Repatriates’ Experience of Identity Strain and Repatriate Knowledge Transfer

Abstract

While it is common for repatriates to experience identity strain when they return from an international assignment, we know little about how the experience of strain leads to knowledge-related outcomes for repatriates and, by extension, their coworkers. Adopting an identity theory perspective, we conceptualize knowledge transfer as a form of repatriates’ identity enactment in the face of identity strain upon their return. Further, we consider two conditions that determine how repatriates’ experience of identity strain may translate into beneficial knowledge transfer outcomes for repatriates’ colleagues: repatriates’ generalized self-efficacy and colleagues’ trust in repatriates. Drawing on a sample of 118 matched repatriate-colleague responses across five MNCs, we find that repatriates’ level of knowledge transfer with colleagues mediates the relationship between repatriates’ identity strain and colleague perceptions of useful knowledge receipt from repatriates. We also demonstrate that while this mediated relationship is negative at low levels of repatriates’ generalized self-efficacy, it becomes non-significant when generalized self-efficacy is high. Similarly, the mediated relationship is negative at low levels of colleagues’ trust in repatriates, but non-significant at high levels of colleagues’ trust in repatriates. Our study contributes to identity theory and the literatures on international assignments and knowledge transfer in MNCs.