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Corporate business activities can require expatriates to relocate to dangerous countries. Applying the expectancy value theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate differences in female and male expatriates in their relocation willingness to dangerous countries as a function of sensation seeking. The authors further examine money orientation as a moderator of the effects of sensation seeking.

The sample is comprised of 148 expatriates currently residing in safe host countries. The authors build and examine a moderated mediation model using the PROCESS tool.

The results show that male expatriates are more sensation seeking than female expatriates. Further, the results indicate a positive main effect of sensation seeking on relocation willingness to dangerous countries. Most importantly, sensation seeking was found to mediate the effects of gender on relocation willingness. Accordingly, male expatriates are more willing to relocate to dangerous countries due to higher sensation seeking. Money orientation was not found to interact with sensation seeking.

The authors analyzed cross-sectional data. Future studies are encouraged to use multi-wave research designs and to examine further predictors, as well as mediators and moderators of relocation willingness to dangerous countries. Another limitation is the low number of organizational expatriates in the sample.

The study provides implications for the process of selecting eligible individuals who are willing to relocate to dangerous countries.

The study is among the first research endeavors to investigate antecedents of expatriates’ relocation willingness to dangerous countries. The authors also introduce the sensation seeking construct to the literature on expatriation management.

The purpose of this study is to explore pre-employment college graduates’ relocation tendencies based on a research framework built upon gender and cultural theories.

Relocation decisions were analyzed based on 208 college graduates enrolled in public universities in Texas, USA.

The relocation decision-making by college graduates differ from that for corporate employees described in previous research. First, the willingness to relocate increases as the college graduates mature. Second, gender difference in the willingness to relocate is non-significant because of the same expected norms for both genders. Instead, psychological gender affiliation, such as self-perceived masculinity, makes a difference in relocation decisions. Third, family-related variables, such as marital status and parenthood, do not influence college graduates’ relocation decisions. Last, cultural groups do not exhibit any overall significant differences.

The findings provide new and complementary knowledge over previous relocation studies.

The findings enhance the understanding of career choices made by college graduates in their early career, offering valuable managerial implications in crafting staffing strategies and improving human resource management for organizations in today’s fast-changing, vibrant multi-cultural environment.

The study is focused on pre-employment relocation decision-making by college graduates from different demographic backgrounds. The study fills a major research void in relocation studies by clarifying the relocation patterns of new employees graduating from college.

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.

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.

This article explores managers’ willingness to accept domestic geographical mobility within the company for which they are currently working. We examine the influence of managers’ work attitudes and career orientations on their willingness to relocate, posing a number of questions concerning these variables. Elements of answers to these questions are sought through an empirical research study with a sample of 203 private sector French managers. The results are interpreted within a theoretical perspective. We conclude with practical suggestions for developing company policies to facilitate internal managerial mobility.

This study is an empirical investigation of receptivity to expatriate assignment in culturally similar and dissimilar environments. The theoretical underpinnings of the study emerge from a model of the expatriate adjustment process which views the determinants as anticipatory adjustment variables antecedent to actual adjustment. Vertical individualism, career distance and corporate career policy along with role clarity and economic development as moderators were found to significantly explain willingness to relocate to culturally similar environments. Economic development, corporate family policy and career distance were significant predictors of mobility to culturally dissimilar environments. The proposed model for culturally similar environments substantially improves explanatory power over an existing model. Implications of the study in conjunction with predictors from the domestic mobility and international adjustment literature are discussed.

Study used 357 Singaporean managers to document their availability for international assignments and their international aspiration. To understand factors that affect their international aspiration, we investigated the impact of family, career, culture and host country factors and personal entrepreneurial characteristics on mangers’ international aspiration and willingness to accept international assignment. Overall, results show that family, spouse and children and personal characteristics influence both the degree of willingness travel and determinants of managers’ attitude toward international assignments. Career and attitudes of spouses will likely have a significant impact on managers’ willingness to accept international assignments. Prior cross‐cultural international experience and personal entrepreneurial characteristics are also important factors that influence managers’ willingness to accept international assignments. Implications for research and practice are also discussed.

Previous research has demonstrated the positive impact of relocation mobility on career success. Based on conservation‐of‐resources theory and knowledge about resistance to change, this study aims to explore the role of personality dispositions and social orientations in explaining job‐related relocation readiness.

A total of 380 German employees (study 1), unemployed individuals (study 2), and apprentices (study 3) were surveyed on their relocation readiness, personality dispositions (neuroticism, openness to experience, uncertainty tolerance), and social orientations (individualism, collectivism, social norms –i.e. the perceived social endorsement of relocation mobility) in three cross‐sectional studies and one longitudinal study (study 4).

Findings show that high levels of neuroticism (study 1) and collectivism (studies 1‐3) made individuals less ready to relocate, whereas high levels of openness to experience (study 2), uncertainty tolerance (studies 1‐2), and individualism (study 3) were positively associated with relocation readiness, as was the perceived social endorsement of relocation mobility (studies 1‐4).

Personality dispositions and social orientations should be considered when relocation decisions are at stake. The research focused on relocation readiness and did not investigate actual relocation mobility.

Human resources management and career counseling aiming to foster relocation readiness should take account of the social environment. Moreover, uncertainty‐intolerant individuals should be offered systematic, step‐by‐step guidance on how best to deal with relocation.

The study is the first to show that personality dispositions and social orientations by far outweigh socio‐demographic factors in explaining relocation readiness.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how candidates' expectations of salary in relation to job offers as expatriates in developing societies are related to country image and to age.

Data were collected from over 500 engineers living in France, Portugal and Spain, evaluating two hypothetical expatriate proposals to six different African and Latin American countries. Multivariate hierarchical regression was applied to statistically detect significant predictors, with a broad range of control variables, to investigate expatriate salary expectations.

Results evidence the role of age, seniority, previous international experience and culture attraction for the host country in influencing salary expectations for potential expatriate postings. These results are discussed at the light of selection, optimisation and compensation theory (SOC), conservation of resources theory (COR) and social identity theory.

Findings call for multinational companies to consider age, individual background, career attributes and location concerns when evaluating salary expectations involved in expatriation to developing countries.

The study shows how individual expectations about required salaries for accepting expatriate job offers in developing countries (hardly addressed in the extant literature) result from the potential for professional development opportunities and the responsibility of the jobs being offered, the country image, and the age and motivation of the individuals. Furthermore, it integrates research through use of SOC and COR theories.

The purpose of this study is to address the key factors for the sustainable process of long-term recovery from disaster, with focus on interdependent decisions of various players.

The consistency among strategies of recovery players, who make a decision based not only on direct motive but also on various complex motives and interactions with other players, is considered. Interactive decision-making during the housing reconstruction project in Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami is analyzed using game theory.

Regarding two important decisions defining the result of recovery, players’ possible decisions are evaluated, and by using the game theoretic approach, the reasons for poor output and the conditions to shift equilibrium to that which is suitable for the long-term goal of recovery are discussed.

These analyses show that motive compatibility among players should be considered when we design processes for recovery from disasters.