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The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors which influence individuals to take up international assignments in hostile environments (HEs). Using an intelligent careers (IC) perspective, an expanded framework of expatriation drivers to work in hostile contexts is developed that comprises individual, organizational and location-specific factors. In addition, the understanding of career capital acquisition and transfer is refined.

A “deviant” case study method to challenge the underlying assumptions of career capital maximization and transfer in global careers is used. To investigate the case, 25 individuals in an international development organization who had to decide whether to work in HEs were interviewed.

Five insights into decision drivers and career capital effects associated with postings to HEs are presented. These span all three levels of individual, organizational and location-specific decision factors.

Due to the case study approach, the usual limitations of qualitative case-based research with respect to generalizability apply. In the conclusions three theoretical implications for the IC framework with respect to career capital acquisition, utilization and temporal effects are outlined.

A range of practical implications in relation to the selection, talent management, performance and reward approaches as well as repatriation and family considerations in global mobility are explored.

The insights help organizations to design global mobility policies for HEs. In addition, individuals and their families benefit from greater clarity of global mobility drivers in the context of high risks.

The drivers of individuals to accept assignments to HEs are under-researched. This paper operationalizes and applies a holistic decision to work abroad framework, expands the literature on of the motivations of individuals and develops valuable insights to nuance the IC framework.

Research neglects the role that specific locations play in the decision process to accept international work. This paper aims to explore the career drivers of individuals working as expatriates in London (UK) and to focus on the relationships with specific location attributes.

A total of 11 qualitative in‐depth interviews and 348 quantitative questionnaire responses are used to explore the importance of intelligent career considerations for working as an expatriate in London.

A range of location‐specific factors and intelligent career considerations is identified and quantitatively assessed. The study depicts the links of perceived career factors and location‐specific drivers.

Applying the intelligent careers framework, the research goes beyond the normally used broad national factors to explore career capital drivers that motivate individuals to go to a specific city location. In exploring the relatively neglected areas of knowing‐whom and knowing‐why it sheds light on international relocation decision making. These insights inform further academic research and help to shape expatriation policies and practices of organizations.

The literature has hitherto neglected the influence of specific cities on the decision to work abroad, implicitly treating all locations within countries as similar. Using a boundaryless careers and expatriation perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate a range of specific motives that individuals have when working in London, the British capital.

The results of semi‐structured, in‐depth interviews and a large‐scale quantitative survey shed light on the relative importance of individual drives, career and development motivations, family and partner factors, organizational context, national and city‐specific considerations to come to London.

A range of London‐specific attributes are identified and their importance assessed. A new framework of individual international mobility drivers is developed.

There is limited generalisability of findings of interview studies, especially as “white collar” workers and managers were interviewed. Theoretical contributions consist of the development of a framework for city attractiveness assessment and further insights into international mobility drivers and barriers.

The findings reiterate the importance of individual preparation of international sojourns based on proactive location choice. They also inform city policy considerations and organizational strategies, policies and practices with respect to international mobility.

The paper moves the literature on new international careers and global mobility to go beyond the organizational perspective to assess city attractiveness factors. The paper develops a framework for evaluating city attractiveness and assesses London's “pull factors”. This results in major implications for public policy, organizational resourcing and individual decision making.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to explore what attracts individuals to live in a South East Asian city. It uses a boundaryless career approach that is interested in how people cross-traditional career boundaries, including those related to country and location barriers. Going beyond an individual and organizational view, a more extensive model of location decisions is developed that incorporates broad macro-factor career drivers.

A large-scale qualitative study explored individual, organizational, political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, ecological, legal, natural and general drivers to live in the city. The authors interviewed 43 individuals who had moved to the city from abroad, were born in the city and still lived there or who were born in the city but had moved to another foreign city.

Many macro-contextual factors – i.e. day-to-day regulatory stability and transparency, economic growth, friendliness and meritocracy, safety and a good, clean environment – were seen as attractive by all three groups. People who had left the city raised some specific criticism regarding the vibrancy, freedom and creativity of thought.

The study focused on highly skilled individuals who most often had experience in living in different cities to get more reflective views. However, this restricted the generalizability. The findings nuance the understanding of boundaryless careers.

The research expands the normally used attraction factors and develops a broader framework of city attractiveness drivers. The emerging picture can be used by the city administration to manage its global attractiveness while increasing non-regulatory “stickiness” to retain talent.

The research has social implications with respect to cross-border boundaryless careers and talent acquisition, management and retention strategies.

The research expands the macro-contextual discussion and goes beyond the dominant focus on individuals and organizations when investigating boundaryless careers. The study uses an innovative method as it does not only interview foreign expatriates but also two further, more neglected groups: local citizens and individuals who had left the city. It develops an extended model of boundaryless location drivers and develops some exemplary propositions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine scholars’ proposal that self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) can provide an alternative to company-assigned expatriates (CAEs) for filling key positions in foreign subsidiaries at a lower cost.

Underpinned by findings from empirical studies, this conceptual paper compares SIEs with CAEs and their traditional alternative, multinational corporation (MNC) local employees, to examine the suitability of SIEs as a replacement for CAEs.

SIEs are likely not a suitable alternative to CAEs for purposes of control, transfer, running the foreign operation and management development (purposes requiring firm-specific competencies), but are likely suitable for filling technical and lower and middle management positions (requiring more generic, specialist competencies) and purposes of managing within the subsidiary and responding to the local environment (purposes requiring cross-cultural and host location-specific competencies).

Guidance is provided for the recruitment of SIEs as an alternative to CAEs.

The paper adds new insight in assessing whether SIEs provide an alternative to CAEs by proposing a framework that integrates: the identification of SIEs’ competencies relative to those of CAEs and MNC local employees, based on career capital theory; with the assessment of their value, based on human capital allocation theory, against the purposes for which CAEs are deployed.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors influencing whether a multinational corporation (MNC) appoints an expatriate or a local national as the CEO of its subsidiary.

The study proposes a framework comprising ownership‐specific, location‐specific and internalization‐specific factors to examine determinants of expatriate CEO assignment. MNCs' subsidiaries in Taiwan were selected for the study.

For the effect on the assignment of an expatriated CEO to a subsidiary, the factors of a subsidiary's capability and size, MNC's global strategy and internalization motivation are positive; in contrast, the factor of the host country's locational advantages is negative. In addition, in circumstances of large cultural distances, the effect of high internalization motivation is positive and that of low internalization motivation is negative.

The research does not differentiate between two different types of expatriates and focuses on advanced countries' MNCs' subsidiaries in Taiwan. The theoretical implication of the study lies in the application of the perspectives of resource‐based view and transaction cost theory on an MNC's decision concerning the assignment of an expatriated CEO for subsidiaries.

MNCs could make a subsidiary's staffing decision by taking into account ownership‐, location‐, and internalization‐specific factors. Failure to do so will lead to poor operation of the subsidiary.

The research contributes to knowledge about the determinants of expatriate CEO assignment, and illuminates the importance of ownership, location and internalization factors for MNCs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the under-researched phenomenon of women, who of their own volition, are choosing to live and work in another country, as self-initiated expatriates (SIEs).

Drawing from a career constructivist position, the qualitative framework relied on primary data gathering through semi-structured interviews with 25 western professional SIE women living and working in Beijing.

The findings suggest that the SIE women's motivations for mobility and their career types and patterns are complex and varied. As an initial and tentative step towards developing a framework of female SIEs’ careers the authors introduce a typology of four career patterns.

As an exploratory piece of research there is limited generalisability since the findings are presented from the perspective of a particular cohort of women's narratives.

There is a need to recognise the potential value of SIEs to MNCs particularly in light of the well-documented concerns regarding human capital. Companies risk losing this potentially valuable employee if the career opportunities, as well as compensation packages, benefits and support on offer, do not match the plans and expectations of the individuals concerned.

The study provides new insights into the nature and dynamics of the different career modes and configurations of SIE women. This is an important and appropriate research agenda for several reasons. First, there remains a paucity of research on female SIEs. Second, little is known about their career-related behaviours and expectations and the relationship between mobility and career. Thus, it is hoped that a study such as this will add to the emerging body of knowledge about an under researched yet growing number of the some of the most mobile human capital in the world.

Few studies have explored how multinational firms (MNCs) use their experience when expanding abroad. According to the “knowledge projection” model of the MNC, appropriately disseminating industry experience, country experience and mode experience can a priori increase the chances of success of new subsidiaries. However, with inconsistent findings, prior research is of limited assistance in understanding this relationship. We argue that this situation can be explained by a focus on firm’s potential for experience accumulation, rather than on the actual transfer of experience. Deploying expatriate managers enable MNCs to apply organizational experience in foreign markets. It should also have an impact on foreign subsidiary’s chances of success and survival. Therefore, this paper examines how the use of expatriates to transfer experience can affect subsidiary survival.

In an environment of intensive global mobility, this study aims to investigate the performance role of staffing choices within diverse MNE subsidiary strategies. Incorporating the integration-responsiveness (IR) framework with a contingency perspective, this study proposes that the performance success of distinct MNE subsidiary strategies depends on staffing choices. This study argues that performance differences of staffing choices such as assigned expatriates, self-initiated expatriates, former inpatriates and host-country nationals derive from their different knowledge/experience advantages regarding the intra-firm environment and local market conditions.

The study utilizes a unique sample of 169 foreign subsidiaries located in Greece that faced the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic (in 2020). For robustness reasons, this study also captures the imposition of capital controls (in June 2015).

This study finds important mediating performance effects of a diversified human resource portfolio across distinct subsidiary strategies in difficult times. Integration strategy tends to use more assigned expatriates, locally responsive strategy tends to utilize more host-country nationals, whereas multi-focal strategy favors self-initiated expatriates and former inpatriates, with positive subsidiary performance effects accordingly. So, staffing policies that are suitable to balance the needs of Human Resource Management (HRM) portfolio differ from strategy to strategy. Moreover, this study finds that managing HRM diversity is crucial in turbulent times.

While the empirical evidence has been predominantly accumulated from large economies, largely neglecting performance effects of MNE subsidiary staffing in crisis contexts, the analysis sheds light on a small open economy (i.e. the Greek context) emphasizing rapidly environmental deterioration. The findings extend existing theorizing on international performance and HRM management by providing an integrative conceptual framework linking integration-responsiveness motivated strategies with distinct groups of high-quality human resources under contingency considerations, so creatively synthesizing largely fragmented IB and HRM research streams. The study provides valuable insights into the performance role of non-conventional staffing choices such as self-initiated expatriates and former inpatriates, given that relevant studies examine either exclusively expatriates or compare expatriates with host country nationals, reaching inconclusive results.