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International relocation for work reasons implies uncertainty and stress, resulting in high expatriate failure rates. Hence, organizations should consider employee’s international relocation mobility readiness (IRMR) in selection processes. The purpose of this paper is to identify personal as well as social antecedents of IRMR.

Data were gathered by an online survey (n=273 German employees) and analyzed using SEM.

SEM results indicate that attitudinal (boundaryless mindset), biographical (previous international work experience) and social variables (the perceived social endorsement of international relocation mobility) are positively related to IRMR. The positive relationship between personality variables (uncertainty tolerance, proactive personality) and IRMR is mediated by boundaryless mindset.

The sampling method applied limits the generalization of the results.

Results can be applied in personnel selection to find employees with a strong IRMR. Thus, expatriate failure rates could be reduced.

This is the first study that addressed personal as well as social antecedents of IRMR.

This paper aims to examine Korean jewelry manufacturers operating in China to assess the relationship between their perceptions of external risks and their intentions to relocate. The authors hypothesize that foreign firms finding risk in the current external environment are more likely to consider moving their facilities outside China. In particular, this paper explores whether firm performance and technological capability moderate the relationship between perceived external risk and relocation intentions.

Korean jewelry manufacturers were among the first Korean firms entering China in the early 1990s to avoid Korea’s rising labor costs. After 20 years, they face similar external risks in China. The authors collected and analyzed 238 survey samples from Korean jewelry manufacturers operating in China to determine whether perceived external risks affect decisions to relocate. Logistic regression was used to examine the hypotheses. In addition to an empirical method, five case studies related to empirical results have been included.

Analysis results suggest that firms perceiving riskier managerial and competitive environments are more likely to have relocation intentions. Perceptions of risks from the governmental/political environment and macroeconomic environment have no significant relationship with relocation intentions. Also, firms’ performance and technological capability negatively moderate the relationship between perceptions of managerial competitive environment risks and relocation intentions.

This study contributes to the literature on international business relocation strategies by examining perceptions of external risks that determine whether foreign manufacturing firms will relocate. In addition, the research sheds light on the transformation of Chinese economics from labor-intensive to capital-, technological- and knowledge-intensive structures. By applying multi-methods, this research further elaborates empirical results with five case studies.

This paper aims to consider the current situation of relocation in Japan after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE) in the context of past examples and post-disaster housing relocation projects in other countries.

Information about international cases of post-disaster housing relocation was gathered though desk and literature review, supplemented by field visits to the sites for direct observation and interviews with people involved in the relocation projects.

To be successful, residential relocation must consider livelihood, especially in regards to location. Involvement of the residents in the planning and decision making process creates housing relocation projects that better meet residents’ needs. Japan faces some unique challenges, yet shares commonalities with other countries, for example, in tsunami-stricken fishing areas. Housing relocation in Tohoku must strive to be accountable to the needs of the residents and the specific contexts of their communities.

There is still a limited amount of literature in English that considers the issues of relocation in recovery after the GEJE in an international context, especially comprehensive comparisons with multiple countries. Although this paper does not deal with each international case in great detail, the comparison provides a good overview of the key issues for residents in post-disaster relocation, and suggests how lessons from international cases could be applied to the challenges that Japan currently faces in relocation planning in the Tohoku region.

The primary focus of this paper is to examine the international (import and export) activities of the firm and the impact on the firms' criteria for choice of location and the propensity for relocation.

A web survey was carried out among small and medium‐sized Danish firms. Data used in the present study are based on responses from 622 firms. The analysis is conducted in two sub‐sections. The first section focuses on how export/import intensity is related to the location motives of the firm and the propensity to relocate the firm to another national location or abroad. Pearson's correlation with corresponding test of significance is used to explore the possible relationships between the international engagement and the firm's criteria for choice of location. In the second section the responding firms are classified into one of four categories, as suggested in a local/global typology. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is conducted in order to assess whether there exist any significant differences between the four types of firms with regard to the location motives and relocation propensity for the firms.

The study shows that the international engagement of the firm influences the need for better location with regard to infrastructure (especially airport and highways) and to a lesser degree other types of infrastructure (railways and harbours). Interestingly, firms put less emphasis on the direct economic factors (infrastructure) compared with access to customers/suppliers, local network and, above all, access to research institutions. The study shows that international firms put significantly more emphasis on the relationship with research institutions than more local firms. The study also indicates that a higher international engagement increases the firm's intention to relocate abroad, which could be one of the unwanted sides of firms' internationalisation.

Guided by insights from location and relocation theory and international entrepreneurship theory, the connection between firms' export and import engagement and the reasons for location and propensity for relocation are explored. The paper also suggests an internationalisation typology of firms that can be used in future research on the internationalisation of the firm.

Employees’ readiness to relocate abroad plays a crucial role for the success or failure of expatriate assignments. Hence, companies should consider employees’ international relocation mobility readiness (IRMR) when selecting candidates for international postings. However, past research has conceptualized and measured IRMR heterogeneously, hampering the interpretation and comparability of IRMR research results. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to provide a new conceptualization of IRMR and to give recommendations for its measurement.

Based on the business, psychological and sociological literature, this paper reviews and categorizes how IRMR has been conceptualized and measured. To structure the findings, a directed content analysis was applied. The sample comprises 88 journal articles.

The results reveal that studies seldom provide a conceptualization of IRMR. While the authors often find a misfit between the studies’ explicit conceptualization and the actual measurement of IRMR, most scales actually measure willingness (i.e. usually a predictor of risky and spontaneous behavior).

Based on the results and the Rubicon model of action phases (Heckhausen and Gollwitzer, 1987), the authors recommend future research to conceptualize IRMR as a dynamic multidimensional construct, covering the different phases of an individual’s decision to relocate internationally. Future, IRMR measurements should also cover the complexity of IRMR, e.g. regarding specific location characteristics.

Companies should consider the whole decision-making process regarding IRMR to apply specific measures at the best possible time.

This paper investigates IRMR scales according to their scientific validity and hence provides the basic ground for future scale development studies.

As the rate of growth in trade of developing and developed economies converges, international business is increasingly taking place in a growing assortment of political and ideological contexts with variable levels of tolerance for plural dissidence. This can create substantial challenges and risks for crosscultural adjustment and increases the potential for assignment failure. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of an authoritarian regime on the process of adjustment amongst expatriate sojourners and draw out lessons for future research and policies for relocation in similar authoritarian contexts.

This was a qualitative research study over three years making use of participant observation methods as a result of researcher immersion in the local context.

This study finds that “culture” is an insufficient category for explaining difficulties in cross-cultural adjustment and demonstrates that adjustment difficulties under authoritarianism are heightened in the proximate sociocultural context, with geo-political and ideological dynamics creating more challenging conditions of life. Increased levels of social control act to heighten psychological vulnerability amongst sojourners, resulting in coping behaviours that seek a greater degree of psychological alleviation and companionship through more resource-intensive supportive networks and a tendency toward enclavism, thus inhibiting sociocultural adjustment to the host society.

Research needs to recognise more fully the diverse nature of contexts in cross-cultural adjustment. Future research should explore different types of contexts and assess what sort of challenges may arise in relation to the process of psychological and sociocultural adjustment and the adjustive resources required to overcome them.

The paper contributes to the understanding of the psychological and sociocultural challenges of international relocation in an authoritarian context and serves as valuable insight for relocation planning in similar conditions, which are an ever-increasing feature of international business.

This paper gives a unique insight into international relocation in Cuba and draws out the areas of concern for cross-cultural adjustment under authoritarian conditions, an ever-increasing feature of international business. It serves as an example of how context-based research can inform cross-cultural theory and practice within an evolving landscape of doing business globally.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the use of the term “culture shock” in international management studies and cross-cultural research and to propose a paradigmatic shift in how the term is understood for future research. The experience of “culture shock” is an established concept within international management studies, engendering an industry of training designed to combat difficulties in relocation. This paper argues that the use of concept is based on a flawed understanding of “culture” and proposes an alternative perspective to help organisations prepare their employees for overseas assignments.

The paper opts for a critical review of literature to examine models of culture shock through time and theories relating to success factors in cross-cultural adjustment. In so doing, the paper revisits the notion of culture shock from a social constructionist perspective within a dialectical framework.

The paper challenges the notion of culture as an essential, reified concept, arguing that culture shock is not about culture, but about the dynamics of context and how individuals deal with life changes to navigate the challenges that they face.

Future research should focus on context-related, interactive behaviour, framed in discourse processes, rather than predetermined a priori typologies based on cultural stereotypes. This would recognise the discursive nature of social interaction within a dialectical framework, where relational tension emerges as a result of disparity.

The paper contributes to an understanding of the complex range of factors influencing the success of relocation to guide international companies in their policies.

This paper proposes a paradigm shift in the treatment of culture shock towards a more discourse-based concept created through universal cultural and dialectical processes.

Seeks to investigate the adjustment of business relocatees to their host environment. It explores the facets of the relocatees’ adjustment in the following three regions: Germany as the home country and destination for domestic assignments, Western Europe and other countries. It further investigates the stress levels the relocatees display and their motives for accepting or actively seeking relocation. If the results of this survey suggest the existence of Western Europe as a distinct assignment location, these findings will form a valuable basis for the development of policies for intra‐European personnel transfers, particularly in the area of selection, training, development and compensation.

The advantages of offshoring are increasingly under scrutiny, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has advanced the debate, calling for a redefinition of firms' production location strategies. While attention has primarily focused on the relocation of second-degree strategies, such as back-shoring, near-shoring and further offshoring, there are also other alternatives, including home country-based domestic product and process innovations, and the development of new business activities. The objective of the authors' paper is to identify which factors influence decision-makers when they select and implement such post-offshoring strategic alternatives.

The authors consider 11 Italian manufacturing companies that implemented these strategies and analyze triggers, drivers, enabling factors and barriers of the decision phase, as well as content, governance mode and timing of the implementation phase.

Based on the collected findings, the authors suggest a set of propositions for further research. First of all, firms can simultaneously manage multiple strategies by adopting an ambidextrous approach through which to mitigate supply chain risks. They may integrate their domestic and international production activities, but the home country remains central for innovations and production of high-end products and Industry 4.0 technologies increases the probability of investing in their home country. At the same time, lack of competence induces selective near- and back-shoring, while full back-shoring is mainly a consequence of managerial mistakes. Competence availability acts as a barrier to relocation in the home country, inducing the implementation of either an insourcing strategy or a combination of insourcing and outsourcing.

The authors' work identifies post-offshoring as a dynamic process and provides insights into the post-pandemic scenario. The conceptual framework may represent a useful tool for company managers in re-evaluating their initial offshoring strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to address the research question of “How does a global career involving multiple international relocations influence the career capital of an individual manager?”, and to examine the typical career‐capital‐related characteristics, drivers and outcomes associated with global careers. The importance of understanding the careers of global leaders, whose work paths typically include various international positions and assignments, has increased due to the globalization of business. A particularly relevant approach for studying such careers is through a framework of career capital, which adopts an individualistic perspective to explain how actors consciously acquire portable capabilities, construct networks and identify their own motivations, applying them in their specific work contexts.

The study adopts a qualitative design based on interviews with 20 managers on a global career path involving multiple international assignments.

The results indicate that international work experience has an extensive developmental effect on the career capital of managers. First, the interviewees reported that their global careers had strongly increased their knowing‐why career capital, referring to meaning and self‐awareness. With regard to knowing‐how career capital, their multiple international experiences had considerably enhanced several work‐related competencies. The key drivers behind this development included the broad range of responsibilities, the nature of the international environment, a high level of autonomy, and cross‐cultural differences. Finally, in terms of knowing‐whom capital, the results of the study indicate that the contact network managers acquire during their international assignments was of very high importance for their future careers. As a further outcome of their global careers, the managers were found to have a very strong career identity.

This paper provides a novel perspective on a topic that is of increasingly critical importance in today's global business.