Expatriation Knowledge Management: The Role of Openness to Change and Work Engagement

Abstract

This study addresses the relevant aspect when a company chooses the strategy to internationalize. When choosing internationalization, it is crucial for companies to be more careful in selecting professionals that are able to disseminate the firm’s knowledge in international subsidiaries. Despite the expatriation of employees and the internationalization itself being singled out as important competitive advantages, the high cost of training, sending, maintaining, and repatriating an expatriate professional has become a challenge for companies. Considering that the individual’s openness to change can favor expatriation success, the objective of this study is to propose a theoretical model that connects the openness to change personality trait as the antecedent to the intention of an individual to be expatriated or also an antecedent to leave the company. The theoretical model also considers the moderator role of work engagement in both relationships. In the development of the theoretical model, the associations between the four constructs were theoretically identified: openness to change, intention to be expatriated, intention to leave the company, and work engagement, in the form of assumptions. In particular the theoretical model focuses on the moderating role that work engagement can provide for these relationships. The proposed model can be a guideline for knowledge management practices in international organizations.