The project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 765355.
PurposeThis paper investigates whether career capital (CC) development abroad, expatriate type, career type and career stage affect expatriates' career success in terms of perceived marketability and the number of promotions.Design/methodology/approachThe study presents findings from a 2020 follow-up study among 327 expatriates, including assigned expatriates (AEs) (n = 117) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) (n = 220), who worked abroad in 2015 and 2016. Among that group, 186 had continued their international career, while 141 had repatriated. Structural equation modeling with robust maximum likelihood estimation was used to test this study's hypotheses. MPlus 8.6 software supported the analysis.FindingsThe study outlines that CC developed abroad positively impacts perceived marketability and the number of promotions. Second, repatriates reported a greater degree of perceived marketability than those continuing an international career. Career type did not predict the number of promotions. The expatriate type did not influence any of the career success measures. Finally, expatriates in their late-career stage did not achieve a similar level of career success as those in other career stages.Research limitations/implicationsAll the expatriates were university-educated Finnish engineers and business professionals, and the career benefits of expatriation could differ for different sample groups. The study calls for more context-sensitive global careers research. The findings have positive implications for self-guided career actors considering working abroad. Organizations could focus more of their global talent attraction, management and career efforts on SIEs.Originality/valueTo analyze the impacts of these four antecedents on the career success of expatriates, the authors cooperated with two Finnish labor unions in 2020 to explore the careers of 327 expatriates, having surveyed the same group in 2015/2016. Such follow-up studies are not very common in expatriation research since it is difficult to keep track of expatriates who change locations and employers.
We moved places and places moved us, until force majeure detained us on the spot. Signed-up to be hyper-mobile Ph.D.-candidates, we became hyper-reflective pandemic intimates. We moved together into a space that felt safe, OUR safe space. Suspended. Did the pandemic open this door, or had this space always existed, even back in the old days?Probably the latter, although we were not sensitive enough to perceive it, too busy to push the door, too lonesome to CARE. Not attentive to its possibilities, not imaginative of its POWER, too confident to be capable of succeeding alone.Even if we might have secretly wished for this space to exist.The present piece of work, and JOY, might be described by others as a "side-step," a "hobby project," a "shadow activity."For us, it is a recollection of shocks and wonders, a sentience of precious, ephemeral instances that last. We are a group of eight early career researchers who study global mobility and labor migration from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.
G lobal careers, which we define as long-term careers that involve various international jobs across different locations (Suutari et al., 2012), are not a new phenomenon. Traders, missionaries, and occupying armed forces have worked abroad for centuries. Since World War II, an increasingly interdependent global economy has transformed how organizations operate across the world, creating a strong need for culturally sophisticated, agile, and globally savvy assignees (Caligiuri, 2013) who must be able to manage international operations effectively. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has not only made virtual forms of global work more prominent but is also leading to some replacement of physical assignments (Selmer et al., 2022). Nevertheless, it is widely expected that the movement of individuals across borders for work purposes will continue to be an important phenomenon for individuals and multinational organizations (Mello et al., 2022). Consequently, any key developments are important for career counselors to understand in order to help their clients to navigate global careers amid substantial changes.Undertaking several international assignments (IAs) indicates that assignees are committed to developing their global careers. Evidence suggests that 40% to 70% of long-term expatriates have experienced previous IAs (Cerdin & Le
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