Bringing self-initiated expatriates and companies together

• Autor(a) principal: Autrata, Sabrina
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/24108
• topic: Expatriates; Attraction; Selection; Development; Retention; Recursos humanos -- Human resources

The purpose of this study is to examine how, if at all, firms use what has been discovered about the motivations of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) to attract, hire, develop and retain highvalue individuals from foreign countries. In order to do this, multiple research goals and hypotheses were formulated through a literature review. These cover the main motivations of SIEs to expatriate; which of these motivations companies are interested in; what SIE programs and policies companies have; to what extent these motives are integrated into the strategies; and how human resource professionals critically evaluate these. Then interviews were conducted with eleven organizations based primarily in Germany, with a focus on answering these questions. With these findings, it was possible to verify whether the research questions and therefore hypotheses were supported or not. I conclude that Human Resource Management (HRM) professionals can identify some (but not all) motivations of SIEs, that there are SIE motivations and personality traits which interest companies, that organizations have some SIE strategies which are for the most part focused on the essentials, that expatriates’ motives are generally integrated into HRM policies and programs, and lastly that companies are generally aware that they do not have properly established policies specifically targeted towards SIEs. They identify a lack of resources as the main reason for this but have ideas for implementing better strategies in the future. Finally, I note the implications which the findings can have in practical terms, the study’s limitations and future research topics.