results demonstrated a positive relationship between cultural difference and CQ and an inverted U-shape relationship between learning flexibility and CQ. CQ mediated the relationship between cultural difference and expatriate adjustment and partially mediated the relationship between learning flexibility and expatriate adjustment. CQ positively influenced expatriates’ job performance via expatriate adjustment.

Our findings suggest that companies should not hesitate to send expatriates on assignments to culturally very different countries and focus more attention on the selection of expatriates. The findings of this study suggest firms should choose candidates who are moderate or high in learning flexibility and could engage in integrated learning and specialized learning in a more balanced manner.

This research is the first study that examines the influence of learning flexibility on CQ and expatriate effectiveness. It examines cultural difference through the lens of experiential learning theory and argues that cultural difference constitutes “stimuli” in the experiential learning environment for individual learning in an international context. The results advance our knowledge of the role of experiential learning in developing capable global managers.

This study aims to develop an extended social attachment model for expatriates, integrating a multiple stakeholder perspective, to understand evacuation decisions during disasters.

Through interviews with 12 Tokyo-based expatriates who experienced the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters, this study collects the lived experiences of a diverse set of expatriates. This data is analyzed abductively to map relevant evacuation factors and to propose a reaction typology.

While the 2011 Tohoku disasters caused regional destruction and fears of nuclear fallout, Tokyo remained largely unscathed. Still, many expatriates based in Tokyo chose to leave the country. Evacuation decisions were shaped by an interplay of threat assessment, location of attachment figures and cross-cultural adjustment. The study also discusses the influence of expatriate types.

Disaster planning is often overlooked or designed primarily with host country nationals in mind. Expatriates often lack the disaster experience and readiness of host country nationals in disaster-prone regions in Asia and beyond, and thus might need special attention when disaster strikes. This study provides advice for how to do so.

By unpacking the under-researched and complex phenomenon of expatriate reactions to disasters, this study contributes to the fields of international human resource and disaster management. Specifically, seven proposition on casual links leading to expatriate evacuation are suggested, paving the way for future research.

The purposes of this paper are to delve into the “liability of foreignness” among immigrants and to explore factors that may enhance or moderate such liability while obtaining jobs in host countries. We explore the competition for jobs in a host country among foreign-born individuals from various backgrounds and local residents, by examining such factors as their human capital, as well as, for the foreign-born, their duration of residence in the host country.

Applying configurational theorizing, we propose that the presence of specific human capital can help reduce the challenges associated with the “liability of foreignness” for migrants who have shorter durations of stay in the host country, and, to a lesser extent, for female migrants. Our study draws upon extensive career data spanning several decades and involving 249 employees within a Danish multinational enterprise.

We find that specific human capital helps established immigrants in general, although female immigrants are more vulnerable. We furthermore find a strong “gender liability” in the industry even for local females, including returnees in the host countries. Our findings suggest that for immigrants, including returnees, career building requires a mix of right human capital and tenure in the host country, and that career building is especially challenging for female immigrants.

While the concept of “liability of foreignness” – focussing on discrimination faced by immigrants in the labour market – has been brought to the fore, a notable gap exists in empirical research pertaining to studies aiming at disentangling potential means to overcome such liability, as well as in studies seeking to explore this issue from a stance of gendered experience.