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Identifies the three key challenges encountered on international assignments; their impact on assignment adjustment performance and satisfaction; the key skills required to deal effectively with the challenges; and issues associated with training in these skills for internationally assigned managers.

We review 25 years of research on expatriate experiences concentrating on expatriate adjustment as a central construct, and relying on a general stressor-stress-strain framework. First, we consider who expatriates are, why their experiences differ from domestic employees, and what adjustment is. Conceptualizing (mal)adjustment in terms of stress, we next review the stressors and strains associated with it. Consolidating the wide range of antecedents (anticipatory and in-country) that have been studied to date, we note major patterns of effects and their implications for how HR managers can facilitate adjustment. Although relatively less research has focused on the consequences of adjustment, enough evidence exists to establish a bottom-line impact of poor adjustment on performance. To stimulate future efforts to understand the experiences of expatriates, we discuss the challenges and opportunities of continuing down this road of research.

Virtual assignments, in which the virtual assignees do not relocate to host locations, but work remotely, have several advantages compared to traditional international assignments, such as enhanced flexibility, cost-efficiency and the possibility that virtual assignees can stay in their home communities. However, it is open to question whether virtual assignments are as effective as traditional assignments. The purpose of this study is to compare the ability of virtual vs traditional assignees to bridge the distance between headquarters and subsidiaries.

Based on a survey among virtual and traditional assignees, the ability to bridge multiple facets of distance is examined.

The results indicate that virtual and traditional assignees have similar abilities to bridge geographic, cultural, functional and language distance. However, traditional assignees have a higher ability to bridge emotional and temporal distance.

By applying the distance framework to virtual assignments, a new theoretical perspective is introduced and the importance of clearly disentangling distance-bridging abilities is highlighted. One practical recommendation is that, due to lower costs and reduced coordination efforts required for virtual assignments, this assignment type is preferable if the cultural, language, functional and geographic distances are the most problematic ones during international assignments.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of SIEs’ career development through international assignment. In particular, the research focus is on career capital acquirement and development of SIEs through their international assignment in China.

We review studies on SIEs and comparative studies between SIEs and OEs. We apply the career capital theory to discuss SIEs’ career capital development in terms of knowing-how, knowing-why and knowing-whom through expatriation assignment in China.

This chapter focuses on SIEs’ career capital accumulation through international assignments in China, and we develop three propositions that will guide future studies: the knowing-whom career capital development of SIEs through expatriation is increased more in network quantity than network quality in China; the knowing-why career capital development of SIEs through expatriation is influenced by the age and career stage of SIEs; and the knowing-how career capital development of SIEs through expatriation — task-related skills and local engagement skills — is influenced by the SIE’s intercultural ability and organization support respectively.

In practice, a better understanding of SIEs’ career capital development in terms of knowing-how, knowing-why and knowing-whom help companies make the decision to select the relevant staffing pattern. This study also has practical implications in relation to the design and selection of the training, learning and development activities provided to the employees.

The chapter contributes to the expatriate management literature by focusing on SIEs’ career development through their international assignment in China. SIEs’ career development is related to their cross-cultural adjustment and has impacts on the completion and success of the expatriation assignment.

International experience (IE) has been acknowledged to be the most useful method for developing global leaders. However, not everyone benefits equally from IE. During the last two decades, our understanding of why this is the case and how global leaders learn from IE has rapidly increased. Several individual and organizational enablers facilitating global leader learning from IE have been identified in the literature, as have learning mechanisms that make such learning possible. However, the literature remains fragmented, and there is a great need to integrate the findings in the field. Therefore, the present paper systematically examines peer-reviewed studies on global leaders' learning from IE published between 1998 and 2019. The study contributes to the extant literature by identifying and integrating individual enablers, organizational enablers, and key learning mechanisms from global leaders' IE and by suggesting topics for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the costs and benefits of expatriation persists as a difficult challenge for many organizations and scholarly guidance on the process of compiling and allocating the costs of expatriation remains insufficient. The authors argue therefore that there is a need for developing an instrument that enables practitioners to calculate an estimate of the total cost of expatriation which can eventually be set in relation to the expected benefits of an assignment.

To investigate how the total cost of expatriation can be computed, the authors provide an exploratory overview of previous research on international assignments, expatriate return of investment (eROI) and principles of cost accounting. Then, essential costs of expatriation are discussed and combined in one model for assessing the total cost of expatriation.

The authors will demonstrate that expatriation costs are best understood as process costs. In addition, the authors will provide a tool to calculate eROI.

The paper show how to determine the costs of major phases of expatriation. It allows us to calculate the break-even point of an international assignment and it can be used to compare this investment with alternative methods of international mobility. Most importantly, the authors are able to identify crucial cost drivers which allow the development of more precise and targeted recommendations for management action.

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 purpose of the paper is twofold – first, to explore the role of perceived organizational support (POS) during the three critical stages of the female expatriate experience, with a view to explaining the disproportionately low numbers of females in expatriate roles; and second, to offer specific suggestions to multi-national enterprises to help them create a level playing field so females can compete for expatriate assignments.

The authors draw upon the theory of POS to explore how the perceived lack of support from their organization during the critical stages of expatriate assignments affects women’s interest, and potentially their performance, in expatriate assignments. The authors develop and present relevant propositions.

This is a conceptual paper that offers a process model of the impact of POS on the three stages of selection of females for expatriates.

From a theoretical perspective it is clear that POS can play an important role in the willingness of females to accept international assignments. Thus POS can be a critical determinant of the potential levels of female participation in expatriate assignments. Previously, scholars have argued that the low numbers of female expatriates may be a result of a lack of interest on their part, or because they may not be welcomed in many countries. However, subsequent theses have argued, and many studies have shown, that females can be equally successful. The proposed process model helps to better understand how organizations might dismantle the barriers faced by potential female expatriates, by addressing the key issues at each stage.

Multinational enterprises need to ensure that they are drawing from their full pool of talent, if they are to compete effectively against other multinational enterprises. By paying attention to the suggestions, and adopting and executing the propositions, they will be able to avoid the possibility that their qualified female employees may withdraw from the organization if they believe that they are not likely to be considered for expatriate assignments, simply because of their gender, even though they are interested.

From a societal perspective, it is indeed critical that qualified females are provided the same opportunities that are made available to males. Given that roughly half the population is female, multi-national enterprises that fail to treat their female employees fairly will be seen as poor corporate citizens.

This is the first paper to address the critical issue of low numbers of females on expatriate assignments by drawing upon the tenets of the theory of POS. The authors offer several propositions to help multinational enterprises understand the impact of the gender imbalance in expatriate assignments, and offer suggestions on how organizations might improve the participation of females in expatriate assignments.

Considers the success of the Leader‐Member exchange (LMX) model tested over various populations. States that it has not been tested in the selection of employees for international assignments. Attempts to use this model to explain why females may not be selected or offered these roles. Concludes that initial results suggest that LMX quality may play a major role in international assignment selection and provides some implications for future research.

Managerial discourses tend to portray work-related mobility practices in a positive light, presenting mobility assignments as a place of stimulus and differentiation. A conception of mobility as an opportunity, may contrast, in specific economies and business settings, with lived personal experiences. This article reports the results of a three-year study, aimed to question how multinational companies (MNCs) located in a small and developing European economy (Portugal) are building talent pools for expatriate assignments. Interaction effects, as proposed by the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, are considered as lens to understand the interplay of company expatriate policies, willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates. By using a Portuguese sample, the study examines whether prior findings in mature economies and consolidated MNCs can be generalized to less developed international business settings.

A three-year study, encompassing 24 expatriate cases observed in five multinational firms born or located in Portugal. Two techniques of empirical data collection were used: statistical sources and documental analysis and in-depth interviews. A total of 37 interviews were conducted, both in-person and remotely, of which 13 were with company managers and representatives, and 24 with expatriates (as defined and referred like this by the companies under study).

Heterogeneous company policies, ranging from juvenile, functionalist to more dynamic and flow-based approaches, are presented as qualifying resources of willingness levels and psychological contracts of expatriates. Observed interaction effects between policies, willingness and psychological contracts, empirically mirrored in three profiles (conformist, protean and disrupted expatriates) suggest that incentive effects (emanating from company policies) and job demand-resource balance, factored as terms of social and economic trade, are non-linear and asymmetric, influencing firm propensity to succeed while using international work to support company expansion goals. As job resources, expatriate policies are presented as operating as pull or push factors: functionalist HR approaches seem to act as push factors generating more conformist or compelled willingness profiles.

Generalization of study's outcomes has limitations. Future studies are encouraged to use comparative and longitudinal research designs. Furthermore, future research should include business expatriates with entry-level positions, and increase the number of interviewees, as results can also be considered as limited by sample size.

It is suggested that further strategic work is needed to present expatriation development value, formally screen and consider willingness level as selection criteria, and enlarge the pool (from internal to external) of candidates, in peripheral economic settings such as Portugal. A shift to more dynamic and job resource-dense policies are suggested as beneficial, as pathway to optimize social and economic value from expatriation assignments and work experiences.

By putting the interplay between macro and micro-level processes into perspective, the study provides empirical evidence on how company expatriate policies have come to promote unforeseen differentiation of employee willingness and psychological contracts at the heart of MNCs. This is particularly relevant in developing economies such as Portugal, challenging the need to build talent pools for international work assignments. Empirical data illustrating company policies interactive effects with different willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates is provided.