With approximately 50 million people across the globe considered expatriates (persons living and working abroad for a limited time), global mobility is an important issue for individuals, organisations, and national governments, and a major research stream in universities and business schools. Written by a team of internationally renowned scholars from around the world, this volume summarises what is known about the management of global mobility and sets an agenda for future research. It also offers a comprehensive overview of the practical implications for organisations that manage expatriates, and individuals who are currently or aspiring expatriates. Providing an accessible and globally relevant introduction to the subject of expatriation and global mobility, this book will appeal to postgraduate, MBA, and EMBA students studying global mobility or international human resource management. It will also be of interest to practitioners, such as human resource managers and global mobility managers, who would like to gain a better understanding of the expatriation process.

Multinational enterprises continue to rely heavily upon expatriates as part of their global workforce. These expatriates, whose exact employment contract may take different forms, are assigned to help them develop global skills as well as to foster knowledge transfer. But managing this expatriate workforce is extremely complex, requiring a questioning of assumptions and sensitivity to new social and cultural dynamics. This book sets out to examine the problem of expatriate management through an I/O Psychology lens. Each chapter draws upon the expertise of scholars from around the world to provide insights into the latest research findings and remaining needs, pertaining to a wide variety of issues. The contributors of this book review the current state of the research of the issue at hand and then make recommendations for where the new frontiers of the research should be in the coming decades. This volume covers four sets of issues pertaining to expatriate management and global mobility in depth. First, the different decision points organizations must make about assigning someone to an overseas location for some period of time; second the different categories of employees in the multinational corporation and their unique characteristics and challenges; third, the various issues and implications of managing a globally mobile workforce; and fourth, the unique contexts of global mobility. Overarching future research themes are identified that lay out the research agenda for the coming decades. By bringing together key research, this book aims to help I/O psychologists understand, explore, and identify new ways of contributing to the understanding of the issues involved in managing an expatriate workforce. Incorporating state-of-the art I/O psychology research in this unique context bears the promise of yielding important new paradigms and practices.

A comprehensive overview of the practical implications for organizations that manage international employees, and individuals who are currently or aspiring expatriates.

With approximately 50 million people across the globe considered expatriates (persons living and working abroad for a limited time), global mobility is an important issue for individuals, organisations, and national governments, and a major research stream in universities and business schools. Written by a team of internationally renowned scholars from around the world, this volume summarises what is known about the management of global mobility and sets an agenda for future research. It also offers a comprehensive overview of the practical implications for organisations that manage expatriates, and individuals who are currently or aspiring expatriates. Providing an accessible and globally relevant introduction to the subject of expatriation and global mobility, this book will appeal to postgraduate, MBA, and EMBA students studying global mobility or international human resource management. It will also be of interest to practitioners, such as human resource managers and global mobility managers, who would like to gain a better understanding of the expatriation process.

This volume examines self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), the category of highly skilled people whose movement from one country to another is by choice. Although they are not forced to relocate due to work, conflict or natural disaster, their migration pattern is every bit as complex. The book challenges previous theoretical approaches that take for granted a more simplistic view of this population, and advances that mobility of SIEs relates to the expatriates themselves, their conditions and the different structures intervening in their career life course. With their visible increase worldwide, this book positions itself as a nexus for this on-going discussion, while linking self-initiated expatriation to the theoretical landscape of international skilled migration and mobility. Major interests that catch attention are transnational practices, work-related experiences and personal life course, including forms of inequalities in their migration experiences. The book identifies forms and drivers of migratory behaviour and provides an argument concerning the broader processes of mobility and integration. As such, this book constitutes a departure point for future research in terms of theoretical underpinnings and empirical rigor on global highly skilled mobility of SIEs. The collection of empirical case studies offers an insightful analysis for policy makers, concerned stakeholders and organizations to better cope with this form of migration.

Expatriation is a big topic, and is getting bigger. Over 200 million people worldwide now live and work in a country other than their country of origin. Tens of billions of dollars are spent annually by organizations that move expatriates around the world. Yet, despite the substantial costs involved, expatriation frequently results in an unsatisfactory return on investment (ROI), with little or no knowledge as to how to improve it. Why is this so? Drawing on more than a decade of expertise, research, and publications in top journals, the authors provide you real solutions to achieve more than a satisfactory ROI from expatriates—with rule number one being: Understand expatriates themselves. This book provides a practical “insider’s” guide that reveals why expatriates seek and accept international assignments; how they feel impacted by new forms of remuneration and other working conditions; how international assignments fit in with their longer-term career aspirations; and what complications arise in terms of their families. Whether you’re a manager or consultant, inside you’ll learn what modern-day global mobility is like (based on the authors’ decade-long study with nearly four hundred expatriates and their managers, as well as over a hundred who were interviewed personally), how it is changing, and why now, more than ever, a hard-nosed ROI approach is necessary.

'In the Research Handbook of Expatriates, Yvonne McNulty and Jan Selmer have created a seminal work that should be on the bookshelf of all social scientists who work in the field of expatriation. More senior scholars will appreciate the ''deep dive'' each chapter takes into the literature, each one acting as a reservoir they can draw from to powerfully inform their future research efforts. Doctoral students and newly minted PhDs will find this book to be especially valuable - the final chapter of the book alone provides inestimable career and ''how-to-publish'' guidance for them in the field of expatriation. The coverage of the history, construct, milieu, research methodologies, and issues is the best I have come across in a single volume in over 30 years of working in the field. In short, this is a monumental contribution to the study of expatriates and global mobility.' - Mark E. Mendenhall, University of Tennessee 'McNulty and Selmer's edited volume does a wonderful job of consolidating and integrating everything we know about expatriates and their different types. This long-overdue Handbook, featuring chapters by top researchers, lays a trail for scholars to further advance the study of expatriates.' - Joyce Osland, San Jose State University 'McNulty and Selmer's edited book of readings on virtually all aspects of expatriates deserves a prominent place in the library of researchers and practitioners interested in this subject. The Handbook provides a historical overview as well as the latest trends in expatriate studies and concludes with useful guidelines on how to conduct as well as improve the quality of research in this field.' - Rosalie L. Tung, Simon Fraser University, Canada Constituting a comprehensive and carefully designed collection of contributions, the Research Handbook of Expatriatesprovides a nuanced and up-to-date discussion of expatriates. Theoretically broad and groundbreaking, it offers important and contemporary insights into emerging areas of research warranting future consideration. Drawing upon a range of perspectives from the field?s most distinguished academics, contributions review the history of the literature in relation to expatriates, from the development of the expatriate construct through to the current state of research on business expatriates. Subsequent chapters progress into detailed examinations of the various types of business expatriates including LGBT, self-initiated expatriates, female assignees, inpatriates, international business travellers and commuters, and millennials. Other themes include expatriate performance, adjustment, expatriates to and from developing countries, global talent management, and expatriates? safety and security. The Research Handbook also covers expatriates in diverse communities such as education, military, missionary, sports and ?Aidland?, and provides additional commentaries relating to methodological issues, research with practitioners, case studies, biculturals and ATCKs, and global families. The Research Handbook concludes with publishing advice for PhD and early career researchers. Stimulating insightful new areas of study, this collection is a must read for academics and scholars in the field of expatriate research, international management, global human resource management and business administration. It also offers a wealth of guidance for executives and recruiters along with expatriates and professionals who may expatriate. Contributors: M. Andresen, C. Brewster, L. Care, J.-L. Cerdin, L. Clarke, D.G. Collings, M. Collins, A. Corbin, M. Crowley-Henry, M. Dickmann, H. Dolles, R. Donohue, C. Doss, B. Egilsson, A. Fee, K.L. Fisher, K.J. Hanek, A. Haslberger, T. Hippler, K. Hutchings, M. Isichei, J. Lauring, L. Mäkelä, R. McPhail, S. Michailova, M. Moeller, B. Oberholster