A squeezed lemon or an appetizing olive? Exploring expatriate and repatriate talent management
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ER-07-2021-0310 |
| Published date | 14 July 2022 |
| Date | 14 July 2022 |
| Pages | 1516-1537 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Industrial/labour relations,Employment law |
| Author | Reimara Valk |
A squeezed lemon or an appetizing
olive? Exploring expatriate and
repatriate talent management
Reimara Valk
Department of Management, American University in Dubai,
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to investigate Global Talent Management (GTM) approaches and
praxis with a specific focus on global deployment goal congruence and alignmentbetween expatriates and the
organization, talent recognition, valuation and utilization of repatriates.
Design/methodology/approach –Qualitative research in this paper entails interviews with 78 expatriates
and repatriates across the globe, investigating their experiences with, perspectives on and perceptions of GTM
praxis and approaches.
Findings –Findings of this study revealed firstly, that there is incongruence and misalignment of goals in
global deployment where organizational, financial goals prevailed over social and human-oriented goals.
Secondly, a lack of global talent pools and pipelines where interviewees indicated that expatriate assignments
(EAs) were typically reactionary without strategic forward thinking on talent management (TM), observable
through organizations’focus on short-term return on investment (ROI) on EAs instead of long-term talent
investments. Thirdly, there was little recognition and non-utilization of cross-cultural human capital and
talents upon repatriation.
Research limitations/implications –This study relied on self-reports of expatriates’and repatriates’
perceptions of and experiences with GTM approaches. Future research should gather multi-actor, multiple-
source data from expatriates and repatriates, senior leaders, line managers, GTM strategic business partners to
gain more insight into GTM approaches and praxis.
Practical implications –Organizations are recommended to conduct “Global Talent Management Open
Strategy Formation”as the foundation of an evidence-based, integrative GTM architecture and praxis to
ensure GTM effectiveness.
Originality/value –This paper contributes to the literature by advocating for sustainable, people-centric
GTM to safeguard the longevity and sustainability of all members of the talent ecosystem.
Keywords Global deployment goal congruence and alignment, Talent recognition and utilization,
Expatriates, Repatriates
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Talent management (TM) is one of the main priorities for organizationsworldwide, as “talent”[1]
can represent a source of sustainable competitive advantage in the volatile, complex,
unpredictable and ambiguous (VUCA) [2] global market environment of the 21st century
(Cascio and Boudreau, 2016;Khoreva et al., 2017;Meyers and Van Woerkom, 2014). In fact,
effective TM is proposed as one of the critical capabilities that will distinguish successful
organizations by fostering organizational agility and adaptability in a VUCA world through
strategically attracting, developing, retaining or releasing talent as needed (Collings et al., 2019;
Farndale et al., 2019;Meyers and Van Woerkom, 2014;Vaiman et al., 2018;Stahl et al., 2012). Not
surprisingly, organizations, especially those operating globally,haveanunwaveringfocuson
talent. Yet, the attraction, development and retention of talent is one of the most critical challenges
faced by companies worldwide (Gallardo-Gallardo et al., 2020). The development of a sustainable
talent pipeline –the available supply of talented employees coming into the organization and their
continuous development and career progression within it –(Carberyand Cross, 2015)remainsa
strategic priority (Cappelli and Keller, 2014;Collings et al.,2019;McDonnell et al., 2021).
ER
44,6
1516
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 11 July 2021
Revised 8 May 2022
17 June 2022
Accepted 17 June 2022
Employee Relations: The
International Journal
Vol. 44 No. 6, 2022
pp. 1516-1537
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/ER-07-2021-0310
To build and sustain a global talent pool and pipeline of subjectmatter experts and leaders
across multiple geographical boundaries to drive innovation and growth for sustainable
global competitive advantage, organizations chiefly use expatriation assignments (EAs) (De
Boeck et al., 2018;Farndale et al., 2014): the employee expatriates to a foreign country to live
and work for at least one year to fill a specific role [3] and to complete a specific assignment in
an organization’s foreign entity and then typically repatriates back to the home country
(Chiang et al., 2018;Kraimer et al., 2016). These employees are corporate assigned expatriates
(CAEs), defined as “legally working individuals who reside temporarily in a country of which
they are not a citizen in order to accomplish a career-related goal, being relocated abroad by
an organization (McNulty and Brewster, 2017, p. 20).
Whilst EAs are a powerful tool to achieve both organizational and individual career-related
goals, there are often competing interests, incongruences and misalignments between the
organization’s EA goals and the expatriate needs and goals. Furthermore, the literature has
reported issues with talent recognition, valuation and utilization upon repatriation (cf. Kraimer
et al., 2016;Valk et al., 2015). These goal incongruences and talent issues often result in loss of talent
(Farndale et al.,2014;King, 2016;McNulty and Vance, 2017) with associated costs [4] varying
between 1.5 and 2.5 times the annual salary (CIPD, 2017). Given these talent issues and associated
costs, there is increasing scholarly and practitioner attention for Global Talent Management
(GTM), which represents a burgeoning area of academic research (Collings et al., 2019;De Boeck
et al., 2018;McDonnell and Wiblen, 2021;McDonnell et al., 2017;Thunnissen, 2016).
Presently, the majority of (G)TM research is focused on the meso-(organizational) level
and macro-level (Khilji et al., 2015;Vaiman et al., 2018). There is limited attention placed on
GTM experiences and perspectives of individual talents (micro-level research) (King, 2015,
2016;McDonnell et al., 2021;Swailes and Blackburn, 2016;Thunnissen, 2016), despite
scholars increasingl y calling for research to b alance organizational and individual
perspectives; individual’s talent perspective has received scant attention in the literature
(Daubner-Siva et al., 2018;Farndale et al., 2014;King, 2016;McDonnell et al., 2017;Thunnissen
and Gallardo-Gallardo, 2019). Specifically, there is a dearth of research on expatriates’and
repatriates’views, perspectives on, perceptions of and experiences with (G)TM approaches
and praxis and its effectiveness. To fill this research gap in the literature on GTM, the purpose
of this paper is to investigate GTM with a specific focus on global deployment goal congruence
and alignment between expatriates and organizations as well as talent recognition, valuation
and utilization of repatriates.
This paper attempts to answers three research questions:
RQ1. To what extent is global deployment aligned with longer term talent and business
objectives where the needs and goals of the employee are aligned with the needs
and goals of the business?
RQ2. What are expatriates’and repatriates’perceptions of and perspectives on GTM
within organizations?
RQ3. Do organizations sufficiently recognize and value the cross-cultural human capital
(HC) that expatriates have gained abroad, ensuring that repatriates are placed in
suitable re-entry positions in which they can utilize their talents?
The contribution of this paper to the GTM literature is twofold:
First, this study extends research on TM praxis to an expatriation and repatriation
context and is one of the few qualitative, empirical studies encompassing a large sample of 78
expatriates and repatriates from both developed and developing countries, thereby
extending TM research beyond western-samples only.
Second, it addresses a deficit in (G)TM research outlined by Gallardo-Gallardo and
Thunnissen (2016) and McDonnell et al. (2017) who underscore the need for more robust
Expatriate and
repatriate
talent
management
1517
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