ABSTRACT
Multinational corporations (MNCs) in Europe, as elsewhere, face increasing pressures to ensure efficiency and effectiveness in their expatriation practices. At the same time, investments in the development of high-quality talents are required.The significance of expatriates has increased in recent years (Scullion and Brewster 2001), with their numbers remaining steady or even rising. Rises in numbers are seen for smaller and newer international organizations and for self-initiated expatriation (GMAC 2005; Bonache et al. forthcoming). Identifying potential expatriates and developing these is seen as key to international success, particularly with the acknowledgement of expatriates as crucial for knowledge transfer within the organization (Bonache and Brewster 2001; Mäkelä forthcoming)
(see Chapter 4). This development has been made easier for organizations by the spread of self-assessment tools that help firms to create candidate pools (Caligiuri and Tarique 2006). Additionally, expatriation is regarded as an important step in career development from the perspective of potential candidates themselves (Stahl et al. 2002; Bonache et al. forthcoming; Jokinen et al. forthcoming).
