How Career Adaptability, Job Fit, and Job Characteristics Impact Expatriates’ Career Success

Abstract

Expatriation is a highly developmental experience for individuals frequently amidst a context of higher autonomy, increased responsibility, and fewer support structures. Thus, this developmental experience impacts their future careers after the international assignment (IA). The next move – repatriation or re-expatriation to a new assignment – is an important transition that entails many changes in assignees' lives and represents both opportunities and threats for their career development. In order to analyse the implications of expatriation on the subjective and objective career success of two types of expatriates, assigned expatriates (AEs) and self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), we investigated data from 202 assignees five years after their initial work abroad. Our findings indicate that expatriate job characteristics, job fit after the IA, the degree of assignees' career adaptability, and expatriate type impact the career success of expatriates. We found that the expatriate type moderates the relationship between expatriates’ career adaptability and objective career success. The work contributes to our understanding of boundaryless, international careers.