Motivations of Global Careers Among Expatriates in German Companies: A Comparison with the Year 2002

Abstract

This study analyzes the motives of expatriates to go abroad, replicating and extending the part on expatriate motives of a study originally published by Stahl, Miller, and Tung (2002a). Doing so, it allows to account for the change of motives between 2002 and 2015 of expatriates in German companies to accept an international assignment. Findings indicate that while the originally most important motives, “personal challenge” and “opportunities for professional development,” are still the most important ones, there was some interesting development leading to the notion that boundaryless and protean careers gained in importance. Moreover, an analysis distinguishing between different age cohorts gives additional insights in the motivation and reasons to go abroad depending on the generation people belong to. Finally, all findings are discussed in the light of recent research, and implications for future research are derived.

North American Perspective

Motivations of Global Careers Among Expatriates in German Companies

• Rosalie L. Tung Ph.D., FRSC 

1. Business Department,, Simon Fraser University,, Burnaby, BC, Canada

   Rosalie L. Tung Ph.D., FRSC

As someone who is passionate about understanding and advancing knowledge of cross-cultural interactions, expatriate assignments being one of them, I enjoyed reading Bader’s study of German expatriates that essentially replicates my earlier study with Stahl and Miller (Stahl, Miller, & Tung, 2002b). The stated rationales for undertaking this replication study are sound as, one, the world has indeed experienced seismic changes in its political, economic, and demographic landscapes over the past decade or so; two, Germany continues to dominate the economic scene in Europe; and, three, there is a persistent under-representation of published studies on non-US samples in the English language literature.

Bader alluded to some of the changes that have taken place since the publication of Stahl et al.’s study, such as the war for talent and the aging of the workforce. In my perspectives piece to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Journal of World Business (Tung, 2016), I argued for the need to adopt new lenses to approach research on international human resource management practices in response to changes that have occurred worldwide, such as the war for talent, the overall aging of the workforce, and the rise of emerging markets. The author referred to the first two changes. Even though no specific mention was made of the ascendancy of emerging economies, their finding with regard to the surge in assignments to the South East Asia and Africa/MENA regions may be attributed, in part at least, to the growth opportunities that German multinationals envision from these markets. Hence, the perceived need to gain first-hand experience in these countries.

Bader referred to the growing emphasis on boundaryless careers as an important reason for the rankings of motivations uncovered in his study of German expatriates. This phenomenon appears to be gaining ground elsewhere as well. In Kim and Tung (2013), we found evidence that boundaryless careers have begun to take hold even among Korean expatriates. Traditionally, Koreans have been known for their unswerving loyalty to corporate goals and subordinating their personal interests to that of their company’s. Protean careers aside, other reasons that may have contributed to the findings in the Bader study include the recognition among corporations and aspiring professionals/executives of the need to develop a global mindset. In Tung (2014) article, I presented the reasons for the pervasiveness of this sentiment worldwide and identified some ways for developing this global mindset, international assignments (whether corporate-sponsored or self-initiated) being one of them. This greater recognition of the need to develop a global mindset may explain why “personal challenge” and “opportunities for professional development” continue to be ranked as the top two motives for relocating abroad (both in the 2002 and 2015 studies), and the downgrading of such motives (in terms of ranking) as “opportunities for future advancement” and “importance of job itself” in the 2015 study. Collectively, these findings suggest that increasingly people value living and working abroad because of opportunities for broadening one’s horizons (i.e., engendering global thinking) rather than performing a specific job or seeking vertical advancement within a company.

Other developments related to the study under review are the rise of self-initiated assignments, the proliferation of multicultural teams whether within a given country or across countries, including virtual global teams, and brain circulation. Based on her study of high-tech entrepreneurial start-ups in Silicon Valley, Saxenian (2005) coined the term, brain circulation, to characterize those immigrants or children of immigrants who ply between their dual residence in their country of origin (COO) and country of residence (COR) to seek better job/business opportunities and to capitalize on their networks in both communities. These developments should be taken into consideration in the broader context of understanding motivations for undertaking global careers, although the authors did acknowledge that their study is limited in scope.

Bader’s chapter identified some topics for future research, including possible difference in motives on the basis of gender. While research that advances understanding differences on the basis of gender definitely merits research attention, in light of the several developments that I alluded to, other areas that warrant further investigation include: one, a re-definition of global careers; two, expatriates from emerging market multinationals and their motivations for working abroad as compared with those from multinationals emanating from industrialized countries. These new perspectives are discussed in my 2016 article (Tung, 2016) and can help set the agenda for future research on international assignments.