| Name: | Description: | Size: | Format: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70.93 KB | Adobe PDF |
Authors
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
This study aims to understand the expatriation pattern of a sample of Portuguese
companies. Specifically, it shows the types of international assignment, the host countries, the
reasons that lead Portuguese companies to use expatriates, the duration these international
assignments and the profile of expatriation workers.
The data were collected through semi-structured interviews of 30 Portuguese repatriates
and 14 organizational representatives from seven Headquarters’ Portuguese companies. A
qualitative methodology was followed with resource to semi-structured interviews to collect
information and the analysis of the thematic content was used for data processing.
The obtained results allowed for the following conclusions to be reached: (1) the
management of expatriation is at an incipient stage. More than a strategic activity, the sample
companies develop a purely administrative management of their expatriates/repatriates; (2)
expatriation is assumed as a strategy to control the operations of foreign branches; (3) the
reasons that lead Portuguese companies to expatriating employees are connected to business
needs and the control of international operations; (4) despite international assignments had
several destination countries, Angola and Brazil were referred to as the most representative;
(5) the majority of Portuguese companies use the expatriates to do a technical international
assignments. For this, the selection decision is by workers who the companies trust and who
have a good technical knowledge.
In sum, this study, by covering a new geographical context not yet explored, helps to
bridge this gap. On the other hand, the management strategy of the expatriates and the
dimension of the company can help to explain some of the specificities in the expatriation
pattern found in the Portuguese companies compared to other countries. For example, the
study helps to understand that in these companies expatriations of technical kind predominate
over a developmental, a functional and strategic kind. The Portuguese companies are more
connected to the need to implement corporate objectives and transfer home base culture to
foreign branches. Comparing results found to those recently obtained by Tungli and Peiperl (2009), Portuguese companies resemble companies in the UK and Japan (i.e., using
expatriation to create a new operation) more than North American companies (i.e., to fill
competency gaps). Management of expatriates in these companies seems to be in congruency
with the majority of European companies with an IHRM ethnocentric approach (Mayrhofer &
Brewster, 1996) i.e. the authority and decision making are centered in the home base. This
type of strategy is typical of companies, which have recently started an internationalization
process, in which the central positions in the branches are attributed to expatriates from the
company’s headquarters. Expatriates have a central role in transmitting culture and technical
knowledge from company’s headquarters to the company’s branches. Companies with an
ethnocentric management (Colakoglu & Caligiuri, 2007) tend to consider expatriates from
company’s headquarters to be more reliable than native collaborators from the countries
where the company branches are located.
Description
Keywords
Expatriação Expatriation Portuguese companies International assignments Organizational reasons for expatriating Host countries Kind of international assignments Expatriates profile
Citation
Martins, D. (2013). The Expatriation Pattern in Portuguese Companies. Conferência - Investigação E Intervenção Em Recursos Humanos, (4). https://doi.org/10.26537/iirh.v0i4.2078 [IV Conferência de Investigação e Intervenção em Recursos Humanos, organizada pela Escola Superior de Ciências Empresariais do Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal (Portugal), dia 28 de janeiro].