Repatriation After Assignment Abroad : Managing The Transition

Description

Repatriation after assignment abroad: managing the transitionThe management of people is an important aspect of the globalization ofbusiness.While some attention has been focused on the assignment of personnelto operations outside the home country, there has been less interest expressed inthe literature regarding the experience these individuals have when returning totheir home country. Empirical investigation of the repatriation process isparticularly lacking. This special issue of the International Journal of Manpowerseeks to broaden our horizons in this regard. This special issue marks the first time an entire issue of a scholarly journalhas been devoted to the process of repatriation and contributes to thedevelopment of the field by addressing the final phase of the expatriationprocess – the return to one’s home country. This final step has been curiouslyabsent in much of the literature on expatriation to date. The issue features adiverse array of articles from scholars of various disciplines andinterdisciplinary backgrounds. We were happy to receive many papers examining the state of the art ofrepatriation, helping to shed light on this understudied phenomenon. Severalyears following the surge in writing on expatriation, it seems that repatriationis finally developing as an area of inquiry. As globalization continues, moreand more people return from an expatriation assignment to find both theirwork environment and their non-work environment changed. The five articles contained in this special issue of the International Journal ofManpower draw together several lines of research on expatriation, careerdevelopment, and organizational socialization. It is clear that the study ofrepatriation, as is the case in the study of expatriation, will require diverseperspectives in order to achieve greater understanding. We feel that the articlesincluded in this special issue represent an excellent start on developing anunderstanding of the repatriation process. Previously published in: International Journal of Manpower, Volume 23, Number 7, 2002