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The purpose of this paper is to explore the relations between the life-domain interactions (i.e. interactions between the personal and professional lives) of internationally mobile employees (IMEs) and their well-being and to examine whether these links are different for assigned expatriates (AEs) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs).

Questionnaire data were collected from 284 IMEs including 182 SIEs, and 102 AEs. Two measures of IMEs’ well-being were used: subjective, namely satisfaction with life, and psychological well-being (PWB), which refers to self-acceptance, personal growth, and reaching for life goals. Life-domain interactions were measured from a conflict and an enrichment perspective, each in two directions: Work Life → Personal Life (WL → PL) and Personal Life → Work Life (PL → WL).

Regression analyses confirm that IMEs’ life-domain conflicts (WL → PL and PL → WL) have an adverse impact on their subjective and PWB, IMEs’ life-domain enrichments account for their subjective well-being over and above what is explained by their life-domain conflicts, the relationship between WL → PL conflicts and subjective well-being is more negative among SIEs than among AEs.

This study underscores the need for both employers and IMEs to take action not only to reduce conflicts but also to promote enrichments between their personal and their professional lives. It is of particular importance to reduce the WL → PL conflict of SIEs, often left to fend for themselves, because it has a significant negative impact on their subjective well-being.

This study innovates in using conservation of resources theory and recent theoretical work linking this theory with the interplay between personal and professional lives to understanding SIEs’ and AEs’ well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to generate insights into how multinational companies (MNCs) promote global mobility in their Employer Branding (EB) messages on Facebook.

The authors analyzed 13.340 EB messages found on the Facebook career pages of 30 major MNCs (10 of each in the US, UK and Germany) drawing on a methodological approach combining Grounded Theory and text-mining.

Building on the perspective of psychological contracts as sensitizing concept, the analysis of the overall sample reveals a range of core themes in EB messages across all MNCs studied. With regards to global mobility, MNCs emphasize relational, i.e. socio-emotional, contents, particularly, highlighting opportunities of experience and personal development. While global mobility is an overall marginal theme, German MNCs extensively promote global mobility, whereas US- and UK-based MNCs do not explicitly make it a subject of their messages. The findings are discussed in the light of institutional theory.

Despite mega-trend, little is known about social media EB, especially when it comes to the contents that MNCs communicate to (potential) employees. Applying an innovative methodological approach, the authors offer insights into these contents. Discussing the findings in the light of institutional theory, it is concluded that promoting global mobility in socio-emotional terms seems of high importance to reduce uncertainties associated with living and working abroad. This might help firms to hire internationally mobile employees, especially in countries where job mobility is generally low.

The purpose of this literature review is to critically analyze, synthesize and integrate the currently fragmented literature concerning the factors affecting the international transfer of individual career capital (CC).

This paper is a systematic literature review of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC from/for expatriates, repatriates and other employed highly skilled migrants and return migrants. The findings are classified based on the Social Chronology Framework (SCF) proposed by Gunz and Mayrhofer (2015).

This systematic literature review suggests that the international transfer of individual CC, which can be expressed both as (1) individual-level transfer across different organizations located in different countries as the direct use and application of CC and (2) individual knowing-how transfer to other individuals within organization, is affected by the individual, organizational and broader contextual-level factors that are bound by the aspect of time. The authors summarize the findings by presenting a model of the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC.

The authors align the CC framework (Defillippi and Arthur, 1994) to the SCF (Gunz and Mayrhofer, 2018) by explaining the factors affecting the international transfer of individual CC that go beyond the qualities of CC, including the Being, Space and Time domains. Moreover, the authors critique the current focus on the international CC transfer in the present suggesting that future research should explore this phenomenon as a more dynamic process. Finally, the authors contribute to the literature on the global mobility of highly skilled employees' by highlighting gaps in the knowledge of the international transfer of CC and presenting a future research agenda.

As government funding continues to decrease, higher education (HE) providers are pressed to become autonomous in terms of managing resources and innovation. Many operate as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), expanding business activities beyond borders by integrating programmes of International Academic Mobility (IAM). Such programmes involve managing the flow of staff beyond national borders, contributing to a key dimension of internationalisation and IAM-driven innovation. This paper seeks to ascertain the motivations, benefits and barriers for undertaking IAM, and the HR processes through which they operate.

A four-stage qualitative methodological approach including interviews with 26 participants is employed to identify factors that motivate staff to participate in IAM programmes.

Eight factors that motivate staff to be involved with IAM (breaking from routine, leisure/recreation, socio-cultural discovery, networking, altruism, developing new skills/capabilities, research/funding collaboration and self-enhancement) and four issues that act as barriers (funding, HR myopia/lack of information, personal circumstances and schedule constraints) are identified.

This study contributes to an important yet under-researched area of employee-driven IAM, developing a conceptual framework that draws from and enriches: expectancy theory, communities of practice, social and human capital theories and intrapreneurship (i.e. employee-driven innovation).

The purpose of this paper is to develop a research agenda and raise practical issues relating to the increasing complexity of the internationally mobile professional.

The paper considers the developing issues in the use of alternative forms of international assignment (short‐term, commuter, flexpatriate) and the existence of the independent internationally mobile professional and raises questions for research and practice.

The paper suggests that alternative forms of international assignment and assignee are under‐ researched. Additionally, the large number of independently mobile professionals in the global economy need to be further researched, while organizations should recruit for international assignments from the external as well as internal labour markets when circumstances allow.

The paper raises under‐researched questions in the study of international assignments and suggests more strategic approaches to the practice of managing international assignments.

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.

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.

One purpose of this paper is to emphasize the relationship between employees as brand ambassadors and the concept of an employer brand. Another is to consider cross-cultural employer branding in the context of global talent management. The authors also clarify the connection between organizational image, organizational identity and organizational reputation, and address how positive and negative brand reputation can affect an organization.

The authors use a literature review of findings with respect to topics such as competitive strategy and constructs from the literature on employer branding to identify some key research questions to address. They then consider cross-cultural employer branding and brand repair in the context of talent management, along with more key questions to address in each area.

A positive employer brand – with its strong contribution to brand reputation and to helping organizations attract and retain top talent to gain competitive advantage – is a key ingredient for organizational success. Employees are employer-brand ambassadors. Constant awareness of and attention to one’s employer brand can prevent a brand disaster. The payoff is that preventing damage to the reputation of one’s employer brand is much easier than repairing damage to it.

The purpose is to challenge researchers to think critically and analytically about employer branding, especially in the cross-cultural context. The editor plans to invite commentaries on this paper.

Es una revisión de la literatura. Tomando en consideración los resultados existentes se propone un proceso en tres etapas para ayudar a las empresas a recuperarse del efecto negativo en la marca de empleador resultante de conductas inapropiadas. Al final de cada sección se identifican cuestiones de investigación para el futuro.

Los autores llevan a cabo una revisión de la literatura sobre la marca de empleador, para resumir lo que se conoce e identificar preguntas de investigación que no han sido analizadas hasta el momento.

Los autores señalan la importancia estratégica de la marca de empleador y su efecto en la capacidad para competir en el mercado de talento. Se propone un proceso en tres etapas para ayudar a las empresas a recuperarse del efecto negativo en la marca de empleador resultante de conductas inapropiadas. Aún existen numerosas preguntas de investigación sin respuesta.

El artículo propone un proceso en tres etapas para ayudar a las empresas a recuperarse del efecto negativo en la marca de empleador resultante de conductas inapropiadas, e identifica preguntas de investigación a analizar en estudios futuros.

Marca de empleador, marca inter-cultural, reputación de marca, reparación de la marca, revisión de la literatura

Tipo de artículo – Artículo de investigación

É una revisão da literatura. Considerando os resultados existentes, se propõe um processo em três etapas para ajudar as empresas a se recuperar do efeito negativo na marca do empregador resultante de condutas inapropriadas. Ao final de cada seção se identificam questões de investigação para o futuro.

Os autores levam a cabo una revisão da literatura sobre a marca do empregador, para resumir o que se conhece e identificar perguntas de investigação que não foram analisadas até o momento.

Os autores destacam a importância estratégica da marca do empregador e seu efeito na capacidade para competir no mercado de talento. Se propõe um processo em três etapas para ajudar as empresas a se recuperar do efeito negativo na marca do empregador resultante de condutas inapropriadas. Ainda existem numerosas preguntas de investigação sem resposta.

O artigo propõe um processo em três etapas para ajudar as empresas a se recuperar do efeito negativo na marca do empregador resultante de condutas inapropriadas, e identifica preguntas de investigação a analisar em estudos futuros.

Marca do empregador, marca intercultural, reputação da marca, reparação da marca, revisão da literatura

Tipo de artículo – Artigo de investigação

Focussing on the stratification of expatriates and the boundaries between different types of expatriates and locals, this study investigates the lived experiences and testimonies of Eastern European expatriates and their relationships in Dubai. The purpose of this article to develop the current knowledge on expatriates cohabiting in a cosmopolitan city by providing empirical evidence on expatriate bubbles in Dubai.

Explorative qualitative research was conducted using online and face-to-face interviews, along with a week-long intensive ethnography with observations, interviews and informal discussions.

Three distinct groups of people live in Dubai, namely, Westerners, expatriates from the East and Emiratis. They hardly mingle with each other on equal terms, but they do work in a complementary fashion. In Dubai, the status of East European experts, a subgroup of Westerners, is similar to their Western counterparts and in that they are considered European. Consequently, they experience a slight status development in comparison to when they work in the West. The research provides evidence on social stratification of expatriate bubbles.

This very short ethnography with a relatively small number of qualitative interviews could be complemented by a further in-depth study.

Expatriate bubbles have not previously been empirically investigated from an Eastern European perspective, nor has the unique case of Dubai been analysed extensively. Distinct expatriate bubbles with their stratified hierarchies have been identified in this study.

Singapore is a cosmopolitan city. With the rapid globalisation of businesses and the government's call for Singapore companies to “go global”, to what extent are Singaporeans ready to take up foreign assignments? Location‐related factors have often been cited in the popular press as one of the most powerful barriers to expatriation. This study aims to ascertain: the willingness of Singaporeans to consider overseas assignments with specific reference to the cultural distance between the host and home countries; and the relative importance of different contributing factors (demographic attributes, individual personality traits, job and community tenure, spouse‐related attributes and company relocation policy) in determining Singaporeans’ willingness to accept expatriate assignments. Results from a survey of 200 working adults reveal that Singaporeans, in general, prefer to work in a culturally similar host country rather than an unfamiliar place. For both locations, the most influential antecedent of expatriation appears to be a company's relocation policy.