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Marshall,

How about a little more information, for instance a last name and university affiliation?  Conference title comes to mind as well....

It sounds fascinating....

I completely agree with oreneta,  it sounds great, and I am sure your findings will get a lot of audience here... could you please send us more information?

My full name is Marshall Pattie.  I spent the last four years at the University of Texas at Arlington finishing up my Ph.D. and will be starting at Towson University (located north of Baltimore) in the next few weeks.  My colleagues and I were attending the Academy of Management conference which was held this year in Philadelphia (aomonline.org).  The conference is the largest of its kind.  There are 18,000 members from 103 nations.  If there is general interest in this exchange than we could easily sponsor a symposium or workshop at the next conference. 

Here is an example of my research:  My colleagues and I most recent article (International Journal of Human Resource Management) compare expatriates currently overseas, repatriates, and domestic employees on compensation, recent promotions, and external recruiting contacts.  We then examine how actual pay, promotions, and external recruiting influences anticipated salary growth within the firm and external employment opportunities.  We find that despite little or no impact on their current careers (salary, promotions, contacts by recruiters) employees with overseas work experience perceive greater internal and external opportunities than domestic employees.

Thanks Marshall for presenting your activity and yourself. I appreciate.

Your articles and research are definitely relevant for our audience. How can we start the dialogue? I encourage all our members to participate. I think we could all learn a lot from the exchange.

I'm with Julien, this sounds absolutely fascinating....tell us what you need, what you envision, and what you hope for? 

Certainly forum and chat topics are a possibility, and it would be interesting to source information on a more formal basis.

Julien, we get posts on here doing surveys, have you had any feedback on how much response they get?

Would that be a useful/viable route? I've never seen any feedback to the expat community from any of them, and a venue that was more of a trade in information might be even better.

What do you think...Marshall, Julien et al.....

I recommend that we do two things simultaneously.  First, we pick specific topics to discuss.  For example: what leads to adjustment, traveling with family, stress, trailing spouses, careers, successful repatriation.  Rather than me picking the topic, I would suggest that your community chooses the first topic.  I think this best fits the spirit of this exchange!  Once the topic is chosen, I will contact specific members from the expatriate research community and we will write up a synopsis of what we know and where we are as a field.  We will post this and expatriates can ask questions, make comments and suggestions all of which we will respond.  After the conversation has died down we can start the process over again.

Second, we can provide direct feedback to your community from their responses and opinions.  I suggest that we start small.  All we need is for 50 US repatriates who have returned from their assignment (at least eight months overseas) within the last year and are still working for the company in order to complete our most recent project.  If any of your members meet this criteria or know someone who does just let me know (Mpattie@towson.edu) and I will send them the survey.  Once we reach this number it will take us about a month to run the analysis.  After that period, we will post the results and can have a conversation about what we found and what it means to expatriates!

I am open to any suggestions or changes to this format.  This is an exchange and I want it to be as rewarding as possible.  Julien and Oreneta, I will leave it up to you to decide how best to select a topic and track down repatriates. 

I look forward to hearing everyone's thoughtsÂ….

Any suggestions for topics? Our research indicates expatriate adjustment is one of the most important factors for successful expatriations.

Marshall,

There are so many topics ... that we don't know where to start. You sugggested a good topic in your last post. "Which are the important factors for a successful expatriation, and which are the main difficulties?"

Oreneta, Marshall, do you think it could be a good start?

The start is very important. We must find a relevant topic for our audience. I'd like to communicate to all our members about it and to invite them to participate (maybe in the next newsletter).

Thanks,

Julien

Julien,
I think asking members in the newsletter or another forum with more traffic (or both) is a great idea!  Maybe we could take some kind of poll/tally/write in with member suggestions on what is most important to them. 

I agree that the first one will also be the most important one in order to create the greatest dialogue and continuing success.

We also need to be careful to select a topic that is manageable.  For example, expatriate success can be looked at from many different points of view (organization, expatriate, supervisor) and can be defined differently (productivity, career, development).

The topics that seem to get the most traffic here tend to be about personal adjustment, and so that may be a good place to start as a way to format this...

What helped you most in your personal adjustment to your new country, and what was hardest....

Something like that...?

What do you think?

I suggest we select a first topic to give an example, and we elaborate a list of relevant topics.

The first topic is very important indeed. If our members/bloggers find the topic relevant for their own audience, they might even talk about it on their blog! The idea is to create a real participate movement (not so easy, but let's try).

After selection of the first topic and integration of Marshall's work on the website, we'll communicate about it and we'll invite our members to vote for the next topic. I think it is a good way to get a good participation return.

Marshall, in your first message you talked about "factors leading to expatriate adjustment, the impact of the assignment on spouses and children, and how expatriation impacts careers among many others over the past decade". Maybe you could give us a better idea (maybe a preview?) of your findings on these topics?

Please let me know what you think...

Any ideas / suggestions from other members?

I would recommend that we choose between two different topics: adjustment or career impact.  In the adjustment literature we have investigated anticipatory, individual, job, organizational and non-work factors that predict expatriate adjustment.  The reason why I suggest this topic is because it is one of the best tested models.  However, I don't know how relevant this topic would be to expatriates who are already on assignment. 

The impact of expatriation on careers is also an interesting topic.  I think this would be relevant because it focuses on the members future.  The research on this topic is less defined and in some places contradictory.  While it may provide fewer answers, it may be more likely to generate greater conversation.  Let me know which one would be more relevant. 

Once we decide, it will take awhile for me to accumulate the articles and translate them into what it means for the individual expatriate.  When relying the information we may want to communicate what we are doing in multiple forums.

My vote goes with the second topic as well.  The first would be interesting, and there are wanna be expats who find this site, but they would also be interested in information on career impacts, as would those already out there...

That's my two cents.

I think the impact of expatriation on career is more relevant for our audience. We've got our first subject!

Marshall, when you have a first version of the study (I just need to see its format), please send it to me (julien at expat-blog dot com) and I will see how to integrate it on the website.

By the way, I am thinking about a new version of ½ûÂþÌìÌà ... if the results of our collaboration are interesting I might create a specific section for it.

Expat Researcher wrote:

I would recommend that we choose between two different topics: adjustment or career impact.  In the adjustment literature we have investigated anticipatory, individual, job, organizational and non-work factors that predict expatriate adjustment.  The reason why I suggest this topic is because it is one of the best tested models.  However, I don't know how relevant this topic would be to expatriates who are already on assignment.

You may want to check out this survery made by GMAC Global Relocation Services and the National Foreign Trade Council titled:

International Job Assignment: Boon or Bust for an Employee's Career?
Link:

Interesting results briefly lists probable unavoidable subtopics within 'career impact' - adjustment, spouse, country of post, repatriation, etc as important factors.

It's decided! I will start working on the study immediately.  It will take some time to finish.  My research assistant and I will have to review many articles and then translate them from archaic scientific language to a format that everyone can understand.  I will give you a progress update in a few weeks.  Hopefully, we can start getting the word out about this.

Deedee,

I agree!  The GMAC report is an excellent place to get an overview of the current trends in deploying employees overseas.  The direct link to the report is:   If anyone wants I can also e-mail it directly to them (mpattie@towson.edu).

Looking forward to it!

Great! I can't wait for it !

Any news?

What happened to this very interesting idea? Any updates?

I've been in contact with Marshall a couple of weeks ago, his study is longer than what he firstly thought. I also hope we'll get more news very soon!