The Other and the Expat: A Story of Internalization

In an era where talents tend to be on the move, understanding the reasons and processes behind the mobility of highly qualified workers plays a key role in developing a sustainable organizational strategy. In this paper we focus on in-depth qualitative interviews with self-initiated expatriates, an understudied valuable expatriation category. This contribution examines their decision-making process to relocate. We therefore shift the focus in analyses of this process away from considering expatriation only as a matter of an SIE’s ego and cognitive processes in relation to career development. Instead, this work focuses on co-construction dynamics and moves beyond treating expatriate decision-making as a purely individual matter. We therefore reveal the unsuspected role played by identity-related issues in the decision to relocate.