Academic Expatriation to Emerging Economies: A Career Perspective

Although the globalization of the academic labor market offers many advantages to academic institutions and their students, less is known about its (dis)advantages for academic expatriates’ careers. This paper seeks explanations of how academic expatriates aspire to invest in their careers in emerging economies by engaging both with the evidence of intelligent career theory, and with the literature on academic expatriation to emerging economies and on higher education. On the basis of these different streams of the literature, this paper identifies and outlines the institutional practices that could influence academic expatriates’ careers. This paper suggests that future research on academic expatriation to emerging economies can develop in at least three directions, namely, (a) the institutional practices at academic institutions in emerging economies, (b) the careers of academic expatriates, and (c) a reciprocal relationship between institutional practices and the individual careers of academic expatriates.

Motivation, Adjustment and Retention of Academic Expatriates: An analysis of Tishk International University

International organizations represent a dynamic workplace where people from different cultures and work background are working together to achieve a common goal. Whenever an individual is attracted from another country in which (expatriation) or giving an opportunity to someone who is living outside his country to work in his homeland again (repatriation), a set of challenges will rise. Organizations need to guide and control the process by adopting programs specialized in the expatriation and repatriation in which it will be given after the arrival of the employee in different or in-home country. This research paper explores motivations and the expectations that make the academic expatriates join the international universities in other countries by taking a case study in one of the international private universities in Kurdistan Region of Iraq. From this point of view, literature review will present benefits of joining teaching in the host country universities, also identifying the difficulties that they have faced during performing their duties and their feedbacks and recommendations to the other expats who wants to join such a program. As Tshik International University (Formerly known as Ishik University) represents one of the top private universities in Kurdistan and has diverse staff. Data is collected by using method of interview as qualitative approach. The sample of the study international university staff. The results of the study represented by a set of findings which mainly settled on main motivation factors to the academic expatriate to join the international assignment like international experience, research interests, and the interest to discover new cultures.

Telling tales

PurposeSouth Africa has witnessed an increase in self-initiated academic expatriates (SIAEs) coming into the country from all over the world. This movement of labour can result in South Africa performing better than any other African country. However, expatriation is accompanied by several challenges which affect both work and non-work scopes. Given that more is needed to understand the lived experiences of the expatriates, especially self-initiated expatriates from and in Africa, the purpose of this paper is to provide the basis for interventions to assist the expatriates in overcoming challenges by understanding their lived experiences.Design/methodology/approachThe study used an interpretivist approach to understand the lived experiences of SIAEs. The data were collected through the use of unstructured interviews of 25 expatriate academics within South Africa. The individual narratives were analysed through structural and thematic analysis to develop themes.FindingsThrough the stories and narratives, the expatriation experience was one framed to be a challenging process. The lived experiences can be grouped into life and career experiences. The life experiences consist of immigration difficulties, family separation, social adjustment difficulties and unavailability of accommodation. Career experiences include remuneration differences, gender discrimination, limited professional development opportunities and communication difficulties, which affect both work and non-work experiences. Person–environment fit did not play a significant role in the experiences of the academic expatriates.Practical implicationsThe findings showed that the lived experiences of SIAEs in Africa were mostly negative. Higher education institutions looking at hiring academic expatriates should assist the expatriates to have better experiences not only for individual benefit but for institutional benefit as well. However, this role is not only placed in the hands of the organisation but may also require individual effort.Originality/valueThe findings outlined in this study provide a picture of the lived experiences of SIAEs in an African context. The findings are fundamental in understanding this neglected sample group in the extant literature. They also assist in advancing literature and proposing possible solutions. All this is important, given global talent shortages which have warranted the need for highly skilled employees in countries like South Africa.

The Impact of Cultural Similarity and Social Network Characteristics on Re-Expatriation Intention Among Self-Initiated Academic Expatriates

<p>This conceptual paper sheds light on re-expatriation intention among self-initiated academic expatriates who have completed their international assignments, and returned their home country and then intended to re-expatriate to have another experience in the host country by their own initiatives. Cultural similarity and social network characteristics which involve size, closeness and frequency appeared to have a significant impact on the expatriates' decisions to move abroad for the first time. Therefore, these variables are predicted in the study to be associated with their intentions to re-expatriate. Push-pull theory is utilized in this paper to better understanding the impact of cultural similarity and social network characteristics on re-expatriation intention among academic SIEs. Thus, this study contributes to fill the gap in literature by addressing the influence of cultural similarity and social network characteristics on re-expatriation intention.</p>