Exploring the motives of company-backed and self-initiated expatriates

MORGAN CHAMBERS:
There are a range

of issues considered
important for moving abroad

for expatriates.

Noeleen, you make a
distinction between two types

of expatriates.

Can you just talk a little
bit about what they are?

NOELEEN DOHERTY: Sure.

Well, there are many
mobile populations now

we're beginning to realize
within the research literature

indeed.

Two of the key groups are
corporate-assigned or assigned

expatriates, company-backed.

And another key group are the
self-initiated expatriates.

And self-initiated
being those people who

take the decision themselves
and fund their own stay abroad.

MORGAN CHAMBERS: Having
identified the two

different groups, they do
have a number of things

in common, however.

Would you like to just talk
a little bit about what

those commonalities are?

NOELEEN DOHERTY: Sure.

The self-initiated expatriate
and the corporate expatriate

do have some baseline
commonalities.

Self-initiated corporates,
people, obviously

have a motivation and
a drive to move abroad

for the foreign experience.

They often have a great
desire for adventure.

They like to travel, like
to see different places,

and have a real drive to
go abroad and move away

from their home location and
go and stay in a host location.

MORGAN CHAMBERS:
So your findings

have identified eight factors in
the model that you've described,

and there are some
subtle differences there.

Can you talk to what
some of those differences

might be for the two groups?

NOELEEN DOHERTY: OK.

The range of factors that drives
the motivation to move abroad

cover a large number of areas.

And that includes
the location, what

location that the person
is going to go to.

It includes career issues.

It includes family
considerations.

And when we looked at
the two different groups,

we found that for
self-initiated expatriates,

they were significantly
more motivated, more

influenced by the motivation
around location and host

reputation.

Interestingly, that would
probably be a factor of the fact

that they choose the
destination themselves,

whereas company-backed
expatriates are

sent to a particular location.

On the other hand,
company-backed expatriates

were more driven by
the career factors,

what was in it in terms of
career benefit and career

development.

So they were distinguished quite
clearly on those three assets.

MORGAN CHAMBERS: So
the career factors,

do you want to just
elaborate a little bit more

on what they are?

NOELEEN DOHERTY: Obviously, for
a corporate-backed expatriate,

career drivers are one
of the key major issues

that they take
into consideration.

Companies actually position
an international assignment

as a career benefit.

Now, there's a
whole area of doubt

around whether or
not that actually is

realized when they come back.

But certainly, as
one of the come-ons

to take up an
international assignment,

companies usually position
it of a career benefit.

Self-initiated
expatriates tend to

or seem to at least consider a
career as part of a much more

holistic life
development process

through the
international assignment.

So career drivers are not
the major or primary drivers

for them, rather they're
a secondary driver.

MORGAN CHAMBERS:
So there could be

indeed some important
implications for these two

distinctions and the other
factors that are involved.

What would be some of the
implications to think about,

or what were some of
the questions that

were raised for you as a
result of the implications?

NOELEEN DOHERTY: Yes,
I think there are

some very clear implications.

If we look at it
from the first point,

from an organizational
perspective,

there have been
some doubt raised

about the utility of a
self-initiated expatriates

to a corporation,
particularly around the nature

of their risky behavior.

They're very driven
to be mobile.

They're very self-assertive.

And so therefore, they get
up and go when they need to

or when they feel
like they want to.

And obviously, many
companies wouldn't

want to have that level
of self-driven behavior.

And therefore, they can be
perceived by organizations

to be a little bit
risky, possibly,

not falling within
their particular HR

strategy or policy.

Organizations don't tend to have
particular strategies already

developed to manage the
self-initiated populations.

And so they could be
perceived as a group

that organizations don't take
as a part of their core employee

grouping.

And I think from an individual
point of view, the issue around

what benefit they might accrue
from being abroad, certainly,

there's a literature
that suggests

that corporate expatriates
sometimes don't always

accrue the benefit
when they come home.

And it's also been shown by
very few studies at the moment

that self-initiated
expatriates might also suffer

from that when they repatriate.

The career capital,
the skills, knowledge,

and abilities that they're able
to develop while abroad might

not always be considered
positively by companies when

they come back again.

MORGAN CHAMBERS: So
you've identified

a number of implications there.

There's still more work
to be done, more questions

to be answered.

NOELEEN DOHERTY:
Certainly, there's

not a very large research base
on self-initiated expatriation.

It is growing, but
there are many questions

still around from a
corporate point of view.

What sort of asset could
they be to the company?

What sort of
motivations and drivers

could the organization
plan more carefully

for with respect to hiring
self-initiated expatriates?

And also, how do
these people integrate

with the corporate
employees that they

are existing employees.

From an individual
point of view,

we still know very little
about what drives people.

We still don't know what the
differences are between people

moving from developed to
developing, or developing

to developing countries from a
self-initiated point of view.

And also from an
individual level,

what sort of career
capital they accrue,

what sort of skills,
knowledge, and abilities

they are able to
gather and develop

while they are having
a foreign experience.

And how they can then use those
in a career sense as well.

MORGAN CHAMBERS: So
you started to answer

some of these questions
for human resources

professionals and organizations,
but clearly still more issues

are raised.

NOELEEN DOHERTY: Yes,
many more issues,

particularly from a
corporate point of view

and also from an
individual point of view.

MORGAN CHAMBERS:
Thank you, Noeleen.

NOELEEN DOHERTY: Thank you.