Revisiting repatriation concerns: organizational support versus career and contextual influences

This paper reviews and integrates two perspectives on repatriate retention: a traditional one, which suggests that the main determinant of repatriate retention is the availability of repatriation support programs; and an emerging one, which focuses on individual career activism in a changing employment context. Results of a study of 133 expatriates from 14 MNCs indicate that both views contribute to our understanding of repatriate retention. Building on the results of our study, we put forward a framework to guide future research. Journal of International Business Studies (2007) 38, 404–429. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400273

The role of international assignees' social capital in creating inter-unit intellectual capital: A cross-level model

We conceptualize international assignees as informational boundary spanners between multinational enterprise units, and develop a cross-level model that explores how assignees' social capital translates into inter-unit intellectual capital. First, as knowledge brokers, assignees create inter-unit intellectual capital by linking their home- and host-unit social capital, thereby enabling cross-unit access to previously unconnected knowledge resources. Second, as knowledge transmitters, assignees' host-unit social capital facilitates their creation of individual intellectual capital, which, in turn, translates into inter-unit intellectual capital. We conclude that individual social capital needs to be explicitly transferred to the organizational level to have a sustained effect on inter-unit intellectual capital. Journal of International Business Studies (2009) 40, 509–526. doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.86