Intercultural knowledge management: A competency model for the repatriation of expatriates in the Asia-Pacific

Abstract

As workforces becomes more global and personal employment trajectories transcend countries, it becomes very important to understand how workers negotiate these shifts across their working lives. This chapter explores the challenges of repatriation for organisations and workers in an era of globalization. The literature reports that an organisation must pursue global knowledge and maintain an international perspective in order to remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment (Paik et al. 2002). Global forces are reshaping society, lives and workplaces. Specific competencies are required for people to live and work globally, because ‘competence is … of decisive importance in the competition between individuals, between enterprises, between nations’ (Marton 2001:x). The repatriation of expatriates represents a challenge for leaders and managers because repatriation is the clearest manifestation of globalization. Repatriates have an irreplaceable role in organizational learning, because they can accelerate the transfer of knowledge between organizations and their sites across countries (Lazarova and Caligiuri 2001). Yet, repatriates in particular, are an underestimated resource (Fink and Meierewert 2005). Organisations can sustain a competitive advantage if they fully employ the knowledge and skills of repatriates returning to their home country. This calls for a theoretical reframing of the knowledge management of expatriation and repatriation processes, because … ‘there is an evident lack of conceptual work at the organizational and operational level’ (Baruch and Altman 2002:39).