What, When, and with Whom? Investigating Expatriate Reentry Training with a Proximal Approach

• Author: Dana McDaniel Sumpter,Betina Szkudlarek
• Date: 01 November 2015
• Published date: 01 November 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.21647

Human Resource Management, November–December 2015, Vol. 54, No. 6. Pp. 1037–1057

© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

DOI:10.1002/hrm.21647

Correspondence to: Betina Szkudlarek, University of Sydney Business School, N439 Storie Dixson Building (H10),

TheUniversity of Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia, Phone: 61 2 9351 4606, Fax: 61 2 9036 5378,

E-mail: betina.szkudlarek@sydney.edu.au.

to their home country after their international as-

signment. Managing reentry has long been noted

as an identified HR challenge in multinational

organizations (Adler, 1981). More than three

decades of reentry research points to numerous

concerns which affect the well-being, readjust-

ment, and career trajectories of the returning in-

dividuals (Black, Gregersen, & Mendenhall, 1992;

Szkudlarek, 2010). Their smooth return to the

home-country workforce is a critical goal for mul-

tinational organizations, as returning expatriates

are a source of valuable, inimitable, and organiza-

tionally relevant knowledge gained from their in-

ternational experience (Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1989;

Hocking, Brown, & Harzing, 2007).

Introduction

Expatriate assignments have long been

one of the most frequently employed

strategies for managing multinational op-

erations (Selmer & Suutari, 2011). Taking

into consideration both the high costs

and the challenges associated with expatriate

assignments, multinational organizations con-

tinually strive to increase both the efficiency and

effectiveness with which they provide support to

expatriates. While there are undoubtedly chal-

lenges incurred by expatriates as they transition

to life in a new host country, there are also signifi-

cant issues associated with reentry (also referred to

as repatriation), which is when expatriates return

WHAT, WHEN, AND WITH WHOM?

INVESTIGATING EXPATRIATE

REENTRY TRAINING WITH

APROXIMAL APPROACH

BETINA SZKUDLAREK AND DANA MCDANIEL SUMPTER

While reentry transition has long been regarded as one of the most challenging

phases of an expatriate assignment cycle, reentry training has received little

scholarly attention. Using a qualitative research design based on interviews with

31 training providers, we bring the issue of reentry training into focus. Our fi nd-

ings shed light on three components of training design and execution: content,

timing, and participant format. Our comparison of actual reentry training practice

with an ideal, theory-driven design revealed numerous inconsistencies. Further

investigation of these inconsistencies led us to theorize how training practices

may predominantly be shaped by contextual factors. Our fi ndings accentuate the

challenges of HRM practices more broadly, showing how practice design can be

driven by logistical matters and organizational interests, rather than by evidence-

based precepts. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Keywords: intercultural training, expatriates, proximal, qualitative, reentry,

repatriation, training

1038 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2015

Human Resource Management DOI: 10.1002/hrm

Given the lack of

practitioner and

empirical focus on the

issues of repatriation,

it becomes clear that

managing reentry is

at risk of remaining

“one of the thorniest

issues for global HR

managers.”

testing of training’s setup (e.g., Osman-Gani &

Hyder, 2008), its effectiveness (e.g., Vidal, Valle,

& Aragón, 2010), or conceptual model-building of

training design (e.g., Martin & Harrell, 2004). Our

unique investigation expands the existing work by

not only engaging in direct contact with training

practitioners through interviews and a thorough

investigation of archival data, but also attempts

to reveal tacit aspects of organizational dynamics

that impact training design but are not yet identi-

fied in existing training research. Consequently,

while the focus of our empirical investigation is

limited to reentry training, we suggest that our

findings can be extended to the broader context

of HR practices.

In this article, we first review reentry training

research, and situate our study within existing lit-

erature. We next explain our methodology, before

reporting our three major categories of findings

that emerged from the data: training content,

training timing, and whether the training was

provided in a group or individual format. Within

each of these categories, we include results from

a content-oriented and deductive portion of the

data (including an analysis of the discrepancies

we found between data and theory) and a process-

oriented and inductive portion of the data (help-

ing to explain and resolve these discrepancies).

Finally, we extend our findings regarding reentry

training to HR practices more generally, conclud-

ing with an integrative set of recommendations

for scholars and practitioners.

Extant Knowledge of Reentry Training

Reentry transition is a multifaceted phenomenon

that impacts expatriates’ emotions, behaviors, and

cognition (Martin & Harrell, 2004). Emotionally,

repatriate well-being is affected due to unexpected

distress linked to reverse culture shock (Gullahorn

& Gullahorn, 1963) and grief for the expatriate life

(Chamove & Soeterik, 2006). As many as 70 per-

cent of repatriates experience psychological dis-

comfort in the reentry process (Black et al., 1992),

and the magnitude of distress can reach clinical

levels (Sahin, 1990). Behaviorally, reentry impact is

linked with the replacement of the home-country

cultural codes and behavioral norms with those of

the host country (Smith, 1996). That is, returning

employees have to relearn social skills they once

knew but did not use on their expatriate assign-

ment (Black et al., 1992). Returning individuals

are often unaware of this transformation, and are

strongly affected by the negative reactions of their

fellow home-country compatriots, who typically

have little tolerance for violated behavioral rules.

Cognitively, an individual’s cultural identity may be

altered, as expatriates often go through profound

Reentry issues are often more challenging,

more insidious, and widely underestimated as

compared to those experienced during expatria-

tion (Linehan & Scullion, 2002; Martin, 1984).

Yet despite an abundance of evidence arguing for

the strategic importance of managing the reen-

try transition, host-country transition support

remains the primary focus for both HR scholars

and multinational organizations, who tend to

focus all their resources on expatriating employ-

ees, as compared to supporting their return home

(Jassawalla & Sashittal, 2009; Osman-Gani &

Hyder, 2008). The few available studies within

this domain show that reentry training support

offered to returning employees is scarce and rarely

executed (Szkudlarek, 2010). Research indicates

that only 27 to 49 percent of companies have

reentry support programs or repatriation training

opportunities (Osman-Gani & Hyder, 2008; Tyler,

2006). Moreover, existing studies on this subject

are fragmented and predominantly

limited to conceptual models of

training design (Martin & Harrell,

1996, 2004; Sussman, 1986) with

scant empirical work investigating

different facets of reentry programs’

design and delivery. Given the lack

of practitioner and empirical focus

on the issues of repatriation, it

becomes clear that managing reen-

try is at risk of remaining “one of

the thorniest issues for global HR

managers” (Swaak, 1997, p. 29).

We aim to address this HR issue

by empirically exploring the devel-

opment and execution of reentry

training. In this investigation, we

expand our focus to include both

the content of the training and the

process by which the training is developed since,

as we argue, both can influence its course and

impact. We employ a research design that unpacks

both of these aspects of reentry training. We follow

Cooper and Law (1995) in conducting an empiri-

cal analysis grounded in two distinctive research

modes: the distal (with its focus on functionalistic

stability and outcomes) to address training con-

tent, and the proximal (with its attention to con-

tinuous transformation, process, and multiplicity)

to address the training development process. In

doing so, we follow organizational scholars who

have advocated this approach in the past (e.g.,

Gibson, Szkudlarek, & McDaniel, 2012), and apply

these dual analytical lenses to investigate reentry

training. This approach extends from methods

conventionally employed in training research,

which instead focus on deductive hypothesis