Words from an Expat Researcher: Expat Loyalty Shifting from the Company to the Individual

It is interesting that rather than leaving comments on my blog often people will just contact me directly via email to respond to a blog post. Sometimes the person tells me that the place to leave a comment is difficult to find. Other times it's likely a desire to have a conversation that prompts them to choose email vs. a comment. Whatever the case, I haven't been good about posting comments sent to me directly so that all can benefit. But in this recent case, I feel it's essential that what was shared with me be shared with my expat readership.

In my recent post "Report Shows Impact of Employer's Lack of Expatriate Career Management Support" I shared about a report authored by an expert in international human resources management expert, Yvonne McNulty, entitled, "Measuring Return on Investment in Global Firms". The results of her research included in the report tell us about the ROI of the expatriate assignment from the perspective of the expatriate employee - how its defined, evaluated, and factors that influence it.

 

I mention a few key points in my previous blog post, but wanted to share Yvonne's email with me which highlights some other important ideas in the report, some of which I've highlighted in yellow:    

An important thing this report tells us that expat loyalty is shifting from the company to the individual. This is actually not a new finding in academia – an important research study in 2004 (done by a group of academics in Germany) showed that German and French expats were starting to shift their loyalty from the firm to themselves, with up to 59% thinking about leaving the firm during an assignment. That study found that lack of career planning during repatriation was the major cause of the shift in loyalty. 

The importance of my study is that my sample is global and not limited to one country/region (ie. can be generalized). My findings show that up to 36% of expats globally are thinking or considering leaving their firm during an assignment, so we now have concrete proof of an emerging trend, but the reasons for shift in loyalty in my study extend beyond previous findings.