Using Narratives to Understand the Experience of Career Success amongst Self-initiated Expatriates in South Africa

Abstract

Calls have been made within the careers literature for studies focusing on the career experiences of sample groups often neglected in theorising. One could regard self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) as one of these sample groups, especially within the context of a developing country. An interpretivist paradigm, relying on interviews, was adopted for this study using a sample of 25 expatriates working at a South African university. Based on data generated, career success was framed through: 1) quest for career progression; 2) material possessions; and 3) research publication output. Participants deemed factors within the organisation as key to this framing of career success, particularly: 1) the value placed on social networks; 2) the quest for fair remuneration; and finally 3) the availability of opportunities within the organisation. In their endeavours to retain and attract foreign academics, human resources (HR) practitioners can use the findings of this study to inform strategies that assist in developing their staff.

What does expatriate success mean? Developing a comprehensive definition through a systematic literature review

“…This long-term view shows that expatriate success is conceived as the overall career success that extends s beyond the termination of an assignment, as suggested in recent research addressing both subjective and objective measures and outcomes (e.g. Harry et al, 2019;Lazarova et al, 2021).…”

“…From these findings, we conclude that expatriate success is a multidimensional construct that needs to be analysed individually, interpersonally and organisationally from two perspectives, namely individual and organisational (e.g. Harry et al, 2019;Lazarova et al, 2021) jointly to be adequately measured. While each level is essential to understanding expatriate success, no single level can be considered the sole determiner.…”

“…This perspective was recently updated. Harry et al (2019), Waxin and Brewster (2020), Mello et al (2020) and Lazarova et al (2021) all provided more recent definitions of expatriate success and linked it to career success and its objective and subjective outcomes. Mello et al (2020) defined expatriate success as including different subjective and objective measures at the individual level.…”

Called to the ministry: Narratives of career choice amongst female pastors in South Africa

“…Thirdly, the study focuses only on female pastors who have come through the SDA church, as such experience is framed only within this one-church context. This helped us as narrative researchers considering debates and issues of controlling for agency-context issues as they have been illustrated to feature greatly in exploratory narrative work conducted previously (Harry et al, 2019a(Harry et al, , 2019bNyabvudzi & Chinyamurindi, 2019). All this dovetails into some insights to inform future research.…”

“…The researchers transcribed the interviews in Microsoft Word and then exported them into QSR International's NVivo 11, a useful data analysis and management software package that handles large volumes of text, graphic, audio and video data (Reuben & Bobat, 2014). Narrative analysis procedures used in previous research internationally (McCormack, 2000) and career research in South Africa were utilised (Harry, Dodd, & Chinyamurindi, 2019a, 2019bNyabvudzi & Chinyamurindi, 2019). This analysis was based on the three levels of meaning-making (McCormack, 2000;Thornhill, Clare, & May, 2004).…”