Globalization and the development of multinational organizations have led to an increase in the number of people spending part of their lives living and working in foreign countries. While the contemporary literature has focused on organizational expatriates sent overseas by their employers, self-initiated expatriation is becoming an important area of study in its own right. Studies on self-initiated expatriation explore the labor market positions of individuals who have relocated under their own initiative. However, no comprehensive book exists on the dynamics that underlie this type of mobility. This edited volume offers a holistic picture of self-initiated expatriation and the groups that pursue it, emphasizing many aspects for departure including career development and career capital. It is the first book on the market to explore the issues pertaining to self-initiated expatriation from a variety of perspectives with important theoretical and practical implications. In an era of global war for talent, companies face difficulties in finding highly skilled employees. Self-initiated expatriates have the potential to fill this talent gap. National economies thus have an interest in creating favorable conditions to attract self-initiated expatriates and provoke their repatriation, and this book explores the conditions that achieve the return of employees with skills that are in demand outside of their home countries.

A significant amount of German and French career agents are involved with international careers. Applying Bourdieu's Theory of Practice, Matthias Walther compares the repatriation of German and French career agents into the external labor markets of their parent country career fields. A qualitative content analysis of 40 semi-structured interviews shows that the German and French career agents' career capital and habitus develops during expatriation, which has an important impact on the re-integration into the parent country career field. The Author shows that in an international career mobility context, the rules of the game change compared to the rules in a pure national career context, which challenges the pertinence of national career models in understanding repatriation in a Franco-German context.

Globalization and the development of multinational organizations have led to an increase in the number of people spending part of their lives living and working in foreign countries. While the contemporary literature has focused on organizational expatriates sent overseas by their employers, self-initiated expatriation is becoming an important area of study in its own right. Studies on self-initiated expatriation explore the labor market positions of individuals who have relocated under their own initiative. However, no comprehensive book exists on the dynamics that underlie this type of mobility. This edited volume offers a holistic picture of self-initiated expatriation and the groups that pursue it, emphasizing many aspects for departure including career development and career capital. It is the first book on the market to explore the issues pertaining to self-initiated expatriation from a variety of perspectives with important theoretical and practical implications. In an era of global war for talent, companies face difficulties in finding highly skilled employees. Self-initiated expatriates have the potential to fill this talent gap. National economies thus have an interest in creating favorable conditions to attract self-initiated expatriates and provoke their repatriation, and this book explores the conditions that achieve the return of employees with skills that are in demand outside of their home countries.