Advancing the Understanding of Inflows and Outflows of International Labour in Management Research: Introduction to the Special Issue

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12332
• Published date: 01 September 2018
• Date: 01 September 2018

Advancing the Understanding of Inflows and

Outflows of International Labour in

Management Research: Introduction to the

Special Issue

AKRAM ALARISS,

1

LIISA MÄKELÄ

2

and HELEN DECIERI

3

1

Toulouse Business School, France

2

University of Vaasa, Finland

3

Monash University,Australia

Introduction

This special issue has six papers that enhance knowledge

in management research on the inflows and outflows of

internationallabour. Our definition of international labour

encompasses various forms of international mobility

including (but not limited to) expatriation, repatriation,

short-term assignees, international migration flow

involving different countries, self-initiated expatriation,

and international business travelers and other forms of

international labour mobility. Below we provide an

overview of these selected publications.

Papers in this special issue

Felix Ballesteros Leiva, Gwénaëlle Poilpot-Rocaboy and

Sylvie St-Onge wrote an interesting paper focusing on

two types of internationally mobile employees, namely

assigned expatriates and self-initiated expatriates. This

paper ‘Social Support and Life-Domain Interactions

among Assigned and Self-Initiated Expatriates’sheds

light on the topical issue, interplay between work and

personal life spheres in the context of expatriation. This

study adopts the conservation of resources (COR) theory

and highlight the importance of social support gained

from both life domains and different outcomes they

have. Four sources of social support were studied, in

particular organizational support, supervisor support,

coworker support and family and friend support. The

empirical data for this study consist of survey data of

284 expatriates (182 self-initiated expatriate (SIEs) and

102 assigned expatriate (AEs)). In general, work-to

personal life conflict was more commonthan the opposite

and perceptions of enrichment were equal from personal

life to work lifeand vice versa. Furthermore,no difference

was found between conflict and enrichment perceptions

between AEs andSIEs. Study showed evidence thatwhen

focusing on negative interactions (conflict) between life

domains, two types of support were especially important

as higher organizational support and family and friend

support were related on less conflict from work domain

to personal lifedomain and also from personal life domain

to work domain. Interestingly, onlyone source of support,

support from coworkers, was related on enrichment

experiencestobothworktopersonallifeandfrom

personal life to work life enrichment. When perceptions

of AEs and SIEs were contrasted it was found that the

stronger the AEs’perceptions of support from their

organization, the stronger are their experiences of work-

to personal life enrichment. However, this link was not

significant among SIEs. In turn, for SIEs, coworker

support played more important role in their life domain

conflict (both work to personal life and personal life to

work life) as for them relationship was negative but no

significant relationship was not found forAEs. This study

advanced our understanding about internationally mobile

employees’lives as an entity by providing new

knowledge about the conflict and enrichment occurring

within their important life domains, work and personal

life. Crucial role of several sources of social support for

expatriates was also confirmed.

European Management Review, Vol. 15, 289–291, (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/emre.12332

©2018 European Academy of Management