Does the ‘Non-Traditional Expatriate’ Exist? A Critical Exploration of New Expatriation Categories

Abstract

Non-Traditional Expatriates (NTEs) are rapidly increasing in the global talent pool, but remains a ‘black-box’ in the Expatriate Management and Global Mobility literatures. This article advances the conceptualisation of NTEs, due to the nascent research field is lacking construct clarity in terms of the meaning of the term as well as an operationalised conceptual framework. Five underlying assumptions in the scarce extant literature are identified and discussed, as a means to responding to the following research questions: (i) how credible is the NTE term as an expatriation typology?; and (ii) how can the conceptual framework of NTEs be operationalised? If these key issues remain unsolved, there is a risk of establishing flawed research design which can negatively affect researchers’ credibility when providing policy advice on global staffing and talent management to international managers and Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). This conceptual article draws upon key social anthropological and sociological theories, and proposes a relational research design for investigating NTEs, as well as propositions for future research.