What is the overseas experience really like, and why is it so significant? Based on interviews with returned expatriates, Osland uses Joseph Campbell's metaphor of the hero's journey to analyze expatriate stories and answer these questions. The resulting framework outlines the predictable stages in the expatriate journey and articulates for the first time the complex, transformational nature of the expatriate experience and its inherent paradoxes. In addition to helping expatriates make sense of their experience, this framework furnishes prospective expatriates with more realistic expectations and provides practical lessons for companies and human resource professionals who want to handle expatriates more effectively.
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Joyce S. Osland (2000) studied this question.
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