No abstract

Executive SummaryThis article reports findings from an in-depth study of a small number of European men and women that identifies organizational activities and their own initiatives to successfully manage their international careers within the context of their personal and family lives. In contrast to prior studies that have focused on issues for expatriate international work assignments, this study focused on flexpatriates-the frequent flyers of international work. The results indicated that, with minimal human resource management (HRM) assistance, flexpatriates were proactive and self-managing in dealing with career issues and the family and personal demands linked to their flexpatriate lifestyles. Similar career issues were evident for men and women, but the impact of home life seemed more significant for women, and the implications of this for HRM are explored.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze female expatriates' work-life conflicts and enrichments which take place during the international assignment. Design/methodology/approach -A total of 20 interviews were carried out with female expatriates. The interview data were content analyzed. Findings -The findings indicate that females have experiences of conflicts but also enrichment during international assignments. Both aspects -the effect of the personal life on the working life and vice versa -are shown to be important for females. Life and career stages appear to be integral to these experiences. This study utilizes four metaphors -airport, seesaw, stage, and harbor -as main headings to represent female expatriates' experiences in balancing work and their personal lives. Originality/value -This study expands our understanding of the experiences of female expatriates from the work-life balance perspective and contributes by analyzing both the work-life conflicts as well as the enrichment which takes place, broadening the view of private life to include aspects other than the family.

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to explore flexpatriates' perceptions of work life balance (WLB) issues and identify possible adjustments of WLB programs to better meet the needs of flexpatriates. This paper investigates flexpatriates' challenges at the interface of personal and work lives and their perception of standard WLB programs and then proposes organizational adjustments to better meet the needs of flexpatriates.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a qualitative research approach and two kinds of empirical data were collected: first, through in‐depth semi‐structured interviews with 40 employees involved in flexpatriate assignments in multinational companies operating in Austria and, second, through a document analysis of the homepages of their employing organizations to gain information about WLB practices.FindingsDrawing upon the study findings, the authors present a typology of flexpatriates and propose a model that considers both WLB and work life imbalance as a desirable or acceptable option and offers a new theoretical perspective for examining organization and individual dimensions in WLB.Originality/valueThe authors' contribution is a new contextualization of WLB initiatives that incorporates both WLB and work life imbalance as valid perspectives of employees.

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