Career management issues for flexpatriate international staff

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.

The Protean Career: Exemplified by First World Foreign Residents in Western Europe?

“…Although contemporary researchers have begun to examine different categories of international assignees other than the traditional expatriate (e.g., Banai and Harry 2004;Harry and Banai 2004;Harvey et al 1999;Inkson et al 1997;Mayerhofer, Hartmann, and Herbert 2004;Suutari 2003;Suutari and Brewster 2000), the expatriate living and working in a host country on a local country contract has not received the same attention. Thus, the meta-goal of this study is to describe and analyze the careers of this subcategory of international assignees within the context of contemporary literature and research on international careers, in particular looking at traditional, boundaryless, and protean career concepts.…”

Exploring international work: types and dimensions of global careers

“…In the past, the literature has concentrated on 'traditional' long-term expatriation (Brewster, Sparrow and Vernon 2007), but recently alternative forms of international work have attracted more attention. Expressions such as self-initiated work experiences, global management activities, short-and long-term expatriation, international project work or distinction as to the drivers of global work (from self-initiated to organization-sponsored) are used to capture the different phenomena (Bonache, Brewster and Suutari 2001;Inkson and Myers 2003;Mayerhofer, Hartmann and Herbert 2004;Cappellen and Janssens 2005). Diverse forms of international work are being investigated (Dickmann and Baruch 2011), which facilitate the acquisition of diverse human capital (Becker 1964).…”

Subsidiary Interdependencies and International Human Resource Management Practices in German MNCs

“…there are further variables that could be expected to be associated with the use and design of ihRM practices in overseas subsidiaries of MNcs. For example, managers can gain foreign experience not only through long-term foreign assignments but also through short-term delegations, international commuter arrangements, frequent flyer assignments and virtual delegations (Collings et al 2007;holtbrügge and schillo 2008;Mayerhofer et al 2004). as the focus of our study was to analyze the relationship between subsidiary interdependence and ihRM practices rather than explaining the largest possible amount of variation in our dependent variables, we had to limit the number of independent and control variables included.…”