Career satisfaction antecedents of professional accounting returnees in international workplaces: an employee experience perspective
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-06-2021-0258 |
| Published date | 25 October 2021 |
| Date | 25 October 2021 |
| Pages | 1014-1029 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Nga Thi Thuy Ho,Hung Trong Hoang,Pi-Shen Seet,Janice Jones,Nhat Tan Pham |
Career satisfaction antecedents of
professional accounting returnees
in international workplaces:
an employee experience perspective
Nga Thi Thuy Ho and Hung Trong Hoang
University of Economics, Hue University, Hue City, Vietnam
Pi-Shen Seet
School of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
Janice Jones
College of Business, Government and Law, Flinders University, Adelaide,
Australia, and
Nhat Tan Pham
International University,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and
Vietnam National University,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of career satisfaction of professional
accounting returnees who have studied and/or worked abroad and then returned to work in different types of
international workplaces in their home country.
Design/methodology/approach –A survey of professional accounting returnees in Vietnam was
undertaken and multiple regression analysis was applied to test the proposed relationships.
Findings –This study finds that career satisfaction is affected by career fit, career sacrifice, types of
international workplaces (domestically headquartered firms versus globally headquartered firms) and cross-
cultural work readjustment. Further, cross-cultural work readjustment partially mediates the effect of career fit
and career sacrifice on career satisfaction.
Practical implications –The research provides the basis for designing career-related employee experiences
to support career satisfaction of professional accounting returnees.
Originality/value –This study integrates dimensions of career embeddedness with cross-cultural work
readjustment and employee experiences, which are normally studied separately, in different types of
international workplaces. It contributes to the limited research on contributors to well-being in the form of
career satisfaction among professional returnees in an emerging economy.
Keywords Well-being, Career satisfaction, Employee experience, Career embeddedness, Cross-cultural work
readjustment, Professional accounting returnees, Types of international workplaces, Emerging economy
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The globalisation of firms and markets necessitates that employees engage in distinct ways
with their employment and organisation (Plaskoff, 2017). Like changes in the field of
ER
44,5
1014
This paper forms part of a special section “Employee Experience and Well-Being in International
Workplaces”, guest edited by Wided Batat.
Funding: This research is funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology
Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 502.02-2019.332.
Conflicts of interest/competing interests: We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0142-5455.htm
Received 15 June 2021
Revised 22 August 2021
24 September 2021
5 October 2021
Accepted 5 October 2021
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 5, 2022
pp. 1014-1029
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-06-2021-0258
marketing that affect the customer experience (Batat, 2019a), ongoing changes to labour
markets, together with the continued war for talent, requires that employers reframe their
traditional relationship with employees (Plaskoff, 2017). Employee experience, defined as
how an employee feels about their interactions with their employer, is increasingly
acknowledged as integral to this reframing, with the quality of employee experience
influencing employee satisfaction and engagement (Tucker, 2020).
From an experiential framework perspective (Batat, 2019b;Holbrook and Hirschman,
1982), employees may value more subjective manifestations of outcomes, including well-
being and, specifically, career satisfaction. To date, the extant literature on global workers
has tended to focus on the well-being of expatriates in the expatriation process (Ellis et al.,
2020). Although the repatriation stage has received increasing interest, most research is
related to either corporate-sponsored repatriates or self-initiated repatriates (SIRs) (Ellis et al.,
2020;Tharenou and Caulfield, 2010). Moreover, findings on workers from non-Western
cultures are largely qualitative, which limits their generalisability (Guo et al., 2013). Moreover,
there is a dearth of research on the extent to which, and how, employee experiences of re-entry
facilitate the career satisfaction of returnees –that is, individuals who were born in their home
country and studied and/or worked abroad as professionals for one year or more and have
returned to work in their home country in different international workplaces (Ho et al., 2018b).
Hence, the research question for this study is: What role do career embeddedness and cross-
cultural work readjustment play in predicti ng career satisfaction among professiona l
accounting returnees in different international workplaces (domestically headquartered firms
versus globally headquartered firms)?
We buildon Ho et al. (2018b) by adoptinga fine-grainedapproach to examinehow accounting
professional returnees experience the three disaggregated dimensions of career embeddedness –
fit, links and sacrifices –and cross-cultural work readjustment since these aspects are expected
to be important factors influencing individual-level outcomes (discussed below). However, not all
returnees gain from their experiences abroad on return to their home country, and they may
experience challenges in re-adjusting (Guo et al., 2013). Thus, we also investigate returnees’
career satisfaction in association with organisational contexts (globally headquartered firms
versus domestically headquartered firms) that may influence outcomes because current
research indicates that different types of ownership manifest markedly different organisational
arrangements, particularly in emerging economies (Tian and Gamble, 2018).
Vietnam is an appropriate context for our research since emerging Asian economies have
many highly qualified individuals who expatriate to more developed countries to develop
their career or study but do not return (Ho et al., 2018a). Owing to talent shortages and rising
demand for workers with international experience, emerging economies, including Vietnam,
have attracted professionals or graduates to return from overseas (Le and LaCost, 2017).
However, if returnees are dissatisfied with their careers in the home country, they may leave
again (Akrout and Damak Ayadi, 2021), thereby amplifying skills shortages and
underscoring the importance of understanding returnees’career satisfaction.
To improve understanding of the determinants of career satisfaction among professional
accounting returnees, this study uses two key theoretical underpinnings: home country
career embeddedness and cross-cultural work readjustment. The former refers to returnees’
(1) perceptions of their fit with their career in the home country, (2) links with their current
organisations and (3) sacrifices if they were to leave their career in the home country
(Tharenou and Caulfield, 2010). Cross-cultural work readjustment, an aspect of cross-cultural
readjustment (Sussman, 2000), comprises the readjustment of individuals to a job when they
return from abroad to their home country. Although research indicates that career
embeddedness affects cross-cultural readjustment (Ho et al., 2018b) and home country
satisfaction (Tharenou and Caulfield, 2010), existing studies contain two main knowledge
gaps, which this research seeks to address.
Career
satisfaction
antecedents of
returnees
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