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The goals of this review are to identify key theories, constructs and themes in the international business travel (IBT) literature and to propose a model based on findings, theories and constructs drawn from adjacent research literature.

The authors reviewed the business travel (BT) literature to identify conceptual and empirical articles on IBT published from 1990 to 2022. Only 53 publications were suitable for review. The authors reviewed them using an open coding system.

The IBT literature is dispersed across several disciplines that use different methods, focus on different aspects of travel and emphasize different positive and negative outcomes that IBT engenders. The publications employed a diverse range of methods, including review and conceptual (11), quantitative (28) and qualitative methods (14). The samples were diverse in country, age, marital status and tenure. Many publications were descriptive and exploratory. The few that based their research on theory focused on two stress theories: Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory.

Experimental and longitudinal designs are needed to reduce the causal ambiguity of this body of mostly correlational and cross-sectional research. The authors discuss the impact of emerging advances in virtual global communication technology on the future of IBT.

More research is needed on positive aspects of IBT. Human resource (HR) people should be aware of these issues and are encouraged to decrease the deleterious aspects of the international trips and increase the positive ones.

Increasing well-being of international business travelers is important for the travelers, their families and the organization.

This is the first IBT review focused on the theoretical underpinnings of research in the field. The authors offer a model for IBT and introduce adjustment and performance as important constructs in IBT research. The authors encompass crossover theory to add the reciprocal impact of travelers and spouses and label IBT a “double-edge sword” because it arouses both positive and negative outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of cultural intelligence (CQ), idiocentrism-allocentrism and organizational culture on work engagement in a multinational organization from the perspective of conservation of resources theory.

The sample consisted of 219 employees of a multinational company (MNC). Partial least squares–structural equation modeling was used to test the research model.

The results suggest that CQ is positively related to work engagement and that this relationship is moderated by employees’ idiocentrism-allocentrism, as well as by the adaptability dimension of organizational culture.

Greater generalizability of the findings could be achieved with a more geographically dispersed sample. Other cultural dimensions, as well as personal and organizational characteristics, should be considered in order to more clearly ascertain the relationships between these variables.

The findings suggest that CQ is a powerful tool for developing employee engagement within MNCs. Furthermore, a highly adaptive organizational culture and consideration of employees’ cultural values are important in order to enhance the effect of CQ on engagement.

This study identifies relevant resources that can aid in managing a diverse workforce and increasing employee engagement in companies that operate across national borders.

Focusing on the positive aspects of business trips, the current study aims to examine the antecedents of vigor and the crossover of vigor from business travelers to their spouses.

The sample consisted of 275 business travelers and their working spouses. The business travelers were required to travel abroad several times a year within the framework of their jobs. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).

The study finds that demands on the travelers (number of trips) and their resources (trip control and their business trips satisfaction) were positively related to travelers' vigor. Furthermore, as hypothesized, travelers' vigor crossed over to spouses' vigor.

The limitations of this paper are the use of a cross‐sectional self‐report survey. Its implications are that it showed that positive feelings may cross over between partners. Further research should focus on additional positive outcomes.

This is the first study that set out to investigate crossover relating to business travels and one of the few that focused on and found confirmation of crossover of positive experiences.

The central aim of this paper is to give an overview of theory and research on the crossover of (work‐related) wellbeing from employees to their partners at home. In addition, it seeks to discuss studies on the crossover of wellbeing from employees to their colleagues in the workplace. It aims to discuss possible moderators of the crossover effect and delineate a research agenda.

The paper takes the form of a literature review.

The review of the literature shows that strain may spillover from work to home, and consequently influence, the wellbeing of one's partner. Additionally, the paper discusses recent studies documenting that the enthusiasm for one's work may cross over to the partner as well. Furthermore, research has shown that employees influence one another in the workplace. Several conditions may facilitate such crossover, including the frequency of interactions, empathy, susceptibility to contagion, and similarity. The paper outlines a research agenda, and indicates what the gaps in the literature are.

The literature review reveals which advancements can be made in crossover theory. One way would be to further validate the spillover‐crossover model. This model postulates that job demands lead to work‐family conflict, which, in turn, leads to conflict with the partner (social undermining). Thus, job strain (or work engagement) first spills over from work to home, and then crosses over to the partner. This interaction sequence consequently influences the partner's wellbeing.

In this chapter, we discuss the impact of business trips on travelers and their families from the perspective of respite, thus embedding business trips in stress theories. We begin by reviewing the literature on respite and recovery. Focusing on the role of travelers’ resources, we relate the phenomenon of business trips to conservation of resources (COR) and job demands-resource (JD-R) theories. We then discuss the negative and positive characteristics and outcomes of business trips. We offer evidence from interviews with business travelers regarding the special characteristics and consequences of business trips. We summarize by addressing the question of whether business trips are a special kind of respite.

We examined how Conservation of Resources (COR) theory has been applied to work and stress in organizational settings. COR theory has drawn increasing interest in the organizational literature. It is both a stress and motivational theory that outlines how individuals and organizations are likely to be impacted by stressful circumstances, what those stressful circumstances are likely to be, and how individuals and organizations act in order to garner and protect their resources. To date, individual studies and meta-analyses have found COR theory to be a major explanatory model for understanding the stress process at work. Applications of COR theory to burnout, respite, and preventive intervention were detailed. Studies have shown that resource loss is a critical component of the stress process in organizations and that limiting resource loss is a key to successful prevention and post-stress intervention. Applications for future work, moving COR theory to the study of the acquisition, maintenance, fostering, and protection of key resources was discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to provide theoretical and practical insight into the process of crossover with the proposition that affect intensity is an important explanatory mechanism of crossover.

This paper provides an empirical and conceptual overview of the construct of crossover, and addresses key gaps in the literature by proposing a process of discrete emotional crossover. It is proposed that individual differences in affect intensity may moderate and/or explain the crossover of discrete emotions in the workplace.

This paper responds to the call of various researchers within the crossover field by putting forth a unique explanation for the occurrence of crossover. This explanation draws significantly on emotions theory and research.

This paper is unique in its presentation of affect intensity as a moderator of the crossover process and in its discussion of the crossover of discrete emotions such as joy and fear rather than the crossover of emotional or psychological states.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the work-family interface of two non-traditional forms of expatriation. The paper contributes to existing research by comparing and contrasting the experiences of international business travellers and rotational assignees, pointing out the similarities in their experiences but also showing considerable differences in how the work-family interface plays out in these two groups.

In line with the exploratory nature of the research, the authors carried out a qualitative case study drawing on interview data with rotators and international business travellers (n=20). In order to get more in-depth insights into the experiences of these two groups of assignees, the authors also used the photo-elicitation technique, which corresponds with the recent recognition that the evolving nature of international assignments requires alternative methods of inquiry to enhance the understanding of the challenges faced by them.

The study points to four major factors affecting the work-family interface: time spent away, unpredictability of work schedules, limited ability to exercise control over it as well as limited availability of organisational support. The findings illustrate that while these factors impact international business travellers and rotators alike, their intensity varies considerably in the experiences of these two groups.

The research is based on a single case study and a small sample which needs to be considered when discussing the implications of the findings. Future research can valuably extend and build on the here reported observations.

A number of practical implications are discussed, notably pertaining to the ways in which organisations can mitigate the challenges encountered by international business travellers and rotators.

The papers focuses on two groups of assignees that are underrepresented in the expatriate literature despite their increasing empirical significance in international business.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of empathy (empathic concern and perspective taking) in the crossover process. Specifically, it aims to test whether empathy moderates the crossover effect of women's work engagement to their men's work engagement. Additionally, it seeks to investigate the relationship between men's engagement and colleague ratings of job performance.

Hypotheses were tested using a cross‐sectional design with three sources of information: 175 Dutch women and their partners working in different occupational sectors, as well as 175 colleagues of the male participants.

Results of moderated structural equation modeling analyses showed that the crossover of work engagement from women to men was strongest when men were high (vs low) in perspective taking (the spontaneous tendency of a person to adopt the psychological perspective of other people). Empathic concern did not moderate the crossover effect. In addition, men's work engagement was positively related to in‐role and extra‐role performance.

Results suggest that work engagement is not only important for one's own, but also for one's partner's performance. This implies that companies should try to facilitate engagement.

The findings shed light on the crossover process, and indicate under which conditions employees are influenced by their partners and consequently change their work behavior.