Self-Initiated Expatriates in Context

Recognizing Space, Time, and Institutions

Maike Andresen, Chris Brewster, Vesa Suutari

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000196573
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

This edited volume builds on the previously published Self-Initiated Expatriation: Individual, Organizational, and National Perspectives, which served to give in-depth insights into the concept and the processes of self-initiated expatriation and presented different groups undertaking self-initiated foreign career moves. While more than a hundred articles on self-initiated expatriation (SIE) have been published in the meanwhile, an examination of the research questions and samples of SIEs in published SIE research shows that the role of context and its impact on SIEs' career-related decisions and behaviors has not been explored sufficiently. This raises the question in how far existing research results are comparable.

The aim of this follow-up volume is to deepen the understanding of SIEs' careers, focusing on the contextual influences of space, time, and institutions on the heterogeneous SIE population. More specifically, the editors aim to shed light on spatial conditions in terms of the home and host country conditions on the self-initiated expatriation experience and examine developments over time in terms of temporality of conditions and SIEs' life-course. Moreover, the influence of the institutional context in terms of occupational, organisational, and societal specificities will be analysed. All chapters are based on strong theoretical foundations that serve to conceptualise "context" and are written by both established and emerging global academics and researchers.

Self-Initiated Expatriates in Context

contributes to conceptual clarity in the burgeoning field of SIE research by drawing attention to the importance of exploring context and, thus, boundary conditions to careers. It offers specific guidance for an improvement of future SIE-related research in order to enhance the validity of future empirical studies as well as for an improvement of managerial practice. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, practitioners, and students in the fields of international business, human resource management, organisational studies, and strategic management.

Chapters 1, 4, and 12 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

1
Introduction

Recognising Space, Time, and Institutions in Self-Initiated Expatriation Research

Maike Andresen, Chris Brewster and Vesa Suutari

The Need for Contextualising SIE Research: The Role of Space, Time, and Institutions

This second edited volume builds on Andresen, Al Ariss, and Walther (2013), Self-Initiated Expatriation: Individual, Organizational, and National Perspectives, which served to give in-depth insights into the concept and the processes of self-initiated expatriation and presented different groups undertaking self-initiated foreign career moves. Thousands of articles on self-initiated expatriation have been published in the meanwhile that serve to help us gain a general understanding of the phenomenon. Looking at the samples underlying publications on self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) shows that the term ‘SIE’ has been employed to cover a large variety of distinct populations that differ in a number of key contextual factors such as their educational level, profession, country of origin, and destination country. We argue that such contextual factors mean that expatriates in and from different places, at different times and in different kinds of organisations, present different challenges for SIEs—such as the extent of required personal initiative by individuals (Andresen, Pattie, & Hippler, 2020). Furthermore, in much of this research samples were mixed, allowing us to draw only limited conclusions about the relevance and influence of contextual factors. This raises the question of how far existing research results are comparable. A look at the research questions and samples of SIEs in published SIE research shows that the role of context and its impact on SIEs’ career-related decisions and behaviours needs further exploration.

This second edited volume on SIEs deepens our understanding of SIEs’ careers by focusing on the contextual influences of space, time, and institutions on the heterogeneous SIE population. More specifically, this edited volume sheds light on spatial conditions in terms of home and host country impacts on the self-initiated expatriation experience (e.g. transferability of career capital between countries) and looks at developments over time in terms of temporality of conditions and changes of SIEs’ life-course (e.g. adjustment and long-term career effects). Moreover, the authors analyse the influence of the institutional context in terms of occupational and organisational specificities on the heterogeneous SIE population.

Studies focusing on SIEs from a single home country living in a specific host country (space), being in similar life and career stages (time), or working in the same institutional contexts regarding their occupation or organisational environment, e.g. in terms of size and sector, are extremely rare (for an exception see Ramboarison-Lalao, Al Ariss, & Barth, 2012 studying Malagasy physicians in France). We often find mixed samples of SIEs in terms of space, time, and institutions, leading to considerable variance of relevant factors that influence the expatriation experience. For example, depending on ‘space’ the personal initiative and cultural intelligence needed to successfully relocate and adjust abroad are likely to differ, because the career norms, cultural values, and languages that SIEs need to master vary between countries. In terms of ‘time’, we lack studies focusing on long-term effects of different spatial and institutional conditions on SIEs’ adjustment, careers, and lives as well as longitudinal studies. And in terms of institutions, apart from the national-level institutional differences, many studies conflate SIEs in different sectors and organisations. There have been some studies of particular occupations: For some reason scholars seem fascinated by academic SIEs (e.g. Selmer & Lauring, 2013), and there have also been studies of nurses (Bozionelos, 2009), professional service firms (Richardson & McKenna, 2014), and even religious leaders (Ramboarison-Lalao, Brewster, & Boyer, 2019). There have been almost no comparative studies of the differences between occupations or between organisations within a sector.

What is more, in many cases the description of sample characteristics does not allow for disaggregation by context. And those studies that do describe their samples in more detail in terms of space, time, and institutions usually do not discuss their results with respect to these contextual factors but, rather, attempt to generalise their results to all SIEs. We see a lack of discussion in most SIE studies in how far these contextual differences influence the results. Identifying relevant contexts and ensuring that they are adequately represented in our samples holds great promise, we believe, for understanding the phenomenon of self-initiated expatriation in a manner that will prove useful for both mobile individuals and organisations that might wish to employ them.

With this edited volume, we contribute on two particular fronts: First, our authors contribute to conceptual clarity in the burgeoning field of SIE research by drawing attention to the importance of exploring context and, thus, boundary conditions to careers. Second, they offer specific guidance for an improvement of future SIE-related research in order to enhance the validity of future empirical studies as well as for an improvement of managerial practice.

Implications of Space, Time, and Institutions for SIEs’ Careers

To represent different contexts in terms of space, time, and institutions we invited a specialist group of authors for this edited volume, drawing on authoritative researchers originating from a range of different institutions and from or currently working in five continents, i.e. Asia-Pacific (Japan, Korea, Australia), Africa (UAE), North America (Canada, USA), South America (Brazil), Europe (Austria, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom), with experts at different career stages ranging from PhD candidates to professor emeritus.

This edited volume is divided into four parts focusing on space, time, and institutions as the three main context factors in SIEs’ international mobility and followed by a concluding part that embeds the findings into International Human Resource Management (IHRM) (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 Book structure

Part I—Space as a Context Factor Influencing the Self-Initiated Expatriate Experience

The first of the four parts focuses on space in terms of effects of home countries, host countries, cultural distance between home and host countries, and languages as context factors influencing the SIE experience. Most SIE studies do not focus on a specific home country. Of those that concentrate on a single home country, most focus on Australia (e.g. Despotovic, Hutchings, & McPhail, 2015; Tharenou & Caulfield, 2010), Finland (Jokinen, Brewster, & Suutari, 2008; Suutari, Brewster, Mäkelä, Dickmann, & Tornikoski, 2018), Lebanon (e.g. Al Ariss & Syed, 2011), or New Zealand (e.g. Thorn, 2009). Strikingly, these are all countries where a larger percentage of people seek international exposure or live abroad. Thus, not much is known about individuals from countries where self-initiated expatriation is less common. Since SIE studies rarely consider and discuss the role of the home country, we lack insights into relevant home country–related factors that influence SIE mobility. However, individuals’ backgrounds in terms of their home country are likely to influence their career decision-making, expectations towards international relocation, behaviours and (anticipated) personal as well as professional outcomes of their SIE experience.

In their Chapter 2, ‘“Home Country” in Studies of Self-Initiated Expatriates’, Mila Lazarova and Ebru Ipek note that research has focused disproportionately on SIEs from prosperous, individualistic regions and countries. They examine two possible reasons for this relatively narrow focus and offer food for thought for future research. Based on a systematic literature review of 79 empirical papers on SIEs published in English-language peer review journals between 2000 and 2018, they find that SIE scholars have been selective in their approach to their subjects. There is a clear preference for a handful of home countries with shared characteristics: High status, economically prosperous countries that encourage talent mobility. Yet these are not the countries that provide the largest outflow of talented professionals. Lazarova and Ipek admonish the authors of such texts by pointing out that many others from less prosperous countries are also moving for professional and career reasons, and possess qualifications to work at any organisational level, but that researchers often choose not to label them as SIEs. They recommend that researchers should strive to diversify their samples, be mindful of who they study, how they categorise them and of the implications of these choices.

Looking at the receiving country, we once more note marked differences in how common foreigners are in the host society and hence to what degree self-expatriation to that country ‘goes beyond what is typically done’. A considerable portion of the published SIE literature focuses on host countries in the Persian Gulf with studies focusing on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (e.g. Isakovic & Whitman, 2013; Stalker & Mavin, 2011) and Saudi Arabia (e.g. Alshahrani & Morley, 2015; Bozionelos, 2009). These are host societies in which foreigners are common (e.g. in 2018, the proportion of non-nationals in the total population was 90% in the UAE, 88.4% in Qatar, and 31.4% in Saudi Arabia; World Population Review, 2019) and that have a favourable legal framework for mobility. Other regions studied intensely include East Asia, with studies on China (Lauring & Selmer, 2014; Makkonen, 2016), Hong Kong (Selmer & Lauring, 2014), Japan (Peltokorpi & Froese, 2009), Korea (e.g. Despotovic et al., 2015), Macau (Lo, Wong, Yam, & Whitfield, 2012), Singapore (e.g. Supangco & Mayrhofer, 2014), and Vietnam (Ho, Jones, & Seet, 2016), as well as Western Europe, where studies on France are most prominent (e.g. Al Ariss, Koall, Özbilgin, & Suutari, 2012; Ramboarison-Lalao et al., 2012). Thus, moving to the UAE might not be so challenging for an SIE as expatriates account for most of the population there. The psychological distance can be considered fairly low. Moving as an SIE to Japan, Korea, or Poland, where the share of foreign-born people in total employment is small (OECD, 2018), could be considered an unusual step (Belot & Ederveen, 2012) and may create more problems. Furthermore, not much is known about the career norms prevailing in different countries that may imply more or less favourable conditions for SIEs’ cross-border mobility.

In the conceptual Chapter 3, ‘The Impact of Host Country Characteristics on Self-Initiated Expatriates’ Career Success’, Marie-France Waxin and Chris Brewster examine the host country’s institutional and cultural characteristics that have an impact on SIEs’ career success; and propose a research model and agenda. In view of the dearth of research on the impact of host country characteristics on SIEs’ career success, they review the general literature on expatriate career success and identify key specific factors. They find that the major host country institutional characteristics that have an impact on SIEs’ career success include compensation levels, quality of life, labour markets characteristics, employment regulations, and SIEs’ skills utilisation level. The major host country cultural characteristics are cultural distance, language, diversity climate, and preferred organisational culture. They add the concept of the host country’s reputation. Waxin and Brewster propose a research model for the impact of host country institutional and cultural characteristics on SIE career success and satisfaction, adding the host country reputation and using a few moderating variables.

A person’s capability to manage cross-cultural interactions effectively has for a long time be conceptualised as likely to be dependent on the importance of differences between settings. Several studies conceptualise these differences between countries in terms of physical, cultural, institutional, and psychological distance (e.g. Demes & Geeraert, 2014; Gelfand et al., 2011; House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004; Kogut & Singh, 1988). Studies show that expatriation flows to geographical areas with similar or close language and culture are significantly larger (Belot & Ederveen, 2012; Wang, De Graaff...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• About the Editors and Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Recognising Space, Time, and Institutions in Self-Initiated Expatriation Research
• Part I Space as a Context Factor Influencing the Self-Initiated Expatriate Experience
• Part II Time as a Context Factor in Self-Initiated Expatriates’ International Career
• Part III Institutions as a Context Factor in Self-Initiated Expatriates’ International Mobility
• Part IV Outlook and Conclusions
• Index