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Article Analysis: Repatriation after Global Assignments: Current HR Practices and Suggestions for Ensuring Successful Repatriation

 

Critical Issues Discussed in the Literature

  • Expatriate: the authors​​ have discussed expatriate literature because this is one of the key terms used in the current research. Authors were given appropriate knowledge of this term through literature.

  • Repatriate: the authors have discussed the literature regarding repatriation​​ because this is the central theme of the current research, and the literature contributed to the authors' existing knowledge.

  • Broader Management: the authors have integrated the more general management through its literature, suggesting repatriation improvement and inspired authors for these assertions’ future empirical testing.​​ 

Data Collection and Analysis Methods

To gain a broad sample and proceed towards analysis, the data is collected through interviews. The executives were interviewed from the medium​​ and large companies of different industries, i.e. financial services, medical technology, telecommunication, food, retail, chemical, and computer systems. The authors interviewed only the representatives from successful and industry-leading firms, 18 senior HR executives were interviewed from 10 different companies, and the duration of each interview was approximately 60 minutes. The semi-structured approach is used for interviews conducted via telephone primarily; however, one face-to-face interview is an​​ exception; the research technique used in the paper is a quantitative analysis using primary data. The coding scheme is used for analysis.

Central Theme of the Research Paper

Global assignments were studied in the research. After international​​ projects, repatriation is the study's central theme using current human resource suggestions and practices that ensure successful repatriation. The research's primary purpose is to report on the exploratory study's findings on how social resource executives view the process of repatriation and international assignments. Moreover, the authors have studied how successful repatriation is being defined by the executives and what practices regarding repatriation are employed in the executives' respective firm.

Research Findings​​ 

  • The implication for HR professionals: there are three significant implications for the professionals of human resource to consider so that intend value could be achieved from the international assignments, i.e. international assignments'​​ anticipated value must be aligned, career counselling should take place in the organization for repatriates as it helps staff to identify the expatriate's experience base while facilitating the clear understanding, and the strategic direction should be provided of the organization.

  • Shared Knowledge is beneficial: repatriation could be more effective and progressive if there is more understanding, experience, and knowledge with each unit with whom one is working. The existence of a variety of expertise should be ensured across the colleagues.

  • More significant leader development can be achieved through successful repatriation: repatriation practices of top firms can be compared with the management literature that is useful for looking for alternative methods by comparing one to another. The correspondents could achieve that frequently cited goal.​​ 

  • Repatriate readiness could be encouraged through job placement: repatriation is the most motivated and capable of applying and sharing the international experience's​​ key learnings.

Contribution to Knowledge

This research has significantly contributed to my knowledge of the chosen topic. A distinct and original exploration of repatriation from the organizational perspective is seen through this research and the compliments regarding current repatriation research where the expatriate experience has predominantly been featured. Through this research, I am given insight into how the top and highly successful firms look and define repatriation and the contribution of human resource practices and strategies to repatriation. The repatriation practices of top firms have compared with the management literature that is useful to look for the alternative methods by comparing one to another so that the frequently cited goal could be​​ achieved of the correspondents.

Furthermore, through this research, I know that repatriation could be more effective and progressive if there is more understanding, experience, and knowledge with each unit with whom one is working. The existence of a variety of expertise should be ensured across the colleagues. This research has added to the existing knowledge that there are three significant implications for the professionals of human resource to​​ consider so that intend value could be achieved from the international assignments, i.e. international assignments’ anticipated value must be aligned, career counselling should take place in the organization for repatriates as it helps staff to identify the expatriate’s experience base while facilitating the clear​​ understanding, and the organization should provide the strategic direction.

Recommendations for Future Research

There are multiple recommendations for the future research provided in the current research while highlighting its limitations. Despite being ensured confidentiality, the authors' interviews may have provided the response that is socially desirable to the questions of talk of the authors and withheld information either or/and address the practices of repatriation in the positive light. The researchers in the future can choose the better way to collect data to avoid this kenaf issue. In their respective organization, given their stature, it is assumed by the authors the executives considered as a sample were motivated enough to demonstrate the human resource practices’ positive aspects. The researchers in the future can dig the executives more to look at the negative aspects as well and how it can be tackled.​​ 

Furthermore, the observations were revealed by the executives that did not provide a good​​ reflection about their organization, suggesting to the authors of the research that the socially desirable bias didn’t drive the study findings entirely. The researchers in the future can use the questionnaire as the research instrument rather than a semi-structured interview so that the problems and biases associated with this technique could be avoided.​​ 

Reference:
  • Biley, C. & Dragoni, L., 2013. Repatriation after Global Assignments: Current HR Practices and Suggestions for Ensuring Successful​​ Repatriation.​​ People and Strategy,​​ 36(1), pp. 48-57.

 

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