ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to work out the complex entanglement of work and non-work spheres by discussing the link between the social positions of expatriate managers as defined by the material and symbolic resources and privileges they have at their disposal, and the emergence of cosmopolitan, or parochial anti-cosmopolitan orientations, respectively. In the International Business (IB) and International Human Resource Management (IHRM) literature, global mobility policies of multinational corporations (MNCs) have been mainly discussed with regard to their role in motivating expatriates to accept a global assignment, to their impact on expatriates' job performance on their stints, and to evaluating different approaches of global mobility policies in these regards. Taking up the notion of living in a secluded elite 'bubble', a second strand of literature that is equally interested in both the link between elite positions and lifestyles, on the one hand, and the orientations and practices of transnationally mobile managers, on the other, challenges the 'transnational elite' thesis with its implied elite cosmopolitanism.
