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Under the framework of the achievement goal and expectancy-value theories, this study aims to examine which motivational goals lead people to self-initiate an international assignment and predict subjective assignment achievements.

Data was collected from a convenience sample of 141 self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) from multiple locations. The first set of analyses tested the hypothesis that demographics and expectancies of competence in living and working abroad discriminate the individuals who initiate an international assignment for learning goals from the ones who value performance goals. The second set of analyses tested the hypothesis that individual expectancies and goals predict specific subjective assignment achievements and overall success.

The results show that SIEs who had greater confidence in their ability to live and work abroad were also more likely to move to pursuit performance goals. They also reported greater host adjustment and superior professional accomplishments, but not higher family achievements or success.

In contrast to the dominant descriptive approach to the study of SIEs, this study underpins the adequacy and potential of a motivational approach in predicting SIEs’ behaviors and outcomes. The theoretical and managerial implications for international business and cross-cultural management are further discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of perceived home and destination organizational culture characteristics and general satisfaction with the assignment as antecedents of expatriates’ withdrawal intentions.

Data were collected through a web survey of an international sample of expatriates with a broad representation of industries, organizations and countries of origin and destination.

The results indicate that home and destination organizational cultures affect expatriates’ withdrawal intentions, after controlling for demographics and national cultural differences, namely: home organizational culture has a stronger influence on withdrawal intentions from the organization, while host organizational culture affects withdrawal intentions from the assignment. Further, the relationship between host organizational culture and expatriates’ intentions to withdraw from the assignment is mediated by expatriates’ satisfaction with the assignment. Evidence was also found supporting a stronger and negative influence of the goal orientation dimension of organizational culture, thus suggesting that a collective orientation toward common business goals (i.e. solidarity) may help retain expatriates.

This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by exploring the influence of organizational culture on expatriates’ withdrawal intentions, and the mediating role of expatriates’ satisfaction with the assignment, on that relationship.

The expatriation literature has developed an insightful body of research on the reasons why women are not assigned abroad as frequently as men. However, the authors know very little about the systemic and recursive consequences of women's underrepresentation in international assignments (IAs), which are examined in this conceptual paper.

Drawing upon expatriation research and a system dynamics perspective, the authors propose a conceptual model to explain both women's underrepresentation in IAs and its recursive consequences.

The authors highlight how women's underrepresentation in IAs results from a complex system of recursive effects that jeopardizes women's professional development and undermines both their own career progression to top management and firms' competitive advantage and international growth. The authors argue that organizations make decisions that contravene their own interest in a competitive global context. First is that they are limiting their talent pool by not considering female candidates. Second is that they are missing the opportunity to use IAs to advance women's careers.

The model provides a solid grounding for future research on selecting the most effective organizational actions and designing supportive measures to disrupt the persistent dynamics contributing to women's underrepresentation in IAs. Future research could also expand our study by incorporating individual differences and the proactive role that women may take.

The model points to specific managerial interventions (e.g. increased access to job training and specific training ahead of the assignment, dual-career support, women's mentoring and affirmative action) which have the potential to reduce women's underrepresentation in IAs and in top management.

The system dynamics approach enables a broader understanding of why women are underrepresented in IAs, how this underrepresentation further exacerbates gender segregation in international business, and how these recursive outcomes can be averted to the advantage of firms' sustainable growth.

International business travelers (IBTs) face daily challenges pertaining to the frequency and duration of travel. Following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the study aims to draw upon the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and the literature on work–life balance (WLB) to examine how this crisis have disrupted IBTs routines and the implications for their WLB.

Data were collected in April 2020 with an online survey answered by 141 IBTs from different locations. The first set of analyses examined the perceived change in job-demands (i.e. business travel and workload) including stress and work–life difficulties following the outbreak of COVID-19. The second set of analyses tested the hypotheses that the perceived change in workload and stress predict IBTs' work–life difficulties, which, in turn, affect their WLB.

The results show that the decline in job-demands (i.e. business travel and workload) after the outbreak of COVID-19 was not enough to reduce IBTs' stress and ameliorate their work–life difficulties and WLB. Only respondents who experienced a decrease in workload, including less relational difficulties, reported a superior WLB.

The study widens the scope and relevance of global mobility studies in crisis settings by timely reporting the changes in job-demands, stress and work–life difficulties among IBTs following the outbreak of COVID-19. Additionally, the research extends the use of the JD-R model in the international context by advancing our knowledge of the interplay between contextual demands and job-demands in affecting IBTs' stress, work–life difficulties and WLB.

To date, research on migration and entrepreneurship has rarely focused expat-preneurs. Based on recent developments in both fields, this paper aims to investigate the under-researched phenomenon of Chinese self-initiated expatriates who choose to temporarily live and do business abroad on their own volition.

To address this research gap, 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews with Chinese expat-preneurs living in Portugal were conducted, exposing their narratives about their multiple challenges.

The findings corroborate the theoretical need to look beyond narrow economic explanations for why individuals engage in transnational entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial itinerancy. A collective identity and ethnic community are important because they influence how opportunities are identified and pursued.

This is a qualitative and interpretative study in a limited geographical area, which does not intent to ensure generalizability. More research is needed to further understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurial itinerancy in Europe and among other ethnic communities.

The findings provide insightful inputs to Portuguese policymakers and locals on how to support ethnic entrepreneurship. Chinese expat-preneurs also benefit from understanding how to strength their ethnic social ties in connection with local communities.

This study contributes to the entrepreneurship and international mobility literatures by providing new insights into the nature and dynamics of Chinese “expat-preneurs”, including their entrepreneurial itinerancy, necessary to properly understand entrepreneurs’ diversity and assist in extending transnational entrepreneurial theory.

The introduction of robotic process automation (RPA) in shared service centres (SSCs) can hardly be overlooked. This article, therefore, draws on the institutional theory to widen the understanding of its implementation and outcomes regarding people management. Drawing on the lens of the institutional theory and the literature on SSCs and RPA, this study addresses the key challenges and outcomes of robotization.

The study follows a qualitative approach and a purposeful sampling design that collected data from six major SSCs) introducing robotization. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews with service representatives, including RPA project managers. A thematic content analysis was used.

The introduction of robotics follows mechanisms of coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphism and is effectively replacing workers. So far, this process has been managed through a few reactive people management practices, such as earlier retirements, internal mobility and outsourcing reduction, which warns of future tensions. The findings also show the emergence of new jobs, such as robot developers and robot managers.

The paper contributes to the limited empirical body of research in RPA in SSCs. The study is novel as it is one of the first offering an implementation roadmap for other SSCs and illustrates the positive impact on processes redesign. It also provides empirical evidence on the debate about the potential for service workers' replacement versus tasks augmentation. In the longer term, this study opens new research avenues related to the tensions and contradictions from the progressive institutionalization of robotization in service organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the narratives of the work-life interface (WLI) of Portuguese international business travelers.

Semi-structured interviews with 14 Portuguese international business travelers were conducted to expose the narratives of the WLI in terms of demands, resources, and coping and how these work-life events shape work-identity.

The findings show that: work-life events are interconnected and are sources of conflict and enrichment; work-life boundaries are personally managed and socially enacted; and WLI shapes work-identity. The analysis shows that occupational travel can be both a source of positive self-regard and fulfillment that entails high work-identity and low boundary control or a source of conflict and identity threat. In either case, work-life coping is devised to prompt self-worth.

Following the findings from this exploratory study, several research propositions are outlined for international business travelers, highlighting the interactions between work-life centrality, work-life boundary management and work-identity. In extending the work-life research to international business travelers this study reveals the extent to which the advancement of work-life research benefits from the theoretical and empirical contributions of the literature on work-identity.

Este estudo exploratório examina as narrativas dos viajantes de negócios internacionais quanto ao interface trabalho-vida pessoal.

Foram efetuadas catorze entrevistas semiestruturadas a viajantes de negócios internacionais portugueses com o objetivo de expor as suas narrativas de interface trabalho-vida pessoal, em termos de exigências, recursos e estratégias para lidarem com estes eventos. Adicionalmente examinou-se como os eventos relacionados com o trabalho e vida pessoal moldam a identidade profissional destes viajantes frequentes.

Os resultados demonstram que: (1) os eventos relacionados com o trabalho e a vida pessoal estão interrelacionados e são fonte de conflito e enriquecimento; (2) as fronteiras entre o trabalho e a vida pessoal são geridas individualmente mas são ditadas socialmente; e (3) o interface trabalho-vida pessoal molda a identidade no trabalho destes viajantes internacionais. A análise revela que as viagens de trabalho frequentes podem ser fonte de autoestima e satisfação, associada a uma forte identidade profissional, assim como podem ser fonte de conflito e de ameaça a essa mesma identidade. Em qualquer dos casos, os indivíduos inquiridos acionaram estratégias para lidarem com os eventos de ambos os domínios que visam elevar a sua autoestima e identidade.

Os resultados deste estudo permitem avançar várias proposições para investigação futura, salientando as interações entre a centralidade do trabalho e/ou da vida pessoal, a gestão das fronteiras entre estes domínios e a construção da identidade. Ao estudar o interface entre o trabalho e a vida pessoal dos viajantes frequentes, este estudo contribui para o avanço da investigação neste domínio ao revelar os benefícios de explorar as contribuições teóricas e práticas da literatura sobre a identidade associada ao trabalho.

The purpose of this study is to examine how international workers engage into and make sense of expatriation and how sense-making enacts further action.

Given the corporate influence over expatriation, empirical data were collected from a single case study organization, a well-established Portuguese retail company. The primary data sources were the in-depth interviews with 13 international workers, while other secondary data sources included company documents that provided the background information required to understand the interviewees and describe the organization. The experiences of expatriation through the accounts and stories of these workers were subject to thematic content analysis.

The findings demonstrate that international workers act as sense-makers and sense-givers vehicles about expatriation. By doing so, they enact a plausible and dominant story that ultimately bounds the perception of divergent cues and limit their own action. While this ongoing dialogue between expatriation meaning and action can raise organizational actors’ capacities to negotiate and influence further meaning and action, it also validates existing practices and generates further compliance.

Despite being limited to a single organizational context, this study offers a contextualized approach to the study of expatriation that complements earlier research and highlights sense-making dynamics and related outcomes, further extending the applications of the sense-making perspective. This study suggests new research avenues exploring the politics and negotiation bonds from which expatriation sense-making can emerge as well as the opportunities for disruptive sense-making.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the social networks of Portuguese self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), in terms of composition, diversity and roles.

Semi-structured interviews with several Portuguese SIEs from diverse occupations and who were living and working in different locations were conducted, to explore the composition, diversity and roles performed by their social networks.

The findings indicate that: first, surveyed Portuguese SIEs had both home and host social networks: while home networks fade over time, host networks were mainly work driven; second, most SIEs had an “anchor contact” prior to the relocation, which assisted in the decision to go abroad and the initial settlement; and third, surveyed Portuguese SIEs purposefully sough “fellow nationals” from a similar social status and background to get feedback and emotional support, while deliberately ignored Portuguese diaspora.

Following the findings from this exploratory study, several research propositions are outlined highlighting the interactions between SIEs’ social networks at the destination and stereotypes toward their national origin. This study helps understand what shapes the formation of social networks among SIEs.