International Mobility Experiences Research Articles

Epistemic Living Spaces, International Mobility, and Local Variation in Scientific Practice

This article explores local variations in scientific practice through the lens of scientists’ international mobility. Its aim is twofold: to explore how the notion of epistemic living spaces may be mobilised as a tool for systematically exploring differences in scientific practice across locations, and to contribute to literature on scientific mobility. Using material from an interview study with scientists with experience of international mobility, and epistemic living spaces as an analytical frame, the paper describes a set of aspects of life in science that interviewees described as being different in different places. These axes of variation were: embodied routines of research; resource levels and salaries; daily or longer-term rhythms of scientific life (and their relation to rhythms of home or family); ‘efficiency’ and how work time is used; degree of hierarchy; the nature of social interactions between colleagues; the purposes of research; the social and interpersonal organisation of knowledge production; and the scale or ambition of research. In presenting an exploratory overview of these variations, the article points the way for future comparative investigation of epistemic cultures through studies of international mobility.

Finding Myself Abroad: Adolescent Identity Processes and Sociocultural Adaptation During Intercultural Transitions

The present study examined identity development and sociocultural adaptation (SCA) in the context of international mobility experiences. Specifically, we investigated changes and dynamic interactions of SCA and the Host and Home identity dimensions of commitment and reconsideration for adolescent sojourners. Therefore, we used data from 457 German high school exchange students (72.00% female; M age = 15.49 years, SD = 0.70 years) to study the longitudinal interplay of personality characteristics at two occasions over a period of 5 months. The first wave of data collection (T1) took place 8 weeks after the cultural transition. After 7 months abroad, the second measurement (T2) was taken. Longitudinal analyses revealed increases in Host reconsideration, Home commitment, and SCA, as well as a substantial decrease in Home reconsideration over the course of the study. In addition, initial identity levels predicted changes in SCA, whereas adaptation levels showed no predictive effect on later identity change. Indicators of subjective and objective sociocultural distance were tested as moderators for the effect of identity on changes in adaptation. However, results indicated that the impact identity had on adaptation was independent from influences of cultural distance, which further supported the robustness of identity effect patterns. The present research adds a longitudinal perspective on the association of identity and adaptation and contributes to the understanding of their dynamic interplay during cross-cultural transitions.

Capturing the Value of International Staff Mobility in Higher Education: A Customer-Dominant Logic Approach

This paper aims at analysing and achieving better understanding of the experience of international mobility of academic staff from the perspective of value creation process. Qualitative research methods are used: a combination of individual in-depth interviews and focus group interviews. We apply a customerdominant logic perspective in order to identify the drivers of value co-creation and emerging value types. The study identifies multiple types of value emerging from a mobility experience (e.g. individual and shared value, one-off and longitudinal value). Also, the value co-creation context is investigated and an influence of factors such as personality, previous experiences, situation at home and host institutions and their support are discussed.

Dual appointments and research collaborations outside academia: evidence from the European academic population

ABSTRACTThe literature suggests that academic researchers with dual-appointment contracts, i.e. those employed concurrently by a university and an organization outside academia, have the potential to be more engaged in research collaborations with non-academic partners than colleagues contractually linked to a university only. Our results suggest that this relationship is not simple. Based on a sample of 7773 academic researchers in Europe, our findings show that the relationship between dual appointments and research collaborations is negative when the appointment involves an organization in the private sector and positive when the dual appointment is with an organization in the public sector. Our results also highlight that the profiles of academic researchers in dual appointments differ from those of academics mostly involved in research collaborations with non-academic organizations. The main differences relate to the academic researchers’ educational paths, international mobility experiences and contractual status. The implications of these findings for research collaborations between the academic and non-academic sectors are discussed.

Social class inequalities and international student mobility: the case of Brazilian students in the Portuguese higher education system

Brazil experienced since the end of the 20th century an important transformation in its education system. This process included the development and expansion of its higher education system as well as internationalization through investment in the international mobility of Brazilian students. This is in line with global trends on the internationalization of higher education. However, Brazil is also among the countries with higher inequalities. Both migration and education are shaped by social class inequalities however, little is actually known about the influence of class belonging in patterns of international student mobility. Focusing on the case of Brazilian higher education students in Portugal – one of their main destinations – this article examines the role of social class inequalities in international student mobility. Drawing on data collected through interviews with higher education representatives in Portugal and a survey and interviews with Brazilian students in Portugal, we are able to identify how the context of inequalities in Brazil contributes to shape both higher education trajectories (namely in the distinctions between attending private or state institutions) as well as the process and experience of international mobility in Portugal. Very importantly, we highlight the role of the political context in Brazil, including the phase of strong public investment in the fields of higher education and international student mobility and hint some changes following the impeachment of former president Dilma Roussef.

Family, Boundaries and Transformation. The International Mobility of Professionals and Their Families

Two dominant images of migrant professionals, also known as “expats”, have long been common, in the social sciences: on the one hand, they were described as super-mobile individuals, who easily move between places with no time frame in mind, with the openness to engage with diversity; on the other hand, more recent studies challenged the idea of “expat” cosmopolitanism, and investigated the boundaries constituted by these people in the course of their everyday life. The present paper brings to the fore the complexity of these individuals’ and their families’ experiences of international mobility from a combined socio-cultural psychological and sociological perspective. We draw on qualitative research conducted in Switzerland in order to reflect on the role of family in the way these people make sense of diversity across time and space, make and un-make symbolic boundaries between themselves and others, and understand their own and their familiars' transformation.

Does the experience of international mobility improve the sense of coherence in students?

Does the experience of international mobility improve the sense of coherence in students?

I Studied Abroad, therefore I am a Global Citizen? An Initial Study on Relationship between Global Citizenship and International Mobility Experiences

In the current era of globalization, higher education is expected not only to educate people to work locally in their home country, but also to foster “global citizens” who can play important roles internationally. In recent years, curriculum design and reform efforts at the higher education level in Taiwan have sought to encourage young people to move out of their comfort zones and connect with people from different cultural and social backgrounds to further expand their international perspectives and intercultural competencies. The main aim of the current research is to explore if students’ international mobility experiences-in this context, studying abroad-would affect their attitudes toward elements of global citizenship and identification as global citizens. This research included an online survey to recruit 69 Taiwanese participants with study abroad experiences at the higher education level to understand their identification as global citizens, their attitudes toward elements of global citizenship, and their interpretations of how studying abroad might affect their perceptions of global citizenship. The results from the regression analysis indicate that participants with international mobility experiences tend to see themselves as global citizens and have stronger agreements toward elements of global citizenship.

Between the nation and the globe: education for global mindedness in Finland

This article explores some of the tensions at the interface of nationalist and global orientations in ideals of global mindedness and global citizenship looking specifically at the Finnish context. We engage with discussions related to the social–political and historical context of national identity in Finland and outline the conceptual framework of an educational initiative related to the development of global mindedness through experiences of international mobility and partnerships. This conceptual outline presents a set of theoretical distinctions through which we seek to challenge humanist and universalist approaches to the question of (the formation of) global mindedness by arguing that the issue is neither about cognition or understanding nor about empathy and relationships but ultimately has to do with modes of existence and exposure. Similar to discussions in other small states, the historical trajectory in Finland illustrates how the encounter between the nation and the globe poses particular challenges for education as it runs the risk of reverting to ethnocentric rather than globally minded forms of national identity building. We argue that this risk cannot be addressed with the promotion of a mere understanding of or mere empathy for the other as an educational or political antidote but rather requires an existential approach.

Forms of cross-border mobility and social capital in multinational enterprises

This paper discusses how different forms of cross-border employee mobility all contribute to establishing social ties across different units of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Despite the growing recognition of the significance of employees' cross-unit social ties in MNEs for both individuals and the organisation, the mechanisms for creating such ties remain underspecified. We contribute to closing this gap by identifying the role that an array of forms of international mobility can play in promoting employees' (cross-unit) social ties inside MNEs. We draw upon empirical accounts of the job-related international mobility experiences of 72 high-skilled employees in three leading MNEs in the mobile telecommunications sector. Guided by a framework that utilizes some of the key concepts of the debate on social ties and social capital, we discuss traditional expatriation, short-term assignments, localised transfers and business travel in terms of the structure and strength of the cross-unit ties they engender, as well as their accessibility. We find (1) that it is not only traditional long-term assignments in the form of expatriation that enable individuals to create cross-unit social ties; and, (2) that different forms of international mobility promote cross-unit social ties in variable ways and to different extents.

International Executives, Identity Strategies and Mobility in France and China

The strategies of multinational firms increasingly rely in Asia Pacific Region on processes of socialising their employees, who are seeking to develop and reinforce a “global” company culture, without endangering the cultures of local subsidiaries. Specialists have coined the term “cross-cultural management”. A role of “company ambassador” is allocated to a new generation of international executives in Asia whose mission will be to play an effective role as interface between head office its the subsidiaries – and between the subsidiaries themselves – once they have been suitably “impregnated” with the company culture and the particular features of different markets. The repeated experience of international mobility that executives live through means that the individual may well be living in conflict with previous identities. It is true to say that nobody stays long in an internationally mobile situation without running the risk of there being strong divergence between the domestic and residential worlds, the life of the community and the world of the company. This article has been written as a result of in-depth research into the way executives of a large French oil company built up their identities and as a result of a study examines intercultural learning based on French expatriates' experience in China. We consider how French expatriates experience China and what imaginary underlies their perception. Analysis of daily socialization and interaction processes shows intercultural competence develops along distinct immersion stages: immersion–adjustment, immersion–comprehension, and immersion–integration. Individually, adjustment and comprehension support intercultural practice. The ultimate immersion stage leads to enlightened pragmatism stemming from “nomadic intelligence”. Where a researcher in the social sciences or a business man might have expected to have found an homogenous international elite, international executives building an “international system”, the heterogeneous nature of the identity strategies of international executives give the lie to the myth of the large company as a space for the irreversible assimilation of its members. At an individual level, being an international executive is a unique way of living the experience abroad, or rather, several different ways of experiencing identity strategies linked to the manipulation of one's ethnicity in a context of significant geographical and functional mobility.