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Expatriates: The Multinationality of Multinational and National Firms

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Organizational Psychology and Evidence-Based Management

Abstract

The economic worldization has brought opportunities and challenges to firms. Among opportunities, the mobility of highly qualified professionals and managers pursuing opportunities on their own, for definite or indefinite term, such as volunteer expatriates or qualified immigrants, opens the possibility of attracting highly qualified professionals regardless of their country of origin. Multinationality is no longer exclusive to multinational firms and starts being incorporated to national firms staffed with individuals of different nationalities. Among challenges we could mention the control of subsidiaries, adaptation of organizational expatriates in the countries of destination, adaptation if inpatriates in the head office country, understanding the cultures that host business opportunities, and integration in professional teams of different nationalities. This chapter aims to review the organizational and social psychology literature involving the phenomenon of expatriation, comprising the different types of expatriates, patterns, and antecedents of adaptation. Each topic presents the results of surveys that, in our view, could shed some light upon human resource management practices.

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Correspondence to Maria Luisa Mendes Teixeira .

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Teixeira, M.L.M., das Graças Torres da Paz, M., von Borell de Araújo, B.F., Machado, M.M. (2017). Expatriates: The Multinationality of Multinational and National Firms. In: Neiva, E., Torres, C., Mendonça, H. (eds) Organizational Psychology and Evidence-Based Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64304-5_14

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