Motivations to stay with the home company after the international assignment: A repatriate’s perspective

• Autor(a) principal: Dörholt, Martha dos Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/21266
• topic: Repatriation; Retention; Motivation; Expectations; Company support; Repatriation program; Repatriação; Retenção; Motivação; Expectativas; Apoio à empresa; Programa de repatriação

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the motives that influence a repatriate’s decision to stay with the home company after completing their international assignment. The goal is to find the factors relevant to include in an organization’s reparation program in order to avoid repartition turnover and in fact increase repatriate retention. In order to collect empirical evidence, a total number 8 qualitative interviews have been conducted with repatriates who decided to stay with the home company after repatriation. The empirical evidence has thereafter been compared to the theoretical framework by utilizing an inductive approach in order to find patterns of similarities or disparities. The results suggest that the willingness of the returnees to remain committed to the home company is influenced by a combination of individual and organizational factors that have to be seen as a whole. The main factors that help to retain repatriates include: Motivation to go abroad, work related expectations upon return, personality traits, company support, company characteristics and regular contact between the home and host company. Repatriates state that they want to feel appreciated, valued, and expect the company to provide support during the readjustment, which often becomes more difficult than adjusting abroad. From the returnees' point of view, companies should pay attention by providing a repatriation program before going abroad that understands the returnees' needs and focuses on aligning motivation with expectations.