Career advancement in large organizations in Europe and the United States: do international assignments add value?

Abstract

We look at the relationship between the number of assignments, the length of international assignment experience, the type of employer commissioning the international assignment, the individual's career stage at the first assignment, and career advancement: the time that the executives took to be appointed to the CEO position from the start of their career. Our sample of 1001 chief executives, based in 23 countries and affiliated with the 500 largest corporations in Europe and the 500 largest in the United States, allows us to examine important individual- and organization-level contingencies that affect the relationship between international assignment experience and career advancement. We find that international experience slows the executives' ascent to the top, longer assignments and a larger number of assignments being detrimental to their speed of ascent to top corporate positions. Further, international assignments at corporations other than the CEOs' current employer and assignments taken at later stages of executives' careers damage career advancement.