In 1988, the study started by Black were assuming and found that country-specific previous overseas work experience had a positive and significant relationship with work adjustment, but not with general adjustment. Then in 1991 Black and another two author Mendenhall, and Oddou proposed a model of international adjustment and suggested that any previous international experience facilitates expatriate adjustment because it provides accurate predictions of future stressors. Based on this argument with three authors, previous international experiences should have a positive relationship with adjustment, such that work-related experiences facilitate work expectations and non-work-related experiences facilitate non-work expectations. However, in another research that also conducts by Black and Gregersen (1991) tested this proposition and found that previous international experience was not related to any facet of adjustment.
But Inkson (1997) argue that individuals often pursue personal interests by working abroad. Richardson and McKenna, 2002 also claimed that some of the individuals who expat due to explorer reasons have been shown to be motivated by adventure and traveling desires. Laterally same appearances, Huang (2005) found that the personality traits of extroversion and openness to experience were positively related to general adjustment for American expatriates living in Taiwan, extroversion was also positively linked to interaction adjustment (interaction with host nationals) and openness was positively associated with work adjustment. These findings support another study by Ones and Viswesvaran (1997), which has positively linked openness in expatriates to positive interpersonal relations, communication competence and work-related performance, assignment acceptance, adjustment, and completion.
Amongst the prominent motives are the desire for adventure, travel, life change (Richardson and Mallon, 2005) and personal challenge (Stah, 2002). Furthermore, the authors predicted that the more accurate the expectations about the foreign environment, the more likely they are to assist the expatriate when they relocate. Takeuchi, Tesluk, Yun, and Lepak (2005) differentiated previous international experiences to include non-work, work, and culture-specific experiences.
Based on this operationalization, they found that previous international experience was positively associated with cross-cultural adjustment. Additionally, Takeuchi, 2005 concluded that culture-specific previous international experience is a significant moderator of the relationship between current assignment tenure and general adjustment. The strength of the relationship, however, was much weaker than anticipated, leading the authors to state: “the theoretical proposition about an experience is supported, but the practical upshot of previous assignments is almost nil” (Bhaskar-Shrinivas, 2005).
Much of the vocational literature is devoted to what kind of job is attractive to individual careerists (Savickas, 2007). Contrary to this, however, Caligiuri (2009) demonstrated that previous international experience is a predictor of expatriates’ success and recommended its inclusion as an expatriate selection criterion. Although the exact influence of previous international experience and the role of culture-specific experiences on expatriate success are still unclear, it is known that previous international experience does not negatively impact expatriates and may also lead to the development of some relational abilities (Thomas 2008), confirming its inclusion for making all types of expatriate selection decisions.A study by Noeleen Doherty, Michael Dickmann and Timothy Milly (2010), a desire to travel was rated by both boundary crossers and native as was driving for adventure.
A replacement was perceived to provide a personal challenge among 92 percent of boundary crosser and 85 natives (Noeleen, 2010). Some of them said, moving abroad was considered as an opportunity to escape personal problem and security problem at home, but 14 percent of boundary crosser considered it is the risky thing to do also, Going abroad would cause concern for their personal safety for 20 percent of boundary crosser (Noeleen, 2010).In case of self-initiated expatriate, the foreign experience was related to adventure and exploration, financial gains, career opportunities, self-confidence, opportunity to travel, discover, explore and to acquire broad skills (Selmer and Lauring, 2012).
With all of this in mind, it is not surprising that explorer reasons for expatriation have been positively associated with job satisfaction (Selmer and Lauring, 2012).Related to these motivations, one study on female leaders showed that individuals open to new experiences were also more likely to be motivated by personal and organizational achievement and developing and maintaining personal relationships (Phondej and Yousapronpaiboon, 2015). One study by (Pooja, 2016) also found assignments place more emphasis on personal motives in determining physical and psychological mobility, whereas international assignments desired to have international experience for career development and progression and focused on job and work issues.
