Critical Criteria Driving First Job Choices of Young Graduate Engineers around Europe
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1 Critical Criteria driving First Job Choices of Young Graduate Engineers around Europe Insights on the possible tradeoffs involved when considering a job abroad versus a job in the home country for engineers and engineering students around Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany and Belgium.
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Transcript of Critical Criteria Driving First Job Choices of Young Graduate Engineers around Europe
1
Critical Criteria driving First Job Choices of Young Graduate Engineers around
Europe Insights on the possible trade-‐offs involved when
considering a job abroad versus a job in the home country for engineers and engineering students
around Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Germany and Belgium.
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Acknowledgments First, I would like to thank M. Verstraeten for his availability to provide me
great help and guidance. Likewise I would like to thank in advance M. Eraly and M. Rycx for their feedback at my presentation.
I would also like to thank M. Vandermotten for his help on geo-‐economics and insights regarding the discussion and limitations of my research, and M. Paindaveine for his advices on statistics.
For giving me the chance to hand out surveys at Top Engineering Summit Brussels and Berlin, I would like to thank M. Wajskop from Careers International.
Among the many engineering students and engineers who have given me advices along the way, I would like to give special thanks Alexia Spyridonidou, for her support and help in several occasions. Also, as promised, to Enrico Cimador for assisting me in my “survey girl” role to distribute surveys at Careers Internationals events.
A special thanks to LG Eindhoven -‐ especially to Chantal Boom -‐ for letting me stay at ESTIEM CM a bit longer to reach more Alumni and for organising the event, and to the great LBG Valladolid -‐ especially to David Sanz -‐ for organising impressive BEST Career Day and GA.
To all the respondents of my survey, huge thanks for taking the time to complete it and to permit me reaching more answers than I had expected. A special thanks to the ones who shared my messages on their networks, and to all respondents who accepted to be interviewed and questioned and who gave me lots of insights to explain the results of this work.
Thanks to Hanan Kostet, Sarah Mittiga, Joe Warriner, Dominic Naish and Aromal Lal to accept checking the orthography and grammar.
Finally, I also show my gratitude to all the ones who, directly or indirectly, have helped and supported me during this exploration.
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Executive Summary The present research investigates, among young engineers and engineering students from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain, firstly their willingness to work abroad and secondly their perceived importance of the criteria “Income”, “Working Benefits”, “Career development opportunities”, “Challenge”, “Learning and personal development opportunities”, “Company’s reputation” and “Fit with ethical values” in determining their intention to accept a job. The aim is to understand the extent and reasons behind a potentially existing difference in perceived importance of criteria -‐ namely ΔX -‐ between the scenario of a job abroad and a job in the home country, and to investigate the effect of the respondent’s home country on ΔX. Data collected among target respondents during international events around Europe and online represent 381 surveys, 31 semi-‐directed interviews and 100 answers to a specific question asked to respondents after filling the survey. Firstly, estimations of criteria’s perceived importance, willingness to work abroad and ΔX are descriptively analysed. Then, the effect of respondents’ home country on an estimation of ΔX for all criteria was analysed descriptively and with Kruskall-‐Wallis statistic test. Thirdly, as we assume ΔX to be linked to the willingness to work abroad, incentives and obstacles driving this willingness are investigated with additionally collected data. Results indicated, for the six samples, a high willingness to work abroad in the early stage of the career, and the existence of ΔX which concerned, in a higher extent, tougher requirements on “Income”, “Working benefits” and “Company’s reputation” criteria when considering a job abroad. Most often reasons expressed the need for material compensations especially because of leaving personal relationships, and for expected additional expenses often because of more travels and changing routines. In a lower extent, ΔX was also concerning more lenient requirements often justified with the belief that benefits unrelated to job and organisational attributes that only experiences of working abroad can bring are valued enough to accept compromises, in particular regarding non-‐material criteria and job stability. Finally, the Kruskall-‐Wallis test did not provide evidence of significant ΔX estimations differences between countries. In practice, the existence of ΔX would imply that companies willing to recruit engineers out of the investigated countries would have to adjust their offer, given that the job and organisational criteria job seekers consider critical at home are not necessarily considered as critical for a job abroad, and vice versa. Nevertheless, generalisations to young engineers from the investigated countries are not acceptable in the scope of this work. Practical limitations concern estimations of ΔX, undersized and biased samples, and numerous uncontrolled important factors; theoretical limitations concern the unproven assumption that ΔX and Willingness to work abroad are linked, and the lack of specification regarding important aspects such as the concept of “working abroad”.
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Table of content Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................... 2
Executive Summary ......................................................................................................... 3
Table of content ............................................................................................................... 4
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 7
Chapter 1 – Basics ........................................................................................................... 9
Definitions and scope .................................................................................................... 10
Background ...................................................................................................................... 12
European trends and young engineers labor markets ................................................ 12 International Human Resources Management trends ................................................ 17
Literature review ............................................................................................................ 19
Organisational and job attractiveness .............................................................................. 19 Perceived job characteristics ........................................................................................................... 20 Organisational attributes ................................................................................................................... 21 Perceived organisational attractiveness ..................................................................................... 22
International assignments and willingness to work abroad ..................................... 28 Types of international moves .......................................................................................................... 28 Willingness to work abroad .............................................................................................................. 34
Chapter 2 -‐ Exploration ............................................................................................... 46
Conceptual Framework ................................................................................................ 47 Literature gap ............................................................................................................................ 47 Research question ................................................................................................................... 50 Key concepts .............................................................................................................................. 50 Conceptual framework ........................................................................................................... 51
Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 53
Choice of the methodologies ................................................................................................ 53 Variables ..................................................................................................................................... 54 Job choice criteria ................................................................................................................................. 54 Willingness to work abroad .............................................................................................................. 56
Sampling ...................................................................................................................................... 56
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Methods of analyses ................................................................................................................ 57
Results ................................................................................................................................ 61
Perceived importance of criteria in determining the intention to accept a job in
the home country ..................................................................................................................... 61 Willingness to work abroad ................................................................................................. 63 Levels of willingness to work abroad ........................................................................................... 63 Potential incentives and obstacles to work abroad ............................................................... 66
Perceived importance of criteria in determining the intention to accept a job
abroad .......................................................................................................................................... 68 Difference in perceived importance of criteria in determining the intention to
accept a job (abroad – home) ............................................................................................... 69 ΔX estimated by DAVGXjk ................................................................................................................... 69 ΔX estimated by SUMABSDXij ........................................................................................................... 71 Reasons explaining ΔX ........................................................................................................................ 72
Chapter 3 -‐ Back to Basics .......................................................................................... 79
Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 80
Does ΔX exist? ............................................................................................................................ 80 To what extent does ΔX exist? .............................................................................................. 81 Why does ΔX exist? .................................................................................................................. 83 Does ΔX significantly differ between countries? ........................................................... 83 Implications for International Recruitment ................................................................... 86
Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 87
Theoretical limitations .......................................................................................................... 87 Practical limitations ................................................................................................................ 87
Suggestions for further research .............................................................................. 91
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 93
Bibliography .................................................................................................................. 95
Appendices .................................................................................................................... 104
Networks ......................................................................................................................... 104
BEST ........................................................................................................................................... 104 ESTIEM ...................................................................................................................................... 104 Careers International .......................................................................................................... 105
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Intelligence Group and The Network ............................................................................. 105 Global Trend Mobility Survey ....................................................................................................... 105
Survey ............................................................................................................................... 106
Interview guide ............................................................................................................. 112
Survey results ................................................................................................................ 114
AVGXHjk ...................................................................................................................................... 114 AVGXAjk ...................................................................................................................................... 115 Levels of W ............................................................................................................................... 116 Incentives and obstacles to W ........................................................................................... 116 Reasons to work abroad .................................................................................................................. 116 Perception of effects on personal relationships ................................................................... 117 Previous international experience ............................................................................................. 118
DAVGXjk ..................................................................................................................................... 119 ABSDXjk ..................................................................................................................................... 119 SUMABSDXj .............................................................................................................................. 121
Interviews and specific question results .............................................................. 122
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Introduction “On voyage pour changer, non de lieu, mais d’idées.”
Hippolyte Taine
Today’s economic environment goes along with a new era for recruitment.
Recent crises have made it more important to reach the best “return on
investment on the recruiting money spent” (Cable & Turban, 2001). Other
investments in Research and Development have also become key to overcome
the situation (European Commission, 2013). In parallel, the race for recruiting
talent internationally is going faster (Stamet & Waasdorp, 2006), especially
regarding engineering, research and development related positions (European
Commission, 2013).
From job seekers’ point of view, labour markets in Europe are not at their best
neither: wage levels are at their lowest and youth unemployment rates have
been at the highest peak over the last six years (Eurostat, 2013), especially in
some countries such as Spain, Italy and Portugal, where additionally, deeper
inequalities regarding research and development indicators were initially
present (European Commission, 2013). These factors have made it more difficult
for engineers out of these countries to find attractive job opportunities,
compared to engineers from countries such as Belgium, France and Germany.
These facts have made us look at a new perspective regarding an increasing
willingness to work abroad among young job seekers, which however represents
a phenomenon that goes beyond exclusively macroeconomics factors
(Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011).
In light of these trends, relevant questions emerge: do companies have to adjust
their job offers to attract and retain young engineers from other countries,
compared to how job seekers would be attracted and retained by companies at
home? If so, what would these adjustments concern? How important should they
be? Would they be different for job seekers from one country or another?
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The present research intends to bring insights in dealing with these questions. In
order to do that, it investigates the ratings in terms of perceived importance
given by young engineers and engineering students from Belgium, France,
Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain to a set of organisational and job attributes in
determining their intention to accept a job, firstly in the case for a job requiring
to work in the home country, then in the case of a job requiring to work abroad.
Analyses of data collected by means of surveys and interviews intend to answer
whether, to what extent and why would there be a difference in terms of
perceived importance between the case of considering a job abroad and the case
of considering a job home. Furthermore, it intends to test whether this
potentially existing difference significantly varies with the engineer’s home
country. Our intuition is that such difference exists; nevertheless, our
investigations have an exploratory nature, based on the assumption that this
difference is linked to the willingness to work abroad and potentially affected by
the same factors. Thus, the willingness to work abroad in the early stage of the
career among respondents is also investigated.
In the first chapter of the present research, basics are set through the definition
of its scope and background, and a review of both job and organisational
attractiveness and willingness to work abroad literature domains. The second
chapter details the conceptual model and methodologies that lead our
exploration, presents the relevant collected data and performs analyses on
results. Finally, the third chapter intends to critically discuss these results and to
bring conclusions about their possible implications for recruitment.
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Chapter 1 – Basics “Grau, teurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, und Grün des Lebens goldner Baum.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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DEFINITIONS AND SCOPE This section intends to give a brief definition of the important terms used in the
title and thus defines the scope of the research.
Criteria can be here defined as a standard on which a decision can be based (The
American Heritage, 2000). Criteria we look at in the present research are the
ones chosen that have been proven to have significant importance for job choice
in previous studies, but also the ones for which have the intuition they would be
more important for the surveyed students. Therefore, we refer to these criteria
as being critical.
By first job, we need to understand first jobs as a graduate engineer or graduate-‐
engineer-‐to-‐be, referring to the jobs related to what they studied they would do
in the early stage of their career. Choice is defined by the act of choosing between
two or more possibilities (Oxford University Press, 2013). The present study
aims to measure the perceived importance given to choice criteria among
respondents; therefore it investigates the possible intention to make a choice of
accepting a job, rather than the actual behavior of making a choice.
Engineers are defined as individuals trained or professionally engaged in a
branch of engineering (Random House, 2005) who have in common that they are
concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to
develop solutions for technical problems and to design materials, structures, and
systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation,
safety and cost (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006) (National Society of
Professional Engineers, 2006) (Collins, 2003)(Oxford University Press, 2013).
There are four main branches of engineering: chemical, civil, electrical and
mechanical engineering. In addition to these, numerous sub disciplines,
interdisciplinary subjects and specialised fields are derived from concentrations,
combinations, or extensions of the major engineering branches (Klein,
Frodeman, & Mitcham, 2010). Generally, engineering study programs include
courses in an engineering speciality, in mathematics, physical, life sciences,
general engineering, design (on computer and/or in laboratory), and other
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general courses that are not directly related to engineering (accounting, social
sciences, humanities, business and management, etc.).
Table 1: Main Engineering branches (Klein, Frodeman, & Mitcham, 2010) Chemical engineering Bio-‐molecular engineering
Materials engineering Molecular engineering Process engineering
Civil engineering Environmental engineering Geotechnical engineering Structural engineering Transport engineering
Electrical engineering Computer engineering Electronic engineering Optical engineering Power engineering
Mechanical engineering Aerospace engineering Acoustical engineering Manufacturing engineering Thermal engineering Vehicle engineering
Interdisciplinary and specialised fields Agricultural engineering Applied engineering Biological engineering Building services engineering Energy engineering Industrial engineering Mechatronics Nano engineering Nuclear engineering Petroleum engineering
Given these definitions, we chose that the term engineer is to be understood here
by the obtaining of a Bachelor or a Master degree that contains the term
“engineer” in the title, therefore designating young people that follow or have
followed study programs that are part of the different branches and specialities
previously stated, and recognised as such by the country’s educational system
where they obtained these degrees.
The respondents are said to be young because they are freshly graduate or soon-‐
to-‐be-‐graduate in any branch or speciality of engineering and aged between 21
and 35 years.
Europe is to be understood here in the scope that the different networks used to
collect data permitted to gather relatively sufficient answers from respondents
that are citizens from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
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BACKGROUND This section intends to clarify the relevant information to take into account for
understanding both macroeconomic and Human Resources backgrounds of the
present research. First, this section presents a brief overview of relevant
information about the current economic situation in Europe and its possible
impacts on young engineers labor markets, by extension its possible impact on
their job choice criteria and on their willingness to work abroad. Secondly, this
section presents key trends in order to understand the importance of
Recruitment -‐ specifically International Recruitment -‐ for organisations.
European trends and young engineers labor markets Macroeconomic trends in Europe are some of the factors that can help in
understanding how young engineers assess job opportunities in their home
country versus job opportunities abroad, especially through the assessing of job
choice criteria as well as through the willingness to work abroad. Specifically, the
current economic situation in Europe should not be denied. This situation
follows the subprime crisis that spread worldwide since 2007 (Bell &
Blanchflower, 2011), causing GDP growth to fall in late 2008 and to turn negative
in 2009, reaching –4.3 per cent in the European Union (Dietrich, 2012). From
late 2009, the crisis was still not over while on top of this private and
government debt levels rose, a wave of downgrading of government debt in
some EU countries occurred and with the structure of the Eurozone as a
monetary union without fiscal union, the ability of European leaders to respond
was harmed (Lewis, 2011). From the early 2010, European nations started to
implement financial support measures and the sovereign debt crisis also turned
into a social crisis. Indeed, countries were hit due to various causes -‐ some
countries harder than others – but overall labor market levels were affected,
resulting in rising unemployment levels and changed wage levels and structure
(Dietrich, 2012).
The relevant macroeconomic information regarding job choice criteria most
probably concern wage and unemployment levels. Moreover, given that this
study focuses on engineers, it appears relevant to consider the link between
13
crises and R&D expenditures as a percentage of GDP in the European
investigated countries, as we assume that R&D intensity is linked to the
engineers labor market.
Regarding wage levels, an overview of the evolution of net earnings per
Purchasing Power Standards per country between 2006 and 2012 can be
observed on the graph below.
Figure 1 Evolution of monthly net earnings (in Purchasing Power Standard) per country between 2006 and 2012 (Eurostat, 2013)
It appears that net earnings levels actually increased since 2006, except for in
Portugal where a downturn is observed between 2011 and 2012. Moreover,
inequalities exist considering that Portuguese net earning levels are almost 50%
lower than those in Belgium and Germany, and that Italian and Spanish levels
remain below French, Belgian and German levels throughout the period
analysed.
Regarding unemployment, studies proved the close relationship between GDP
and more specifically youth unemployment variations, even though other factors
such as based institutions, political traditions, cultural values, social capital and
population growth also provide satisfying interpretations (Bell & Blanchflower,
2011) (Contini, 2010) (Dietrich, 2012). A possible link between the crises
periods and youth unemployment is suggested in the following graph
representing the evolution of NEET (Not in employment, Education or Training)
unemployment rates of 20-‐34 age levels between 2006 and 2012.
Belgium Germany
Spain France
Italy Portugal
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
14
Figure 2 Evolution of NEET rates per country between 2006 and 2012 (category Unemployed and age interval 20 -‐ 34 years) (Eurostat, 2013)
It appears that these rates have increased for all countries except Germany, since
the beginning of the crisis, and that Portugal, Spain and Italy ended up with the
highest NEET rates.
Regarding R&D levels, in a report of the European Commission, it appears that
European enterprises R&D investments have increased since 2008 (IRMA,
2009), and given the low levels of GDP, resulted in an increase in R&D Intensity
levels (European Commission, 2013). Moreover, the report of the European
Commission expects a lack of engineers in the following years, especially
regarding very specialised fields and given extensive expected retirement
expected (Eurostat, 2013) and a Brain Drain in the countries with the least
interesting job opportunities. Indeed, levels of R&D intensity differ from one
country to another, as shown on the graph below.
Figure 3 R&D Intensity per country, 2011 (European Commission, 2013)
Belgium Germany
Spain
EU France Italy Portugal
0,0
5,0
10,0
15,0
20,0
25,0
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
2,83
2,25
2,04
1,5
1,33
1,25
2,3
Germany
France
Belgium
Portugal
Spain
Italy
EU average
15
On this chart, we can clearly see that Italy, Spain and Portugal have R&D
Intensity levels lower than the EU average and than Belgian, French and German
levels. Some countries cutting investments in the private sector, in particular for
SMEs, could explain these differences.
Figure 4 Knowledge-‐Intensity of the economy per country, 2010 (darker bars) and Excellence in Sciences and Technology (lighter bars) (European Commission, 2013)
Furthermore, the observation of Science and Technology excellence and
Knowledge-‐intensity assessed in the same study of the European Commission
shows similar trends regarding the lower numbers for Italy, Spain and Portugal.
On the other hand, crises may also have had an impact on the willingness to
work abroad. Intuition could lead one to think that it would lead to higher
willingness to work abroad for countries most affected, but evidence found by
Intelligence Group and The Network1 have mitigated this intuition. In fact, an
increased willingness to work abroad has been found in their worldwide-‐
conducted research. It was found that the amount of people willing to be mobile
in the international labor market increased from 61 to 64% between 2003 and
2006; and reached 68% in 2009 (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011).
This trend kept going and was still significant in 2011, more than 2/3 of the
surveyed people, on a global scale, wanted to work abroad. This can be observed
in the figure below.
1 More information about Intelligence Group and The Network studies can be found in Appendices.
62,78
59,92
48,24
43,12
36,63
28,45
47,86
44,94
58,88
57,01
35,43
36,76
41,04
48,75
Germany
Belgium
France
Italy
Spain
Portugal
EU average
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Figure 5 Willingness to work abroad within nine European countries on average in 2011, compared to 2009 and 2006 (including the global average in 2011) (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011)
Moreover, it appears that willingness to work abroad is higher for 9 European
countries that include Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Italy and the
Netherlands. Results showed French, Italian and German in the top 4 ranking of
most mobile nationalities (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011). In fact,
Intelligence Group and The Network also proposed a breakdown of European
countries versus Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain (PIGS) in their report.
Figure 6 Willingness to work abroad on a global scale, within Europe and PIGS countries on average in 2011 (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011)
The previous graph shows that respondents from the PIGS countries were the
least willing to work abroad. Furthermore, the main reason to work abroad
stated by respondents from PIGS countries was “bad economic situation”. The
research of Intelligence Group and the Network went further and, based on their
findings of a positive relationship between change in GDP and the percentage of
people willing to work abroad in the different investigated countries, suggested
that the higher the GPD growth (or least negative), the more people are willing to
work abroad, and that results suggesting the contrary were mainly due to
cultural differences (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011).
62%
64%
72%
68%
2006
2009
2011
Global average
7%
10%
7%
7%
11%
7%
15%
15%
18%
30%
29%
33%
42%
34%
35%
Europe
PIGS
Global average
Strongly disagree Disagree Impartial Agree Strongly agree
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As a conclusion of this section, observations of the presented data has shown
that youth unemployment rates, R&D intensity and net earnings have increased
in general since the beginning of the crisis. On the other hand, statistics are less
favourable for Italy, Portugal and Spain. Higher youth unemployment rates, low
net earning levels and lower levels of R&D intensity may thus result in a lack of
interesting engineering job opportunities in the countries most affected by the
crisis. Furthermore, it seems that different trends that may be related to the
country’s economic situation appear regarding willingness to work abroad. We
believe these facts could be relevant in understanding how young engineers
assess job opportunities in their home country versus job opportunities abroad.
International Human Resources Management trends Job and organisational attractiveness are key issues regarding Human Resources
Management, and especially regarding Recruitment, understood in the present
research as the practices and activities carried out with the primary purpose of
identifying and attracting potential employees (Barber, 1998). Recruitment thus
concerns the attraction of individuals to organisations, and by extension the
matching of organisational and job characteristics with individual needs (as
distinguished from selection that rather concerns the identification of the most
qualified potential employees) (Barber, 1998). Furthermore, recruitment itself is
a key competence for organisations for competitive advantage (Thomas & Wise,
1999), especially if we see it as a situation where they want to have the best
return on investment on the recruiting money spent (Cable & Turban, 2001).
This recruiting money also includes efforts from the organisations to make their
job offers and organisational attributes attractive enough towards their best pool
of potential employees (Rose, 2008). However, despite its great interest for
companies, recruitment is considered under-‐researched as a whole (Aiman-‐
Smith, Bauer, & Cable, 2001) (Rose, 2008), often resulting in concerned
practitioners relying heavily on personal experience, myth and intuition
regarding individuals’ attraction to organisations (Belt & Paollilo, 1982).
On the other hand, an increasing part of Recruitment study focuses on its
international scale. In “The International Recruitment Manual”, out of the
surveyed companies from 8 European countries, Stamet and Waasdorp found
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that 40% were recruiting internationally and 5% were planning to do so, and
that companies reasons to recruit internationally were generally part of
categories shown on the graph below (Stamet & Waasdorp, 2006).
Figure 7 Main reasons to recruit internationally, for International Companies versus National Companies, 2006 (Stamet & Waasdorp, 2006)
The previous graph shows the percentage given in terms of importance to the
reasons to recruit abroad for international versus national companies. It appears
that national companies recruit internationally mainly to fill positions that are
hard to fill nationally. In their research, Stamet and Waasdorp found that
Engineering and Technical, IT and Telecommunications and Sales and
Purchasing positions were the top three occupational areas that pose the biggest
problems for recruiters of national firms. For international companies, top 3
hardest positions to fill were R&D and Sciences, Engineering and Technical,
Banking and Financial Services.
According to the data presented in this section, it appears that recruitment is a
already a key activity for companies, but international recruitment is important
as well, especially in Europe regarding Engineering, Technical, R&D and Sciences
positions. Therefore, we believe the present research is relevant in order to
bring insights for companies to understand the job choice criteria related trade-‐
offs behind the consideration of working abroad.
40% 34%
15% 13% 4%
39% 48%
35% 27%
7%
To mill international
roles
To source specimic skills
Local skills shortages
Local Labor shortage
Cheaper staff
International Company National Company
19
LITERATURE REVIEW This section intends to identify relevant existing literature about job and
organisational attributes taken into account by job seekers as job choice criteria.
In order to do that, both organisational and job attractiveness literature and
willingness to work abroad literature are reviewed.
Organisational and job attractiveness When looking for a job, a job seeker experiences a dynamic decision process,
moving through various phases and making decisions (Barber A. E., 1998)
(Boswell, Roehling, LePine, & Moynihan, 2003). In fact, Barber’s definition of
recruitment involves 3 phases. First, both the organisation and potential
applicants look for limited information about employment possibilities,
involving little interpersonal contact. Secondly, there is more interpersonal
contact when both look for deeper information about each other, and at this
state recruitment consists in keeping the applicant interested. Thirdly,
recruitment consists of persuading the selected applicant to accept the job offer.
Critical factors at each stage of the process of job search and selection may thus
vary as the job seeker becomes more aware of personal preference and available
opportunities (Boswell, Roehling, LePine, & Moynihan, 2003). Likewise, research
about critical factors determining job seekers’ intentions have focused on 3 types
of intention that seem to correspond to Barber’s 3 phases: Intentions to Apply
for a Job Vacancy (IAJV), Intentions to Pursue a Job (IPJ) and Intentions to Accept
a Job (IAJ) (Gomes & Neves, 2011).
Nevertheless, the transition between intention and actual choice is not
straightforward. In line with the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA), well tested in
the field of psychology, the best predictor of behaviour seems to be the intention
to perform that behaviour (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). An intention is determined
by two components: Subjective Norm, defined as the degree to which other
people influence an individual’s intention to undertake a particular behaviour,
and Attitude towards a specific behaviour, defined as the extent to which an
individual has a favourable or unfavourable evaluation of a particular action.
Thus an intention can be predicted by beliefs about the outcome of behavior,
20
based on an estimation of the likelihood that performing that behavior will result
in a preferred outcome (Thomson & Vourvachis, 1995). TRA is in fact an
assumption that individuals tend to take into account available information that
they implicitly and explicitly organize in a meaningful manner to inform their
actions. This theory has been applied to the recruitment domain in various
identified studies (Rose, 2008) (Powel & Goulet, 1996) (Thomson & Vourvachis,
1995) (Schreurs, Derous, De Witte, Proost, Andriessen, & Glabeke, 2005). In the
context of the present research, it is important to note that this theory can
constitute a link between the intention to apply for, pursue or accept a job and
the actual job choice (Gomes & Neves, 2011) (Barber & Roehling, 1993).
In the following, we present identified work regarding the three phases
(corresponding to IAJV, IPJ and IAJ) in the context of three aspects that are most
often studied in this literature domain: perceived job attributes, organisational
attributes and perceived organisational attractiveness.2
Perceived job characteristics
Perceived job characteristics refer to the criteria that purely concern the job.
Regarding this, Hackman and Oldham proposed a Job Characteristics Model that
relates five main characteristics structuring jobs (task diversity, task identity,
task significance, job feedback and autonomy) to three underlying psychological
states (work meaningfulness, knowledge of results, and sense of responsibility)
(Hackman & Oldham, 1976) (Gomes & Neves, 2011). In their study, based on the
Hackham and Oldham model, Gomes and Neves investigated the impact of
perceived job characteristics for predicting IAJV by submitting an advertisement
to 124 subjects with a marketing background, presenting a job an organisational
description and making them fill in a questionnaire. Their findings indicated that
organisational attributes and feedback of the job were important factors for
determining IAJV (Gomes & Neves, 2011).
2 The structure and the content of the following section is partly based on the works and bibliographies of (Gomes & Neves, 2011) and (Rose, 2008).
21
Regarding IAJ, this phase seems to have focused mainly on the study of
perception of job characteristics (Gomes & Neves, 2011). In previous identified
studies, perceived job characteristics influencing IAJ can refer to job tasks
(Powell, 1984) (Porter & Lawler, 1968) (Chapman, Uggerlev, Carroll, Piasentin, &
Jones, 2005) compensation and job security (Powell, 1984) (Porter, Conlon, &
Barber, 2004) (Chapman, Uggerlev, Carroll, Piasentin, & Jones, 2005) and the
type of work to be performed (Chapman, Uggerlev, Carroll, Piasentin, & Jones,
2005) (Carless, 2003). Furthermore, Harris and Fink found evidence that
recruiter’s characteristics, especially “Personableness “and “Informativeness”,
significantly influenced perception of job attributes and IAJ (Harris & Fink,
1987). This study used pre-‐ and post-‐campus interviews with students at
university placements who had to rate job attributes according to four
categories: job itself, compensation/job security, work/company, minor fringe
benefits, and to rate recruiter characteristics according to four categories:
personableness, competence, informativeness and aggressiveness (Harris &
Fink, 1987). However, this study was criticised because of the lack of females in
the sample and because respondents might have been subject to sensitisation by
recalling their answers before the interview (Rose, 2008).
Regarding IPJ, Aiman-‐Smith, Bauer and Cable used a sample of business students
in order to investigate the relative importance of four factors: pay and promotion
(job factors), lay-‐off policy and ecological rating (organisational image factors)
(Aiman-‐Smith, Bauer, & Cable, 2001). They found evidence that JPI can be
predicted by pay, and that ecological ratings mostly predicted IAJV.
Organisational attributes
In addition to job characteristics, organisational attributes are often used in job
advertisements. Organisational attributes refer to perceptions regarding
organisational policies and work conditions (Gomes & Neves, 2011) (Robertson,
Collins, & Oreg, 2005). In their theoretical framework, Collins and Stevens list
common organisational attributes used in recruitment, including career
perspectives, work environment, stability and job security (Collins & Stevens,
2002).
22
As previously stated, Gomes and Neves’ findings indicated that organisational
attributes and feedback of the job were important factors for determining IAJV
(Gomes & Neves, 2011). Another earlier study of Vroom investigated job and
organisational choice by using measures of anticipated job satisfaction. Results
showed a high correlation between the ranking of the chosen organisation and
the perceived likely satisfaction of subjects’ previously formulated job goal
(Vroom, 1966). A limit of this study was the fact that it did not only concern one
organisation (Rose, 2008).
Regarding JPI, it seems to be predicted by perception regarding lay-‐off practices
(Aiman-‐Smith, Bauer, & Cable, 2001) and other organisational policies (Powell,
1984), while JAI seems to be predicted by perceptions of work policies (Powell,
1984) (Chapman, Uggerlev, Carroll, Piasentin, & Jones, 2005).
Perceived organisational attractiveness
Perceived organisational attractiveness refers to the general perceived
desirability of working for a given organisation (Aiman-‐Smith, Bauer, & Cable,
2001) or the degree to which the job seeker favorably perceives an organisation
as a place to work (Rynes & Cable, 2001).
In fact, a marketing perspective of organisational attractiveness sees the
employers’ role in recruitment as a “selling” of jobs as products to be consumed
by job seekers, in a labor market of competing job opportunities, each
differentiated from the others based on organisational and job attributes
(Turban, Campion, & Eyring, 1995) (Rose, 2008). Attributes are communicated
to and assessed by the job seekers, who decide to “consume” or not; that is to
say, to engage in a relationship with the organisation (Aiman-‐Smith, Bauer, &
Cable, 2001). From the marketing perspective, there can thus be infinite
possibilities to categorise attributes that can determine individuals’ attitudes
towards job opportunities proposed by organisations (Rose, 2008) (Martin &
Franz, 1994).
23
Another concept that has been studied in this same field is organisation image.
This image comes from the conception of a “consideration set” that suggests a
group of possible brands available to a consumer, who will consider from which
to make a purchase decision (Hauser & Wermerfelt, 1990) (Rose, 2008). Within
this conception, it is suggested that a job seeker will be motivated to process
further information about an organisation only if he or she has developed a
minimum level of attraction to the organisation (Cable & Turban, 2001). This
level of attraction is reached if the job seeker perceives that organisational
and/or job attributes for which he or she has a preference are available. Taking
this point of view, various studies have found evidence that job seekers
formulating a positive perception of an organisation’s image will be attracted as
a potential worker (Turban & Greening, 1996) (Belt & Paollilo, 1982) (Highouse,
Lievens, & Sinar, 2003) (Lievens & Highhouse, 2003) (Cable & Turban, 2003). In
one of these studies, Cable and Turban suggest three components of
organisational image as important to job seekers: Organisational information,
relating to descriptive organisational details (such as factual or historical
attributes, policies, procedures, norms, etc.), Job specific information, relating to
the extent to which an individual has knowledge about attributes of a job (for
example job title, job description or type of work to be performed) at an
organisation they consider attractive (Turban, Campion, & Eyring, 1995), and
People information, relating to the type of workers at an organisation, who
would thus be potential co-‐workers. Furthermore, following brand image
concept, a differentiation between three broad dimensions of employer
knowledge was made: employer familiarity, employer image and employer
reputation (Buyens, De Witte, & Martens, 2001) (Lievens, Van Hoye, & Schreurs,
2005).
Evidence has been found that organisational attractiveness may predict JAI
(Carless, 2003) (Porter, Conlon, & Barber, 2004) (Turban D. , 2001), JPI (Saks,
Leck, & Saunders, 1995) and IAJV (Robertson, Collins, & Oreg, 2005) (Saks, Leck,
& Saunders, 1995), but less research concerns the latter (Bauer & Aiman-‐Smith)
(Cable & Graham, 2000) (Zlegert & Ehrhart). Moreover, numerous studies have
24
examined the factors affecting organisational attractiveness. In the following, we
will discuss the examples we identified.
In fact, studies have found evidence that job seekers’ perceptions of job or
organisational characteristics such as pay, opportunities for advancement,
location, career programs, or organisational structure (Lievens, Van Hoye, &
Schreurs, 2005) (Cable & Graham, 2000) (Highhouse, Zickar, Thorsteinston,
Stierwalt, & Slaughter, 1999) (Lievens, Decaesteker, Coetsier, & Gelmaert, 2001)
(Honeycutt & Rosen, 1997) have an influence on organisational attractiveness.
For example, regarding the influence of job characteristics attributes on the
perception of organisational image, the study of Realistic Job Previews (RJPs),
that consist of providing applicants with information on both positive and
negative aspects of the job goal in order to avoid high turnover by limiting
disappointment of new hires, has proven that projection of an organisation’s
image can influence the level of applicant attraction to a prospective employer.
While evidence has been found that RJPs make an organisation less attractive in
terms of jobs (Highhouse, Stanton, & Reeve), other research has found the
opposite (Coleman & Irving, 1997); this could be explained by the fact that
different types of information had been presented to respondents in each case
(Highhouse & Hoffman, 2001) (Rose, 2008). Another example is the study of
Walker, Feild and Giles, who found evidence that job search experience
moderates the extent to which job advertisement characteristics influence
attitudes towards organisations as the content of job advertisements influence
the organisational attitudes of experienced job seekers more than inexperienced
ones. Indeed, the presence of peripheral cues, for example, the physical
attractiveness of persons shown in recruitment material, seemed to have a
greater effect on the organisational attractiveness perceptions of job seekers
with less work and job search experience (Walker, Feild, & Giles, 2008).
Likewise, attitudes formed during the recruitment process of job seekers that
engage in low levels of elaboration tend to be more affected by peripheral cues
(Larsen & Phillips, 2002) such as recruiter’s behaviour. This can also have an
influence on job seeker perception of the organisation, as the previously
mentioned Harris and Fink study showed (Harris & Fink, 1987). Another study
25
(Turban, Forret, & Hendrickson, 1998), using a similar methodology to Harris
and Fink, examined possible recruiter influences on applicant perceptions of
organisational reputation, and concluded that job seekers’ perceptions of
recruiter behaviours had rather an indirect effect on their attraction, by
influencing job seekers’ perceptions of job and organisational attributes. This
influence seems to be more likely to influence perceptions if limited job or
organisation information is available, or when job seeker is making decision
based on a limited pool of available employers (Highhouse, Zickar,
Thorsteinston, Stierwalt, & Slaughter, 1999).
Sources used by job seekers in order to find a job can also have a significant
influence on their attraction towards a specific job or company. For example,
evidence has been found that individuals were substantially less likely to accept
a job if their source of information was the campus interviewer and if they were
presented with positive information about the organisation (Fisher, Ilgen, &
Hoyer, 1979). Nevertheless, the job search literature has not focused on the
generation of different recruiting sources (Bretz, Boudreau, & Judge, 1994)
(Schwab, Rynes, & Aldag, 1987). In fact, referrals by friends, relatives, or work
colleagues, re-‐hires, internal job postings, walk-‐ins, direct applications,
employment agencies, and advertisements have rather been typically the job
sources’ subject of research in the past (Rose, 2008).
In their theory, Cable and Turban indicate that job seekers’ values and needs will
moderate the effects of the employer knowledge dimensions on organisational
attractiveness, as part of the person-‐organisation fit (Kristof, 1996) perspective
(Lievens, Van Hoye, & Schreurs, 2005). Moreover, personality traits of job
seekers seems to play a role, as they tend to be especially attracted to joining
organisations that have traits similar to their own (Tom, 1971). Similarly,
Albinger and Freeman have taken into account job seeker personal values as
they investigated the hypothesis that an advantage in Corporate Social
Performance (CSP) is linked to attracting human resources in the extent of the
degree of job choice possessed by the job seeking population (Albinger &
Freeman, 2000). It has found that organizational CSP is positively related to
employer attractiveness for job seekers with high level of job choice, but not for
26
ones with low level of job choice. This suggested that there is an advantage for
firms with high levels of CSP when they want to hire the most qualified
employees.
Finally, in their research Intelligence Group and The Network investigated
whether respondents from different home countries had different motivating
factors affecting their attraction to a job and an organization. Not all information
related to their results is available; however, it does present an interesting
comparison. Indeed, when comparing what attracts the respondents globally, in
PIGS countries (Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain) in particular and German
engineers, different trends appear (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011).
Figure 8 Motivating factors of German engineers compared to engineers worldwide, 2011 (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011)
This graph shows the most important motivating factors to look for a new job for
engineers worldwide and for engineers living in Germany in particular. It
appears that in Germany, engineers are attracted by good career opportunities to
a much greater extent than worldwide.
27
Similarly, when looking at separate results for PIGS countries, even though it
does not concern only engineers but all the respondents of Intelligence Group
and The Network research, interesting trends appear.
Figure 9 Motivating factors for the national workforce of the PIGS countries compared to the global average, 2011 (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011)
This graph shows that PIGS respondents are attracted to a good working
atmosphere and permanent contracts to a greater extent than respondents
worldwide.
To conclude, in this section we examined the role of job attributes, organisational
attributes and organisational attractiveness in job seeker intention to apply for a
job vacancy, job pursuit intention and job acceptation intention. We also
identified some of the other factors that may be taken into account as having a
direct or indirect influence on the three types of intentions. This first part
intends to take a more general point of view regarding the three types of
intentions in order to understand better the concepts and factors involved in
international assignments and willingness to work abroad literature, which is
the topic of the next section.
28
International assignments and willingness to work abroad This section focuses on the literature about the different identified types of
assignments that involves working abroad first, followed by summarising the
literature about identified factors influencing the willingness to work abroad.3
Types of international moves
It is important to note that different ways of working abroad exist and that they
may present different characteristics. In the following, we briefly present
common definitions for the different types of international moves that we
identified.
Traditional expatriates
The term “traditional expatriate” defines employees relocating to a host country
with their family members (Van Mulligen, 2013). Typically, the company sends
them to the host country for a fixed assignment time. A general definition of
traditional expatriates assignments is around 1 to 4 years (Konopaske & Werner,
2005).
Companies most often initiate expatriate assignments, for various reasons
(Sparrow, Brewster, & Harris, 2004) (Brewster, 1990) (Edström & Galbraith,
1977) (Brookfield Global Relocation Services, 2010) (Stahl & Cerdin, 2004)
(Lavonen, 2011). It is important to note that some traditional expatriates might
have been interested in working abroad and thus initiated their expatriate
assignments by asking the company (Lavonen, 2011). Furthermore, expatriate
assignments can be costly to companies as they usually require support and
payments for the housing situation in the host country, moving from the home
countries (Van Mulligen, 2013), compensation packages, and other costs in terms
of money and time (Krell, 2005).
Issues encountered are often related to the personal life of the expatriates:
higher cost of living, loss of spouse’s job, loss of owned property, disrupted social
3 The structure and content of the following section is partly based on the work and the consultation of the bibliography of (Lavonen, 2011).
29
life, leaving behind children and family, losing friends, marriage problems, loss of
control on expatriate’s life within the company (Pinder, 1989). In fact, it is
estimated that 38% of expatriates left their company within a year of
repatriation, and 23% within the second year (Brookfield Global Relocation
Services, 2010).
Employees accept expatriate assignments for several reasons: learning and
growth, an adventurous and varied life with the opportunity to travel,
expectation of more job satisfaction with more interesting work and higher
income (Adler, 1984), and good compensation packages (Wang & Bu, 2004), but
also a high intrinsic motivation for working abroad (Haines III, Saba, &
Choquette, 2008).
Short term and travelling assignments
A general definition categorises short-‐term as less than a year (Konopaske &
Werner, 2005). Literature on this type of assignment is said to be scarce
(Tahvanainen, Welch, & Worm, 2005).
It is generally considered that “short-‐term” assignments designate assignments
shorter than a year and longer than a business trip; nevertheless the notion of
“short-‐term” stays specific to a company (Collings, Scullion, & Morley, 2007).
These types of assignment are said to be more simple, flexible and cost effective
when compared to expatriation (Tahvanainen, Welch, & Worm, 2005).
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the consulting company, expects them to be more and
more used to increase operations in emerging countries
(PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2005). Typically, salary, pension and social security
benefits are handled in the home country, where the family often remains
(Tahvanainen, Welch, & Worm, 2005). The main cited disadvantages are taxation
issues (especially over a 6 month duration), personal side effects, especially
between couples, failure in building relationships abroad, work visas and permit
related issues (Tahvanainen, Welch, & Worm, 2005).
30
Commuter and Rotational Assignments
Commuter refers to an employee commuting from a home base to a post in
another country, generally on a weekly or bi-‐weekly basis
(PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2005). Rotational assignments refer to employees
commuting from their home country to a workplace in another country for a
short period followed by a period of time off in the home country (Welch &
Worm, 2006) (Collings, Scullion, & Morley, 2007). Both types are increasingly
used, especially in the European context (Dowling & Welch, 2004), where
average distances between countries are low. Also, in both commuter and
rotational assignment cases, families stay in the home country. The main cited
disadvantages are stress from intensive travel commitments and negative impact
on personal relationships. (Dowling & Welch, 2004).
Frequent Flyer Assignments
Frequent flyers assignments refer to International Business Travellers (IBT) and
concerns employees for whom business travel is an essential component of work
(Welch & Worm, 2006). This option has the advantage of avoiding relocation of
the whole family and to minimise interruption for the employee (Collings,
Scullion, & Morley, 2007). In particular, they are adapted to a European context
given short average distances between countries and the possibility of taking
short flights (1 to 3 hours). Disadvantages are suggested that frequent short
trips actually create more serious personal relationships problems than one
infrequent long absence (Collings, Scullion, & Morley, 2007).
Self-‐initiated expatriates
The main difference with traditional expatriates is that self-‐directed expatriates -‐
also referred to as self-‐initiated foreign work experience (SFE) (Richardson &
Mallon, 2005) -‐ have decided to work abroad on their own initiative (Suutari &
Brewster, 2000), meaning they are not sent by a company and have a local
contract. This often means being treated as local employees abroad, thus not
benefiting from compensation, housing, education allowances and other
advantages of expatriates (Lavonen, 2011).
31
Unlike investigations of traditional expatriation, the study of SFE is scarce
(Lavonen, 2011). Historically, this term concerned experiences overseas (Inkson,
Arthur, Pringle, & Barry, 1997), but authors discussed specifically SFEs in the
European context (Biemann & Andresen, 2010). Their conclusions showed that
respondents seemed to see this type of experience more as a part of their career,
to work in more skilled jobs, and for longer periods of time (Biemann &
Andresen, 2010) (Richardson & Mallon, 2005) (Suutari & Brewster, 2000), than
those described in “overseas” cases (Inkson, Arthur, Pringle, & Barry, 1997). In a
study of Suutari and Brewtser among Finnish respondents that reflected the
recession in Finland in the 90’s, other motives found included the employment
situation in the home country (Suutari & Brewster, 2000). The same study also
mentioned motives such as the search for new experiences, career progress,
economic benefits and professional development. Three other motives resulting
from a study on British respondents indicated search for adventure and travel,
life change and family reasons (Richardson & Mallon, 2005). Moreover,
respondents tent to show optimism regarding the valuation of the international
experience by companies (and the same applies for expatriates) (Suutari &
Brewster, 2000) (Richardson & Mallon, 2005), thinking it has a positive effect on
their career because it gives them an advantage on the academic job market.
Many also seemed to believe that work experience in some countries was more
valued than in others. However, some respondents showed concerns that the
international experience might not be highly valued, especially as more and
more young people tend to have international experience (Lavonen, 2011).
Also, it seems that SFEs tend to be younger (Jokinen, Brewster, & Suutari, 2008)
(Biemann & Andresen, 2010), more often female (Tharenou, 2010), more mobile,
in terms of changing location as well as changing organization, (Biemann &
Andresen, 2010), and their spouse is more likely to work in the foreign country
(Suutari & Brewster, 2000) than traditional expatriates.
Jokinen, Brewster and Suutari found that SFEs were more likely to have previous
international experience than expatriates (Jokinen, Brewster, & Suutari, 2008),
while the previous study of Suutari and Brewster did not find any difference
(Suutari & Brewster, 2000). However, the latter only looked at earlier
32
international assignments of one year or longer, without taking into account
possible student exchange experiences, internships, experience of living abroad
for a significant time, or other types of international experience (Lavonen, 2011).
It is important to note that all self-‐directed expatriates may not have been
actively seeking an opportunity to work abroad (Lavonen, 2011). Also, a
categorisation of SFE types under subgroups was intended, stating that SFEs
were generally in either one of these categories: young opportunists in the early
stage of their careers, job seekers unsatisfied with the job opportunities in their
home country, officials working in international organizations such as EU or UN,
localised professionals who have decided to stay abroad for longer periods of
time and may even not be planning to return, international professionals with
long experience on working internationally, and dual career couples where the
expatriate assignment of the spouse has been the main motivation to find work
abroad (Suutari & Brewster, 2000) (Lavonen, 2011).
As a conclusion, the summary of key aspects regarding all identified types of
international assignments can be found in the following table.
Table 2 Summary of different types of international assignments4 Expatriation Self –Directed
Foreign Work Experience
Short term international assignment
Commuter and rotational assignment
Frequent flyer assignment
Initiated by
Company Self Company Company Company
Length of stay
Pre-‐determined
Any Longer than a business trip, but shorter than a year
Short travels, from days to weeks
Company International International or local
Multinational Multinational Multinational
Age Tend to be younger than traditional expatriates
Motives More career related
More personal Flexibility, simplicity and cost-‐effectiveness,
Viable alternative to expatriation; assignments
Less interruption for the employee;
4 Template and recapitulation for “Expatriation” and “SFE” categories based on (Lavonen, 2011); other references are cited in the previous tekst summarised by the table.
33
especially for assignments in emerging countries
in China; European context
adapted to European context
Disadvantages
Loss of control of employee on personal life; costly for the company
Generally few support from the company
Taxation issues, personal and relationships related issues, failure in local adaptation, visas and permits
Stress, negative impact on personal life
May be worse for relationships than alternatives
Compensation
Expatriate agreements, compensation package
Local agreement, often treated as domestic employees
Salary, pension and social security benefits typically remain home
Mobility
Tied to the organisation, often leaves after the assignment
Very mobile, willing to change organisations
Tied to the organisation that forces mobility, but difficulties to adapt
Tied to the organisation
Tied to the organisation
Family Relocates Relocates or not Often does not relocate
Does not relocate
Does not relocate
Literature Abundant Scarce, only from the last decade
Scarce Scarce Scarce
34
Willingness to work abroad
In this section, we investigate the literature about the willingness to work
abroad. Indeed, it is our intuition that factors involving the willingness to work
abroad may also influence the trade-‐offs involved in job choice criteria when
deciding to work abroad or in one's home country. It is important to note that
since the literature on expatriates is the most abundant, this section mainly
relies on identified results regarding this type of assignment. However, in order
to take a holistic point of view on the different factors at stake, we will consider
the willingness to work abroad as a term referring to all identified types of
international assignments -‐ understood as working abroad of the home country -‐
without insisting on the different results for each type.
Personal factors
Age
The Global Talent Mobility Research (GTMR) found evidence of higher
willingness to work abroad among younger people. In this research, a
perspective of Generation Y is adopted. Gen Y defines anybody born between
1980 and the early 1990s, making them potentially a bigger part of the
workforce in the next years. As presented in the GTMR, this perspective assumes
that this generation has similar characteristics that will impact the global labor
market, as baby-‐boomers will increasingly decline in the Western markets.
These characteristics are generally classified in 3 categories: greater use of
digital methods and technical literacy (especially regarding job seeking), higher
predisposition to studying abroad because of the Bachelor-‐Master structure of
higher education resulting in more widespread international mobility, higher
predisposition to be “globetrotters” (for example, after study backpacking)
especially thanks to cheaper flights (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010).
In the same research, it has been found that younger workers were more willing
to work abroad, from 18 to 25. Main reasons seemed to be career opportunities,
broadening of experience and a better standard of living. This trend tends to
decrease between 25 and 62. After 62 years, it seemed that the willingness
increases, but for different reasons, such as desire to explore different cultures,
35
opportunity to meet new people, linking up with families abroad or better
climate (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010).
Nevertheless, in a study among 300 Dutch multinational companies, van der
Velde and al. failed to find a possible effect of age on willingness to accept
international assignment (van der Velde, Bossink, & Jansen, 2005); so did Brett
and Stroh in their study (Brett & Stroh, 1995).
Perception about International Assignments
A part of research on international assignments focuses on perceptions of
individuals regarding personal relationships or career success (Lavonen, 2011).
In a study of Zhu et al., evidence was found that potential expatriates were less
willing to accept an assignments if they perceive it as potentially having a
negative impact on their family (Zhu, Luthans, Chew, & Li, 2006). Likewise, in a
study among MBA alumni living in a dual-‐earner partnership in Canada, it was
found that potential expatriates were more easily willing to accept an
international assignment if they do not think it will have a negative impact on
their partnership (Dupuis, Haines III, & Saba, 2008).
A part of the study on the willingness to work abroad focused on spousal and
parental situations. However, we decided not to enter into details regarding
those factors, as the targeted respondents in the present research are young and
supposedly not married and have no children yet.
Gender
The rate of female expatriates is currently estimated to only 17% (Brookfield
Global Relocation Services, 2010), indicating that gender has an effect on the
probability to be assigned abroad for managers. This is often attributed to three causes: female managers are not interested in expatriate assignments, managers
are reluctant to send women abroad, and foreigners are prejudiced against
female managers (Adler, 1984) (Stroh, Varma, & S.J., 2000).
The last two causes are mainly based on the assumption that gender has no
effect on the willingness to work abroad, for which evidence has been found in 2
identified studies: Wang and Bu when investigating among 145 Canadian
36
business students (Wang & Bu, 2004), and Brett and Stroh when investigating
among 405 managers and their spouses from 5000 American companies (Brett &
Stroh, Willingness to Relocate Internationally, 1995).
Nevertheless, evidence has been found the opposite: van der Velde, Bossink and
Jansen found that men were generally more willing to accept international
assignments (van der Velde, Bossink, & Jansen, 2005). Likewise, Wan, Hui and
Tiang found in a study among Singaporean women that they were less willing to
accept international assignments in locations with very different culture than
home (Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003). Also, Lowe, Downes and Kroeck found in a
study among 217 business students in US universities found that women were
less willing to relocate for company needs or career development (Lowe,
Downes, & Kroeck, 1999). In general, discussed explanation for a lower
willingness to work abroad among women deal with family matters and
presence of children (Dupuis, Haines III, & Saba, 2008) (Lavonen, 2011).
Previous international experience
Evidence about the impact of previous international experience on the
willingness to work abroad is mixed. Studies did not find any impact, however it
seems that in the identified ones, all the respondents already had previous
relocation experience (Brett, Stroh, & Reilly, 1993) (Fisher & Shaw, 1994). In the
latter, it was found that attitudes towards a new move were less positive if the
previous move was difficult (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008)
(Fisher & Shaw, 1994).
Nevertheless, previous international experience does not only refer to previous
relocation and can also designate experience such as a history of relocating
family members, Indeed, Wang and Bu found that students were more receptive
to a first job abroad if they had one or more parent who worked abroad (Wang &
Bu, 2004). They also found that having friends abroad or speaking other
languages had similar effects. Likewise, in study among British SFEs by
Richardson, some respondents mentioned as motivation to move abroad family
role model that had previously done it (Richardson & Mallon, 2005).
37
Personality
Personality is a factor relatively difficult to measure. However, identified
previous studies investigated aspects of personality such as extraversion,
neuroticism, locus of control, adventurousness, willingness to be independent,
need for self-‐realisation and achievements, perseverance, etc. and their impact
on the willingness to work abroad (Lavonen, 2011).
Adventurousness (understood as predisposition towards travelling, variety and
new foods over routine) correlated with the willingness to accept longer-‐term
assignments and travelling assignments, but it was not correlated to assignments
of less than one year in a study of Konopaske, Robie and Ivancevich among 427
alumni in International Business and their spouses (Konopaske, Robie, &
Ivancevich, 2009).
Willingness to be independent and perception of self-‐realisation seemed
importantly correlated with a higher willingness to work abroad among 109
British managers of Schruijer and Hendricks, while it negatively correlated with
perception of security and stable position financially and at work (Schruijer &
Hendriks, 1996). Zhu, Luthans, Chew and Li found a similar positive correlation
among 112 engineers and managers in Singapore between the need for
achievements and perseverance and the willingness to accept international
assignments (Zhu, Luthans, Chew, & Li, 2006).
Aryee, Chay and Chew found a positive correlation between extraversion and
willingness to accept an expatriate assignments among 228 employees working
in Singapore (Aryee, Chay, & Chew, 1996), however Wan and al found opposite
results among Singaporeans, and rather found that neuroticism negatively
affects the willingness to work abroad, especially for destinations with very
different cultures (Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003).
Intrinsic motivation
One identified study of Haines, Saba and Choquette focused on the intrinsic
motivation, which comes from within a person and is related to thirst from
challenges and new experience, and satisfaction of participating to an activity,
versus extrinsic motivation, which comes from external factors such as career
38
enhancement, pay and benefits (Haines III, Saba, & Choquette, 2008) (Lavonen,
2011). Results showed that respondents with higher intrinsic motivation were
more willing to accept an assignment abroad and more positive towards it
(Haines III, Saba, & Choquette, 2008).
Home country factors
Economic situation and culture
In a study of Suutari and Brewtser among Finnish respondents that reflected the
recession in Finland in the 90’s, one of the motives found to initiate a SFE was
employment situation in the home country (Suutari & Brewster, 2000).
Moreover, as presented in the section “Background” of the present study,
Intelligence Group and The Network investigated the willingness to work abroad
among different regions and observed that respondents from the PIGS countries
were the least willing to work abroad. Furthermore, they found out that the main
reason to work abroad stated by respondents from PIGS countries was “bad
economic situation”, as we can see on the next graph (Intelligence Group and The
Network, 2010) (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011).
In fact, based on their findings of a positive relationship between change in GDP
and the percentage of people willing to work abroad in the different investigated
countries, it was suggested that the higher the GPD growth (or least negative),
the more people were willing to work abroad. Furthermore, they propose a two-‐
way influence of mobility of economic climate, called “two-‐way traffic”.
Specifically, they compared percentages of people willing to stay abroad for
more than 5 years in Europe versus the rest of the world, and concluded that
common motives of finding better career opportunities and better economic
situation abroad relates to a readiness to stay abroad for more than 5 years. In
other terms, as the percentage of people willing to go abroad for more than 5
years fell of 40% between 2009 and 2011, they concluded that overall people are
more willing to go abroad for short period of time, in the optic of coming back
home if better career opportunities show up. However, Global Intelligence
results showed some countries with high percentage of people willing to work
abroad but experiencing economic downturn, and vice versa. They explain these
39
differences as being linked to cultural differences (Intelligence Group and The
Network, 2010).
Figure 10 Reasons to work abroad for the PIGS countries compared to the global average in 2011 (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010)
In addition to that, the report of Global Intelligence and The Network found
several main reasons to be willing to work abroad: willingness to work in a new
environment, tiredness regarding the home country, need to get closer to
relatives, need to learn new languages and cultures and perception of a bad
economic situation at home (that can be due to a short-‐term crisis or a slow
growth). More specifically, their research indicated main reasons globally, as
indicated on the previous graph, being: opportunity to broaden their experience,
career opportunities, challenging oneself, desire to acquire work experience,
simply start an international career and having a better standard of living,
meeting new people, start up a new life, bad economic situation in the home
country, better climate, partner or family already abroad (working or not)
(Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010).
Host country factors
Host country itself
In the study of Dickmann, Doherty, Mills and Brewster, interviewed expatriates
answered that they would not accept an assignment in any location (Dickmann,
40
Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008). Likewise, Adler found that the location itself
was an important reason to refuse an assignment, as listed by 60% of the
respondents to his study (Adler, 1984).
Cultural distance from the home country
In a study by Wagner and Westaby, no effect of cultural similarity of the host
location was found on the willingness to work abroad among young respondents,
potentially more open to new experience (Wagner & Westaby, 2009).
Nevertheless, opposite results were found in other studies among older
respondents. In fact, in a study of Harvey, female expatriates returning from their
assignments considered cultural similarity more important than the ones who
did not start their assignment yet (Harvey, 1997). This suggested that potential
expatriates tend to underestimate the effect of cultural distance on the daily
work life (Harvey, 1997). In three identified studies, results showed that
respondents were more likely to accept an assignment in a culturally similar
location than in a culturally dissimilar location (Lowe, Downes, & Kroeck, 1999)
(Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003) (Aryee, Chay, & Chew, 1996).
Geographical distance from the home country
It appeared that cultural differences are more important into assessing the
willingness to work in a certain location than the distance difference, as
Dickmann, Doherty, Mills and Brewster found that it was ranked at the least
important factor (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008).
Safety and risk
Effect of perceived safety and risk in the host location target on the willingness
to work abroad was found in five identified studies. Wagner and Westaby found
that respondents were more likely to accept international assignments in a safe
rather than in a dangerous location (Wagner & Westaby, 2009). Similarly, Lowe,
Downes and Kroeck found that political risk was negatively related to the
willingness to move (Lowe, Downes, & Kroeck, 1999). Dickmann, Doherty, Mills
and Brewster found that respondents of their survey ranked location safety as
the 9th most important factor (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008). In
his study, Adler also found similar results regarding unstable, dangerous, hostile
41
or politically unstable host location (Adler, 1984). Finally, Wang and Bu found
that turning down an assignment in a dangerous or unstable location was
considered by more than half of their respondents (Wang & Bu, 2004).
Existing ties in the host or home community
Regarding existing ties in the target host country, Lowe, Downes and Kroeck
investigated the respondents whose parents were born in a potential target host
location, and found that respondents were less willing to work in this location
(Lowe, Downes, & Kroeck, 1999). Nevertheless, Fisher and Shaw found that
having friends in a target host location resulted in expatriates having a more
positive attitude towards the move (Fisher & Shaw, 1994).
Regarding existing ties in the home country, authors investigated attachment
and satisfaction in the home community. In their study, Fisher and Shaw found
that time lived in the current community and satisfaction towards it negatively
affected the attitude towards relocation (Fisher & Shaw, 1994). Similarly,
Konopaske, Robie and Ivancevich found evidence that, among employees that
were part of the investigation, the likeliness to relocate was negatively related to
the time lived in the current community (Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, 2009).
Job and career factors
Income
As income has been proven to be considerable job choice criteria, it is relevant to
investigate its impact on the willingness to work abroad. However, it has not
been studied as such in literature on expatriate assignments. Two studies have
been identified; nevertheless these deal with domestic relocation in the USA.
Indeed, Brett, Stroh and Reilly found that employees earning less were more
willing to relocate than the ones who earn larger income (Brett, Stroh, & Reilly,
1993); however, Baldrige, Eddleston and Varga did not find such an effect
(Baldridge, Eddleston, & Veiga, 2006). Also, according to 2 studies about the
“relative income in the family”, evidence was found that the more men earned
compared to their partner, the more they were willing to accept an international
assignment (Dupuis, Haines III, & Saba, 2008) but van der Velde did not find the
same results for women (van der Velde, Bossink, & Jansen, 2005).
42
Career goals
In the study of Harvey, the stage of the career-‐lifecycle was identified as one of
the most important issues considered before an expatriate assignment (Harvey,
1997). Similarly, Aryee, Chay and Chew found that career insight and distance
from career goal positively affected the willingness to accept an expatriate
assignment (Aryee, Chay, & Chew, 1996).
Furthermore, current satisfaction was also investigated as part of career-‐related
element. In their study, van Der Velde, Bossink and Jansen found that career
satisfaction had a negative impact on willingness to relocate for women, and
found the same results regarding job satisfaction for men (van der Velde,
Bossink, & Jansen, 2005). Nevertheless, Fisher and Shaw did not find any
relationship between job satisfaction and willingness to work abroad (Fisher &
Shaw, 1994).
Finally, functional area has also been felt as an important factor. Indeed, Brett,
Stroh and Reilly found that willingness to relocate was higher among managers
in sales and marketing than managers working in other areas (Brett, Stroh, &
Reilly, 1993).
Attractiveness of the position
Konopaske, Robie and Ivancevich found that perceived career fit of the
assignment to be an important factor when accepting international assignment
(Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, 2009). Also, Dickmann, Doherty, Mills and
Brewster found that the position in question for an assignment was the most
important factor taken into account by potential expatriates (Dickmann,
Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008). Nevertheless it seems that the offered position
has been rarely investigated in the willingness to work abroad literature domain
(Lavonen, 2011).
Level of support provided by the company
Evidence was found in several studies that support provided by the company for
the relocation was an important factor affecting the willingness to go. For
example, Harvey found that the level of corporate support was the most
important factor regarding the willingness to go (Harvey, 1997). Especially, it
43
was found that company relocation policy was positively related to the
willingness to accept an assignment in a location with dissimilar culture (Aryee,
Chay, & Chew, 1996). Support related to healthcare, tax issues, housing, child
education, language and cross-‐cultural training were also found as being
important regarding the likeliness of managers to accept global assignments
(Konopaske & Werner, 2005). Likewise, Wan, Hui and Tiang found that financial,
career, adjustment and family support were the strongest predictors of the
willingness to work abroad (Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003); similarly, Wagner and
Westaby found that bonuses as financial incentives were positively related to
willingness to work abroad (Wagner & Westaby, 2009).
Regarding repatriation planning, that is to say support provided after the
international assignment, Konopaske, Robie and Ivancevich found mitigated
result regarding its positive impact on the willingness to accept international
assignments (Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, 2009). Also, Dickmann, Doherty,
Mills and Brewster found mitigated results regarding the importance of pre
departure support although repatriation planning was ranked in the top 10
factors (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008).
Finally, in the research of the Intelligence group and The Network, it was found
that some information were highly important to provide to potential worker and
a ranking of this information in terms of importance was proposed:
accommodation, standard of living, comfortable social environment,
opportunities to learn languages, relocation arrangements, taxes, local facilities,
transport links, interesting career opportunities for the partner and climate
(Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010).
As a conclusion of the present section, the main identified factors and the related
literature that has shown evidence about effects, absence of effects or mixed
effects of these factors on the willingness to work abroad can be found in the
following table.
44
Figure 11 Summary of factors affecting willingness to work abroad in the literature5
Factors Effect No effect Mixed results Personal Age (Intelligence Group
and The Network, 2010)
(Breaugh & Starke, 2000) (van der Velde, Bossink, & Jansen, 2005)
Perception regarding international assignments
(Zhu, Luthans, Chew, & Li, 2006) (Dupuis, Haines III, & Saba, 2008)
Gender (Lowe, Downes, & Kroeck, 1999) (Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003) (van der Velde, Bossink, & Jansen, 2005)
(Brett & Stroh, Willingness to Relocate Internationally, 1995) (Wang & Bu, 2004)
Previous international experience
(Wang & Bu, 2004) (Richardson & Mallon, 2005)
(Brett, Stroh, & Reilly, 1993) (Fisher & Shaw, 1994) (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008)
Personality (Aryee, Chay, & Chew, 1996) (Schruijer & Hendriks, 1996) (Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, 2009) (Konopaske & Werner, 2005) (Zhu, Luthans, Chew, & Li, 2006),
(Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003)
Intrinsic motivation (Haines III, Saba, & Choquette, 2008)
Home country Economic situation (Intelligence Group
and The Network, 2011) (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010)
Culture (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011) (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010)
Host country Host country itself (Adler, 1984)
(Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008)
Geographical distance to home country
(Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008)
5 Part of this table is based on conclusions of (Lavonen, 2011) regarding the literature review related to the Willingness to work abroad.
45
Cultural distance to home country
(Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003) (Aryee, Chay, & Chew, 1996) (Harvey, 1997) (Lowe, Downes, & Kroeck, 1999)
(Wagner & Westaby, 2009)
Safety and risk (Wagner & Westaby, 2009) (Lowe, Downes, & Kroeck, 1999) (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008) (Adler, 1984) (Wang & Bu, 2004)
Existing ties in the host or home community
(Fisher & Shaw, 1994) (Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, 2009) (Lowe, Downes, & Kroeck, 1999)
Job and career Income (Brett, Stroh, & Reilly,
1993)* (Dupuis, Haines III, & Saba, 2008) (van der Velde, Bossink, & Jansen, 2005)
(Baldridge, Eddleston, & Veiga, 2006)*
Career goals (Aryee, Chay, & Chew, 1996) (van der Velde, Bossink, & Jansen, 2005) (Harvey, 1997) (Brett, Stroh, & Reilly, 1993)*
(Fisher & Shaw, 1994)
Attractiveness of the new position
(Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, 2009) (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008)
Support provided by the company
(Harvey, 1997) (Aryee, Chay, & Chew, 1996) (Wan, Hui, & Tiang, 2003) (Wagner & Westaby, 2009) (Konopaske & Werner, 2005) (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010)
(Konopaske, Robie, & Ivancevich, 2009) (Dickmann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008)
46
Chapter 2 - Exploration “Chi non ha lasciato il suo paese è pieno di pregiudizi.”
Carlo Goldoni
47
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK The present section first summarizes the main information kept from the
literature review section, in order to point out the identified gaps and what led
our intuition to initiate the present research. Secondly, our research question is
detailed and formulated. Thirdly, the key concepts and variables involved in our
model are defined. Finally, our conceptual framework is presented schematically.
Literature gap As presented in the background section, current European macroeconomic
conditions influenced labor markets to some extent (Dietrich, 2012), resulting in
deeper inequalities between Western European countries, such as Belgium,
France and Germany, and Southern European countries, such as Italy, Portugal
and Spain (Bell & Blanchflower, 2011). These inequalities also appear regarding
R&D intensity levels between countries (European Commission, 2013).
Regarding recruitment, it also appeared that in general this domain has been
weakly covered by the literature (Aiman-‐Smith, Bauer, & Cable, 2001) (Rose,
2008), and by extension so has been International Recruitment domain. This is
the case despite the fact that this domain can be key regarding possible
upcoming engineers shortages in markets for which R&D and technologies are of
increasing importance (Eurostat, 2013).
The literature review section gave a general overview of both organisational and
job attractiveness and willingness to work abroad literatures. Regarding
organisational and job attractiveness literature, in general the three phases of
the process of job seeking have been separately studied (Barber A. E., 1998), in
particular the phases related to job seekers’ Intention to Apply for a job Vacancy,
Intention to Pursue a Job and Intention to Accept a Job (Gomes & Neves, 2011).
Indeed, intentions are easier to measure and according to the Theory of
Reasoned Action, the best predictor of behaviour is the intention to perform that
behaviour (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Furthermore, job and organisational
attractiveness aspects that have been subject to main previous studies were
perceived job characteristics, organisational attributes and perceived
organisational attractiveness (Gomes & Neves, 2011). First, concerning job
48
characteristics, among other attributes, the perceived job attributes considered
as having an important effect on job seekers intentions in previous studies
related to challenge (Hackman & Oldham, 1976), pay, promotion (Aiman-‐Smith,
Bauer, & Cable, 2001) or fringe benefits (Harris & Fink, 1987) associated to the
job task. Secondly, concerning the effects of organisational attributes on
intentions of job seekers, the ones previously studied were related to the
perception on a company’s work policies (Robertson, Collins, & Oreg, 2005),
such as job stability (Collins & Stevens, 2002). Thirdly, organisational
attractiveness has also been a main subject of study because this concept is
linked to the perceptions other job and organisational attributes considered as
important, such as career opportunities or training facilities (Intelligence Group
and The Network, 2011). More generally, organisational attractiveness was
mainly studied under a marketing perspective (Turban, Campion, & Eyring,
1995), which implies infinite possibilities to categorise attributes that can
determine job seekers’ attitudes towards job opportunities proposed by
organisations (Martin & Franz, 1994) (Rose, 2008). This perspective partly
focuses on the concept of organisational image, regarding which a differentiation
between three broad dimensions of employer knowledge was made: employer
familiarity, employer image and employer reputation (Buyens, De Witte, &
Martens, 2001) (Lievens, Van Hoye, & Schreurs, 2005) (Intelligence Group and
The Network, 2011). Furthermore, in a person-‐organisation fit perspective
(Kristof, 1996), authors have investigated job seekers personal values and their
role in organisational attractiveness, with results suggesting, for example, that
there is an advantage for firms with high levels of Corporate Social Performance
when they want to hire the most qualified employees (Albinger & Freeman,
2000).
Regarding the literature on international assignments and willingness to work
abroad, the different types of international assignments that have been identified
are traditional expatriate assignments, for which literature is already abundant,
and other types for which literature is scarce (Lavonen, 2011) such as Self
Foreign Directed Expatriation (Suutari & Brewster, 2000), frequent flyers,
commuter and rotational assignments (Welch & Worm, 2006). In the scope of
49
this study, it appeared most interesting to consider all types of international
assignments under a concept of working abroad, based on the idea that only the
worker himself can initiate his SFE while other types are generally initiated by
the company, but can be asked thus initiated by the worker as well (Lavonen,
2011). The definition of these different types has brought insights on two
important aspects that might occur when initiating an international assignment:
issues regarding relationships and psychological problems (Pinder, 1989) or
compensation for the worker (Krell, 2005). The section also dealt with all
identified factors potentially affecting the willingness to work abroad. Personal
factors relate to age (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010), gender (Adler,
1984), perception about international assignments and in particular their effects
on personal relationships, previous international experience, personality and
intrinsic motivation (Lavonen, 2011). Host country factors relate to cultural and
geographical distance, as well as safety and risk issues (Lavonen, 2011). Job and
career factors concern aspects such as income (Brett, Stroh, & Reilly, 1993)
(Baldridge, Eddleston, & Veiga, 2006), level of company support (Harvey, 1997),
attractiveness of the position and career goals (Lavonen, 2011). Finally, scarce
literature has been found on home country factors effects on willingness to work
abroad, which mainly concerns economic situation of the country (Suutari &
Brewster, 2000) and cultural factors (Intelligence Group and The Network,
2011).
In addition to the elements identified as important and the literature gaps stated
in the previous paragraphs, it also appears that there are few links between the
two presently investigated literature domains. However, it is our intuition that in
fact both these domains are key in understanding the dynamics involved in the
willingness to work abroad. Indeed, if the willingness -‐ or openness -‐ to go to
work abroad is seen as a decision, it involves trade-‐offs regarding job and
organisational aspects to take into account regarding the intention to accept a
job. We believe that identifying and understanding these trade-‐offs may also help
understand the decision to accept a job that involves working abroad.
50
Research question In the present research, we aim to combine elements from both literature
domains of job and organisational attractiveness and willingness to work abroad
in order to create an original conceptual framework. Our intuition is that when
considering a job home and the same job abroad, the configuration of the trade-‐
offs involved in the decision to accept the job changes: indeed, one might be open
to compromise one or the other aspect of the job if it requires/permits him to
work home or abroad. As it intends to focus on engineers from different
countries of Europe, it seems most interesting to focus on the home country as a
factor influencing the decision to accept to work abroad.
Therefore, the present research focuses on measuring whether, to what extent
and why engineers from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain
would perceive job and organisational attributes importance differently when
considering a job in their home country in comparison with when considering a
job abroad, and whether there is a significant difference in results corresponding
to engineers according to their home country.
Key concepts In order to measure the trade-‐offs possibly involved in the decision to work
home versus to work abroad, we chose to focus on seven criteria identified as
important in the job and organisational attributes literature. These include, as
job characteristics, salary, working benefits and challenge of the job task.
Regarding organisational attributes, we chose to focus on career opportunities.
Aspects regarding organisational attractiveness that we kept are company’s
reputation (as part of organisational image), learning and personal development
opportunities and perceived fit with ethical values of the job seeker. These
criteria are relatively general: indeed, we had to find a set of job choice criteria
that would be critical in both cases of considering a job home and abroad, in
order to make a comparison possible. Additionally, it appears interesting, in the
case of a job home, to investigate whether the fact that the job proposes
opportunities to work abroad is considered as important or not, as based on
personal observation, opportunities to work abroad may actually be an
51
important job choice criterion for some engineers. In the case of a job home, we
chose to also focus on support provided by the company as a criterion.
We also decided to rather focus on the Intention to Accept a Job. The aim is to
measure the perceived importance of the chosen set of criteria when considering
a job in the home country, and to measure the same when considering a job
abroad. This level of perceived importance for each criterion would thus help
create our dependent variable. We propose to target this approach to
respondents from different European countries and group of countries that have
been more or less differently affected by the recent crises: France, Belgium, and
Germany versus Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Our only hypothesis is that there will be a difference in the weighing of criteria in
terms of perceived importance when considering a job home versus a job abroad
among surveyed and interviewed engineers/engineering students from any of
the six country. The rest of our study is exploratory. Indeed, this difference in
weighing -‐ that we will call ΔX and that represents a dependent variable – may or
may not differ according to the home country of the respondent, understood as
his country of citizenship and that represents a potential independent variable.
Moreover, if there is such an effect, it would not be clear to determine whether it
is due to the country’s economic situation, culture, or another factor. However,
we believe that the possible effect of the home country on ΔX as well as reasons
justifying ΔX – which may be linked to factors influencing the willingness to work
abroad -‐ are also interesting to explore.
It is important to note that we also took this opportunity to investigate all the
other factors identified as affecting the willingness to work abroad (and that
could by extension affect ΔX), nevertheless at the end only the collected data we
believe can help us understand results related to our core research question
have been analysed, according to our conceptual framework.
Conceptual framework The following figure schematises our conceptual framework. Black arrows
indicate possible effects of a variable on another one, and the grey arrow
52
indicates the direction of the Δ function. Data about factors in grey have been
collected but not kept in final analyses of the present research.
Figure 12 Conceptual Framework
!Considering!a!job$abroad$– Income!– Working!benefits!– Career!opportuni6es!– Challenge!– Learning!and!personal!development!opportuni6es!– Company’s!reputa6on!– Fit!with!ethical!values!
!!!!
– Support!provided!by!the!company!
!Considering!a!job$in$the$home$country$– Income!– Working!benefits!– Career!opportuni6es!– Challenge!– Learning!and!personal!development!opportuni6es!– Company’s!reputa6on!– Fit!with!ethical!values!
!!!!
– Opportuni6es!to!work!abroad!!
!ΔX!=!!ΔPerceived!importance!of!job!criteria!cri6cal!to!determine!the!inten6on!to!accept!a!job!
!Willingness!to!work!abroad!
• Home!country!factors!(BelgiumJFranceJGermanyJItalyJPortugalJSpain)!– Economic!situa6on!
• Expected!beOer!opportuni6es,!condi6ons!and!or/income!abroad!– Culture!
• Personal!factors!– Percep6on!about!interna6onal!assignments!!
• Regarding!personal!rela6onships!– Age!– Gender!– Branch!of!engineering!– Previous!professional!experience!– Previous!interna6onal!experience!– Personality!
• Host!country!factors!– Cultural!distance!to!home!country!– Culture!
• Job!and!career!factors!– Career!goals!
53
METHODOLOGY The present section describes the relevant methodological aspects behind the
present research. First, it aims to explain the reasons behind the choice of these
methodologies. Secondly, the variables and the way we intend to measure them
are described. Thirdly, issues related to the sampling and the collect of data are
specified. Finally, the methods of analyses that have been chosen in order to
treat the collected data are described.
Choice of the methodologies In order to test our hypothesis and to additionally conduct an exploratory study,
we decided to collect quantitative data using surveys and qualitative data via
semi-‐directed interviews and one specific question vocally asked to some
respondents after filling the survey. The collect of some of the data was
performed following a rather participative approach, that is to say during the
participation in person to the different events, thus additionally involving
informal talks with participants, company representatives and event organisers.
Furthermore, given the fact that this study is rather exploratory and that the
sample is neither representative nor unbiased, we chose to mostly have a
descriptive approach regarding some of the results of the survey.
The survey lasts approximately 10 minutes and consists in questions that intend
to quantitatively measure the variables of interest and to analyse the influence of
the respondent’s home country on these variables.
The complete interviews are semi-‐directed, last approximately 30 minutes each
and follow an Interview guide. We chose this method in order to take full
advantage of the meeting with the some respondents at job fairs, for two main
reasons: first to better understand the results of the survey with the support of
qualitative data, and secondly to prepare for the risk of potential useless survey
results.
54
Likewise, answers to the specific question are destined to efficiently collect more
qualitative data in order to better understand the quantitative results of one
specific aspect of our analysis. In order to have deeper understanding on this
issue, some of the surveys were given to respondents in our presence. Right after
they filed it, the specific question corresponding to the interview was
immediately asked to the respondent of the survey.
In fact, the original survey consisted in several questions concerning each of the
identified factors that potentially influence the willingness to work abroad -‐ that
are to say the factors that appear in grey on our schematised conceptual
framework -‐ as did the originally conducted interviews. However, for this thesis
we decided to focus only on the possible trade-‐offs involved when assessing a job
in the home country versus a job abroad and the impact of the home country on
these trade-‐offs. Nevertheless, part of the additionally collected data analyses,
especially regarding perception of international assignments effects on personal
relationships and expected better opportunities, conditions and income as
reasons to work abroad is also presented as it appeared to be relevant to better
understand results related to our core research question.
Variables For each respondent, the independent variable that we keep is the Home
Country. This corresponds to the question: “Country of citizenship” in the survey
and in the interview guide.
Job choice criteria
The dependent variables relate to the ratings in terms of perceived importance
given to the different job choice criteria that we want to analyse:
– Income – Working benefits – Career development opportunities – Challenge – Learning and personal development opportunities – Company’s reputation – Fit with ethical values
55
Also, we added in each case one specific criterion that applies to a job home (in
the first case) and a job abroad (in the second case):
– Opportunities to work abroad – Support provided by the company
In order to permit the measure of the perceived importance of choice criteria,
the respondent is put into a hypothetical scenario6 explaining that he just had an
successful interview for a job in his home country that specifies it fits his
professional profile and after which he has to think how he would weigh the
importance of the different criteria when thinking about accepting the job or not.
The same scenario is repeated and the respondent has to do the same, except
that the second scenario specifies that the job require him to work abroad.
The importance given to a specific criterion is measured with a 5 items scale
(1=Not important; 2=Neutral; 3=Relatively important; 4=Important; 5=Very
Important). The same scenario, specifying that the job require working abroad,
permits to measure the perceived importance with the same 5 items scale. The
values obtained in the case of considering a job home refer to the matrix XH and
the values obtained in the case of considering a job abroad refer to the matrix XA.
The matrix referring to both cases without taking into account the criteria
“Opportunities to work abroad” and “Support provided by the company” is
named X.
Regarding the interviews, the questions under point 4 in the Interview guide
correspond to qualitative data regarding job choice criteria that are perceived as
most important by the respondent. The measure of a potential difference
between perceived importance of criteria for a job home versus a job abroad,
which we will name ΔX, and reasons attributed to the existence of ΔX correspond
to the question 5.iii.2 in the interview guide.
6 The related questions can be found in the Survey Appendix.
56
Willingness to work abroad
In the survey, the situation regarding a job abroad can only be answered in the
case that the respondent checked “yes” to the question asking whether he would
accept a job that requires to work abroad. In order to measure how much the
respondent thinks he is willing to work abroad in the early stage of his career, a
5-‐items scale (1=Not much; 5=Very much) is used. This perceived importance
corresponds to the dependent variable and forms the matrix W.
Furthermore, questions regarding the perception of the effect of working abroad
on the personal relationships and attributed reasons to work abroad were
present, with a scale specifying the following possibilities: “Very harmful”,
“Harmful”, “Neutral”, “Positive” and “Irrelevant”.
In the complete interviews, questions related to the willingness to work abroad
can be found under the point 5 in the Interview guide. These aim to determine
the level of willingness to work abroad of the respondent (including the timing)
as well as the reasons the respondent attributes to this willingness/non-‐
willingness.
Sampling The survey was distributed during job fairs and international events7 during
travels around Europe: BEST Career Day (Valladolid), BEST General Assembly
(Valladolid), ESTIEM Council Meeting (Eindhoven), Careers Internationals Top
Engineers Summit (Brussels and Berlin). The online version of the survey was
promoted via LinkedIn, Facebook, VKontakte, Tweeter, mailing lists from BEST
and ESTIEM and personal contacts.
Interviews were conducted during the previously stated events and during local
events organised by Campus Recruitment of Cercle Solvay and BEST. Other
interviews were conducted among personal contacts, live or via Skype.
7 More information about the named networks can be found in Appendices.
57
In total, 511 individuals answered the survey. However, only 381 answers were
kept for the analyses. The respondents were from various countries of Europe,
various universities and studied or were studying different branches of
engineering. In addition, 50 complete semi-‐directed interviews were conducted
though 31 of them were kept, and additionally 100 specific answers relative to
our research question were collected and kept. Only answers of respondents
between 21 and 35 years old were kept. This choice is made because of a
variability observed in European countries regarding educational systems and
by extension on first job choices trends. No constraint was imposed on amount of
respondents per gender. Only the answers for countries from which more than
30 individuals answered the survey were kept: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy,
Portugal and Spain. Likewise, only interviews and answers to the specific
question from respondents respecting these conditions were kept. Keeping only
answers from respondents currently studying their Masters degree or already
graduates in a branch of engineering was difficult, as there would not be enough
answers in that case. Thus, we also included Bachelor degree students.
The statistics relative to respondents in the cleaned samples per country can be
found in the table below.
Table 3 Statistics of the respondents, per country and methodology
Survey Complete interviews
%Males
%Bachelor students
Mean age
Total respondents
Incl. Specific question
%Males
Mean age
Total respondents
Belgium 64% 8% 23 103 34 60% 23 5 France 80% 7% 23 46 7 0% 25 1 Germany 72% 28% 25 43 8 57% 27 7 Italy 78% 17% 25 59 13 67% 26 6 Portugal 80% 23% 22 56 15 83% 25 6 Spain 59% 24% 24 74 23 50% 26 6 Total 71% 16% 24 381 100 61% 25 31
Methods of analyses Analyses of the collected quantitative data were performed with Excel and SPSS.
These analyses are mainly exploratory and descriptive. Nevertheless, one test is
performed in order to determine a potential influence of the respondents’ home
country on a variable calculated to represent ΔX, as further detailed here below.
58
In order to treat the survey results, a value was assigned to the different ratings
given in terms of importance to each criterion, in both cases home and abroad:
Not important=1, Neutral=2, Relatively important=3, Important=4, Very
Important=5. Then, averages per country and criterion were computed, for both
cases home (AVGXHjk where j indicates the country8 and k indicates the criterion)
and abroad (AVGXAjk). Analyses of the ratings in terms of perceived importance
of choice criteria per criterion and country -‐ in both the case of a job home and
abroad -‐ only focused on a descriptive observation of AVGXHjk and AVGXAjk.
The qualitative data was first analysed regarding answers related to criteria of
job choice (point 4 in the interview guide) and willingness to work abroad (point
5 in the interview guide). Repetitions regarding the interpreted content of the
respondents’ words per home country were counted, analysed and additional
relevant resulting information synthesised.
Regarding the willingness to work abroad, we looked at the percentage of
respondents per chosen level of willingness and per countries, and performed a
descriptive analysis. Moreover, we assigned a value to the level of willingness to
work abroad: Not at all=0, Not much=1, A bit=2, Neutral=3, A lot=4 and Very
much=5. Averages per country (AVGWj where j indicates the country) were then
computed and descriptively compared.
Afterwards, a difference between the averages of ratings in terms of perceived
importance of choice criteria for a job home and for a job abroad, per country,
was computed (and named DAVGXjk where j indicates the country and k
indicates the criterion) in order to have a first idea whether there is an actual
difference (representing ΔX) thus possible trade-‐offs on these job choice criteria
in the decision to work abroad. A descriptive analysis was performed on these
results, focusing on the difference of averages.
Then, in order to create a variable that represents ΔX and on which it would be
possible to test the influence of the respondent’s home country, we computed
8 Thus j refers to Be, Fr, Ge, It, Po, Sp respectively for Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
59
the absolute value of the differences between ratings in terms of perceived
importance attributed to choice criteria regarding a job home and ratings
regarding a job abroad, per respondent and criterion, named ABSDX. Afterwards,
we summed the difference from all criteria. We obtained the matrix that we
named SUMABSDX. This value thus intends to give us an idea of the distance
between the ratings in both cases home and abroad.
In order to determine whether the law followed by this distance significantly
differs from one country to another, a Kruskall-‐Wallis test – the non-‐parametric
“equivalent” of the ANOVA test (Green & Salkind, 2005) (Maumy & Bertrand,
2011) – was used on SUMABSDXj.9 The Kruskall-‐Wallis test is based on 2
hypotheses that we first needed to verify: the homogeneity of variances among
distributions and the similarity of distributions between the 6 countries. In order
to verify the equality of variances, the non-‐parametric Levene test was used
(Nordstokke & Zumbo, 2010). This consists in an ANOVA and a Levene test
performed on the absolute value of the difference between each of the 381
individuals’ rank ij and the mean of the rank j for each of the 6 country, with H0
stating that variances of this difference are equal for all countries. Once the
equality of variances proved with the non-‐rejection of H0, the hypothesis of
similar distributions between countries was inferred from the equality of
variances (Green & Salkind, 2005). Other specificities of the Kruskall-‐Wallis test
are as followed (Maumy & Bertrand, 2011). We assume that we independently
observe a random variable ABSDX on 6 populations (corresponding to the 6
countries). We note Li(ABSDX) the (continuous) laws of the random variable
ABSDX for each of the 6 populations. Thus, we assume that we have 6
independent random samples:
(SUMABSDXBe:1;:::;SUMABSDX1;n1),…,(SUMABSDXSp;1;:::;SUMABSDXSp;nSp)
and 6 series of observations:
9 Indeed, a classical ANOVA requires the normality of distributions of the data, per country. However, this hypothesis was not respected according to a conducted Kolmogorov-‐Smirnov test and the observation of the distribution and Q-‐Q plots. Therefore, an alternative had to be found. Furthermore, an analysis on 2 samples referring to Belgium-‐France-‐Germany versus Italy-‐Portugal-‐Spain was also not performed, one reason being that hypotheses on the distributions required for performing the identified adequate tests failed to be verified.
60
(sumabsdxBe;1,..., sumabsdx1;n1),...,(xSp;1,...,xSp;nSp).
Kruskal-‐Wallis is used to test the hypotheses:
H0:LBe(SUMABSDX)=LFr(SUMABSDX)=LGe(SUMABSDX)=LIt(SUMABSDX)= LPo(SUMABSDX)= LSp(SUMABSDX) H1:the 6 Li laws are not all identical.
Once the approximation of the test statistics KWn-‐ computed, it is compared to
the critical value Cα corresponding to a level of α=0,05. This way:
if KWn-‐(obs)≥Cα èp value≤0,05 è H0 is rejected if KWn-‐(obs)<Cα èp value>0,05è H0 is not rejected
Besides determining whether this distance differs from one country to another,
we also want to understand the potential ΔX observed by attributing reasons to
its existence. In order to do that, repetitions resulting from the interpreted
content in the words of respondents to the complete interviews and the specific
question per home countries permitted to divide their words into types of
answers, that were counted per country and categorised according to the types
of answers. This permitted to obtain the percentages of complete interviews and
specific question answers per country divided by the total of answers for all
countries in the category (R values). However, these values are not sufficient to
permit analyses: indeed, it is difficult to see the differences between countries
because the amounts of respondents per country are unequal. In order to permit
a comparison, we divided the previously obtained percentages with the number
of respondents per countries, and the obtained numbers that were multiplied by
1000 in order to make them easily readable.
Finally, results to the questions from the survey regarding attributed reasons to
work abroad and perception of the effect on personal relationships were
analysed in a descriptive way in order to complete these last qualitative results,
as they appeared to deal with the obstacles and incentives to work abroad that
resulted from the qualitative data.
61
RESULTS This section intends to present and analyse relevant trends resulting from the
collected data. First, it focuses on ratings of job choice criteria, in terms of
perceived importance and per country, when considering a job in the home
country. Secondly, an overview of the willingness to work abroad of respondents
is given. Thirdly, it deals with the ratings of job choice criteria when considering
a job abroad. The last part deals with presenting the results related to the
variables chosen to represent ΔX, as detailed in the Methodology section. It is
important to note that shortcuts are done regarding the terms used for
presenting these results, however it does not mean that these results are
generalised to all engineers from one country or another or that estimations are
considered as real measures, as this section intends to be as descriptive as
possible.
Perceived importance of criteria in determining the intention to accept a job in the home country In order to have in mind the general trends regarding the ratings of criteria
taken into account when considering a job in the home country, we first analysed
the answers given to this part of the survey by observing how these answers
vary depending on the home country of the respondent. In this set of criteria, the
criterion “Opportunities to work abroad” is included (compared to the set of
criteria used when considering a job abroad). The aim is to look at the average
ratings for each country and for each criterion. The average ratings vary between
3 and 5 (3 corresponding to “Relatively Important”, 4 corresponding to
“Important” and 5 corresponding to “Very Important”).
62
Figure 13 Average ratings in terms of perceived importance given to job choice criteria considering a job home, per criteria and country (AVGXHjk) (3=”Relatively Important”, 4=”Important”, 5=”Very Important”)
The previous graph shows that considering the average per criterion for all
countries, the highest score was given to Learning and personal development
opportunities closely followed by Career development opportunities, Challenge,
Opportunities to work abroad, Fit with ethical values, Income, Working benefits
and Company’s reputation.
At first sight, it seems that variations between countries are not clear.
Respondents from Belgium and Germany, followed by Portugal considered
Learning and Challenge more important, while French respondents gave less
importance to both criteria, compared to all other countries. Portuguese and
Spanish respondents rather considered Career as very important, as did French
who slightly gave it a higher rating than for Learning, while Belgian respondents
did not value this criterion as much as the other countries’ respondents.
Regarding Fit with ethical values, it appeared more important for Portuguese,
followed by Spanish, German, Belgian, French and Italian at last. Income and
Working benefits seem more important to Portuguese, followed by French,
German and Spanish. It seems that Italian and Belgian respondents gave slightly
less points to Income and Working benefits. Company’s reputation criterion
appears to matter more for Portuguese, Italian and French, and the least to
Learning and personal
development: 4,45
Career development
: 4,45
Challenge: 4,03
Opportunities to work
abroad: 3,87
Fit with ethical
values: 3,75 Income: 3,66
Working benemits: 3,61
Company's reputation:
3,17
Belgium 4,54 4,34 4,18 3,55 3,71 3,58 3,49 3,08
France 4,26 4,37 3,80 4,04 3,67 3,83 3,65 3,15
Germany 4,53 4,44 4,37 3,81 3,84 3,74 3,67 3,14
Italy 4,42 4,42 3,86 4,34 3,53 3,47 3,47 3,32
Portugal 4,45 4,62 4,07 3,91 3,95 3,86 3,86 3,48
Spain 4,43 4,53 3,85 3,81 3,85 3,61 3,66 2,97
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Spanish respondents. Italian respondents gave more importance to
Opportunities to work abroad, followed by France, Portugal, Germany, Spain and
Belgium where respondents showed the least interest in “Opportunities to work
abroad” as a choice criterion for a job home.
The semi-‐directed interviews also gave us more insights on this matter. Among
answers resulting from the interviews regarding both questions “What kind of
job are you/would you be looking for?”, it appears that most respondents had
already a clear idea in what field and industry they would like to work, except 2
respondents. Nevertheless, it seems interesting to note that 50% of the
respondents coming from Southern countries directly cited “a job abroad” or
“not in Spain/Italy” as what they were looking for -‐ as if it was not even an option
to consider working in the home country – before being redirected on their
answer to this question.
Answers to the other related question -‐ “What are the main criteria you take into
account in a job you are looking for?” – generally brought up the criteria dealt
with in the survey. The cited criteria that were not taken into account in the
survey and that were relatively recurrent correspond to the following categories:
working conditions and atmosphere, stability (40% of Southern respondents),
job description (especially non-‐repetitive tasks) and work life balance.
Regarding the latter, 40% of the German respondents were the only ones to cite
this criterion as important, especially regarding the idea of preparing good
conditions to start a family and have children.
Willingness to work abroad
Levels of willingness to work abroad
In order to be able to compare the perceived importance of choice criteria taken
into account for a job home with the ones taken into account for a job abroad, it
is relevant to observe the willingness to work abroad of respondents. The second
part of the survey, dealing with a situation scenario of a job that requires the
respondent to work abroad, was available only to respondents who checked yes
to the question: “Would you accept a job that requires you to work abroad?.”
Moreover, a question intended to measure how much they were willing to work
64
abroad with this question: “How much are you willing to work abroad in the
early stage of your career?”. The aggregated results for all countries regarding
the willingness to work abroad are represented on the next graph.
Figure 14 Percentage of all countries’ respondents per chosen level of willingness to work abroad
The previous graph shows a relatively high willingness to work abroad (meaning
the choice of “A lot” and “Very much” in the survey) in the early stage of the
career for more than 70% of respondents. Only 14 respondents out of 381
answered that they did not want much or at all to work abroad in the early stage
of their career.
Trends between countries tend to be similar though some variations are visible
on the following graph.
Figure 15 Percentage of respondents per chosen level of willingness to work abroad, per country
The previous graph shows that more than half of Italian respondents were very
much willing to work abroad, making 80% of them highly willing to do so. The
2% 2% 5%
18%
31%
41%
Not at all Not much A bit Neutral A lot Very much
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Belgium France Germany Italy Portugal Spain
Not at all Not much A bit Neutral A lot Very much
65
same percentage applies for Spanish respondents. The highest percentage of
respondents highly willing to work abroad was from France, with 84%. A
percentage of 68% concerns Portugal -‐ though 43% of them chose “Very much” -‐
and Germany. The lowest willingness comes from Belgium, with 60% of high
willingness.
The averages corresponding to the values attributed to the 6 levels of willingness
to work abroad per country appear on the following graph.
Figure 16 Average level of willingness to work abroad, per country (AVGWj)
The previous graph shows similar trends than previously observed, with Italian,
Spanish and French respondents showing the highest willingness to work
abroad and German, Portuguese and Belgian respondents showing the lowest.
Related questions asked during the interviews were: “Are you interested in
working abroad?” and “How much are you willing to work abroad?”. Answers to
these questions showed that only 10% of total respondents did not show that
much enthusiasm in working abroad, mentioning the presence of too many ties
in their home country, sufficient or mitigated lived previous international
experience. 10% others mentioned they were relatively indifferent to the idea of
working abroad. 60% of Belgian respondents mentioned they would find it
easier having a job in Belgium that provides them opportunities to have missions
abroad. 40% of German respondents mentioned they would like to work abroad
only if they find a better career opportunity than home. All respondents from
Southern countries mentioned the economic situation in their country, but only 3
of them specified it as being the main reason to make the move – 16% of them
mentioned they would prefer staying in their home country if the situation was
4,25 4,18 4,15
3,93 3,89 3,68
Italy Spain France Germany Portugal Belgium
66
different – while 40% of them did not mention the situation as the main reason
to make a move.
The other related question was asked during the interviews in order to have a
better idea about the timing and type of assignment that was at stake for the
respondent: “How long could you work abroad?”. 30% of German respondents
mentioned concerns regarding the fact that they are careful in planning how long
to stay abroad because they feel they would have to settle down at some point.
16% of respondents mentioned they could stay abroad for more than 5 years,
among which 3 from Southern countries; 35% were rather interested in staying
around 3 years; the rest of respondents willing to work abroad were rather
attracted by experience of less than 1 year. 60% however relativised the number
of years by mentioning it would depend on how it goes and on the host country.
Potential incentives and obstacles to work abroad
One question of the survey asked to check boxes among a set of potential reasons
to be willing to work abroad, presenting better opportunities, working
conditions and/or income as potential incentives to work abroad. Answers to 3
of these reasons showed interesting trends between Western versus Southern
countries regarding expected better opportunities, working conditions and
income when working abroad.
Figure 17 Percentage of respondents per stated potential reason to work abroad, per country
35% 26%
9%
61% 68% 69%
10%
33%
2%
68% 61% 62%
23% 15% 12%
51% 64%
43%
Belgium France Germany Italy Portugal Spain
Better opportunities Better working conditions Better Income
67
The previous graph shows that more respondents from Southern countries
considered the fact of looking for better opportunities, working conditions and
income as a reason to be willing to work abroad.
One introductory question corresponding to this part of the survey and asked
during the interviews was: “Why are you looking for a job abroad?”. 50% of
Spanish respondents mentioned better working conditions, and specifically 30%
of Southern countries’ respondents mentioned better jobs and income. 20% said
they felt like the timing was right to work abroad some years, make money and
eventually go back to their home country, where the living is cheaper. Out of all
respondents though with a majority from Western countries, 20% said they
were willing to learn new languages, 16% showed interest in new cultures, 25%
mentioned they valued new experiences, 12% said they want to meet and work
with different people. 3 respondents in total had reasons related to their partner,
while 2 from Southern countries mentioned that nothing retained them home.
Another question in the survey required to choose how the effect of working
abroad for a period between 1 to 4 years on personal relationships is perceived,
thus presenting personal relationships at home as a potential obstacle to work
abroad.
Figure 18 Percentage of respondents per chosen perception of the effects of working abroad on personal relationships at home, per country
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Belgium France Germany Italy �Portugal Spain
Very harmful Harmful Neutral Positive Irrelevant
68
Answers show that the perception of the effect of working abroad is mostly
either positive, either harmful among all respondents – except for Italian and
Portuguese respondents who mainly answered “Neutral” after “Positive”.
Moreover, mainly Belgian, German and Portuguese respondents expressed bad
perception levels (“Very harmful” and “Harmful”).
Perceived importance of criteria in determining the intention to accept a job abroad It also appears relevant to describe the general trends regarding the rating of
criteria taken into account when considering a job abroad. In this set of criteria,
the criterion “Support provided by the company” for working abroad is included
(compared to the set of criteria used when considering a job home). The
following graph permits toobserve the average ratings for each country and for
each criterion.
Figure 19 Average ratings in terms of perceived importance given to job choice criteria considering a job abroad, per criteria and country (AVGXAjk) (3=”Relatively Important”, 4=”Important”, 5=”Very Important”)
On the previous graph, it appears that the best rated criteria were Learning and
personal development opportunities, Career development opportunities and
Challenge, such as it was the case in the results dealing with considering a job
home, in which Company’s reputation is also rated as least important. However,
it appears that Income and Working benefits are better rated -‐ appearing as
Learning and personal
development: 4,41
Career development
: 4,39
Challenge: 3,94 Income: 3,92
Support provided by
the company: 3,90
Working benemits: 3,80
Fit with ethical
values: 3,72
Company's reputation:
3,34
Belgium 4,51 4,19 4,07 3,97 3,92 3,71 3,63 3,29
France 4,22 4,36 3,84 3,87 3,78 3,80 3,69 3,29
Germany 4,40 4,56 4,05 3,91 3,70 3,77 4,00 3,28
Italy 4,43 4,45 3,78 3,59 3,83 3,67 3,45 3,29
Portugal 4,41 4,61 4,02 4,13 4,20 4,07 4,06 3,81
Spain 4,38 4,38 3,82 4,01 3,88 3,85 3,69 3,19
69
more important than Fit with ethical values -‐ when considering a job abroad
than when considering a job home.
Again, relatively small variations appear between countries. The trend regarding
Learning also shows Belgium as first and France at last in the ranking, though the
ranking in between becomes Italy-‐Portugal-‐Germany-‐Spain, rather than
Germany-‐Portugal-‐Spain-‐Italy when considering a job home. Similarly, the trend
regarding Career also shows Portugal first and France and Belgium last, whereas
the ranking in between becomes Germany-‐Italy-‐Spain, rather than Spain-‐
Germany-‐Italy. Regarding Challenge, in ranking of the three least interested,
France switches its first position with Italy. Regarding Income, Portuguese
remains the highest and Italians remains the least interested in the ranking
compared to considering a job home, while in between the ranking becomes
Spain-‐Belgium-‐Germany-‐France rather than France-‐Germany-‐Spain-‐Belgium.
The exact same ranking is observed regarding Working benefits as when
considering a job home, except that French ratings come before the German
ones. Regarding Fit with ethical values, again the exact same trend is observed as
when considering a job home, except that French and Belgian switched positions.
The ranking also shows Portugal first and Spain at last. In between, the ratings
given by Belgium, France, Italy and Germany are almost the same between each
other’s. Finally, regarding Support provided by the company, Portuguese
respondents valued it more, followed by Belgians, Spanish, Italians, French and
Germans.
Difference in perceived importance of criteria in determining the intention to accept a job (abroad – home)
ΔX estimated by DAVGXjk
In order to permit a comparison, we excluded the respondents that mentioned
not being willing to work abroad, thus we obtained different averages per
criteria and countries regarding the consideration of a job home. We then
computed the differences between the averages of perceived importance
considering a job abroad with the averages of perceived importance considering
a job abroad. These differences are represented in the graph below.
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Figure 20 Differences between averages of ratings when considering a job abroad and averages of ratings when considering a job in the home country, per criteria and country (DAVGXjk)
The general trend of the previous graph shows that Income, Working benefits
and Company’s reputation (at the exception of Italian respondents for the latter)
were better rated when considering a job abroad. Fit with ethical values,
Learning and personal development, Career and Challenge were on average less
rated when considering a job abroad, though it is not clear for all countries
regarding Fit with ethical values and Career development.
Regarding the variations between countries, it appears that Income becomes
more important abroad for all respondents especially from Spain, Belgium and
Portugal, with Italy being the least interested among Southern countries.
Working benefits becomes slightly more important to Southern countries and to
Belgium. Interest in Company’s reputation also increased, especially among
Portuguese respondents, except for Italian respondents for who it became less
important. Difference in interest in Fit with ethical values is mitigated between
countries: it becomes higher for Germans and Portuguese and lower for the
other countries’ respondents. Again at the exception of Italians, learning and
personal development becomes less important for all countries. For Portuguese,
-‐0,40
-‐0,30
-‐0,20
-‐0,10
0,00
0,10
0,20
0,30
0,40
0,50
Belgium France Germany Italy Portugal Spain Average
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French and Italian respondents, interest in Career development remains the
same, while it became less important for Spaniards and Belgians and more
important for Germans. Finally, there seem to be a consensus from all countries,
on a lower importance of Challenge as a criterion for a job abroad, especially for
Belgians and Germans.
ΔX estimated by SUMABSDXij
AVGSUMABSDXj
After computing he difference between averages, we computed the absolute
value of the sum, for all criteria, of the differences between the rating given
regarding a job home and the ratings given regarding a job abroad, for each
respondent (SUMABSDX). The averages of SUMABSDX per country can be found
on the graph below.
Figure 21 Average SUMABSDX per country (AVGSUMABSDXj)
The previous graph shows that Belgian respondents were the least indifferent
regarding perceived importance of choice criteria considering a job abroad
versus a job home, followed by Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese, with
French respondents being the most indifferent.
Kruskall-‐Wallis test for the influence of the home country on SUMABSDXi
In order to determine whether the differences between countries are significant,
a Kruskall-‐Wallis test, as described in the Methodology section, is performed. In
order to do this, the hypothesis of homogeneity of variance of SUMABSDXj values
must be checked. This has been done with a Levene test performed on the
2,73 2,72 2,67 2,42 2,36
1,93
0 0,5 1
1,5 2
2,5 3
Belgium Spain Germany Italy Portugal France
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absolute value of the difference between each of the 381 individuals’ rank ij and
the mean of the rank j for each of the 6 country, with H0 stating that variances of
this difference are equal for all countries. Given that the p-‐value computed by
SPSS10 equals 0,373 and is thus greater than 0,05, we can accept the non-‐
rejection of H0 with 5% chances of errors. This result provides significant
evidence of homogeneity of variances between countries at a level of 5%. The
hypothesis of similar distributions between countries was inferred from the
equality of variances (Green & Salkind, 2005).
Thus, we can perform the Kruskall-‐Wallis test on SUMABSDX values, with H0
assuming that LBe(SUMABSDX) = LFr(SUMABSDX) = LGe(SUMABSDX) =
LIt(SUMABSDX) = LPo(SUMABSDX) = LSp(SUMABSDX), and H1 assuming that the 6
Li laws are not all identical. The result computed by SPSS11 indicates a p-‐value of
0,404, which is greater than 0,05. Thus, we can accept the hypothesis of non-‐
rejection of H0, with a chance of error of 5%. This indicates that the distances in
the ratings for all criteria follow similar laws of distribution for each of the 6
countries. From this result, we infer that there is no significant differences
between countries in the distances of ratings in terms of perceived importance of
all presently studied criteria for a job home versus a job abroad.
Reasons explaining ΔX
The question asked during the interviews and corresponding to the specific
question was “Would/Did you value job choice criteria the same way when
considering a job home than when considering a job abroad? If so/not, why?”12.
The results of the computations described in the section Methodology are shown
on the following table13. It is important to note that the numbers obtained do not
10 The One-‐Way-‐ANOVA table can be found in Appendices. 11 The Kruskall-‐Wallis table can be found in Appendices. 12 Answers to this question are the core of the present study research question, thus this section will be illustrated by some verbatim from respondents illustrating the presented data, however not all related verbatim are cited. 13 Percentages of complete interviews and specific question answers about DX (Abroad -‐ Home) per total of answers for all countries in the category (R values); the last column represents the percentage R/RTotal can be found in Appendices.
73
have an absolute meaning, as they are only used to permit comparisons within a
row.
Figure 22 Percentages of complete interviews and specific question answers about ΔX (Abroad -‐ Home) per total of answers for all countries in the category (R values), divided by the total of respondents per country and multiplied by 1000; the last column represents the percentage R/RTotal
Category of answer BE FR GE IT PT SP R %R Indifferent 9 28 22 5 3 10 7%
Other than job 16 5 4 8 13 9% Timing subtlety 14 24 2 1%
Company support 6 31 10 5 3%
ΔX<0
Anything 19 10 29 7 7 5%
Salary 10 9 14 6 4 8 5%
Stability 8 50 10 10 7%
ΔX>0
Everything In general 7 12 17 4 3% Leave relationships 26 4 3% Working benefits 22 35 3 2%
In general 14 7 18 21 18 12%
Salary Leave relationships 3 11 11 4 9 12 11 7%
More expected expenses
In general 6 14 4 7 12 14 9% Travels 34 2 1%
Leave parents' place 7 24 7 4 3%
Change routine 53 2 1%
Less security 19 18 14 10 7 5% Company's reputation
In general 8 12 17 5 6 4% For CV 9 16 16 3 2%
Career opportunities 21 11 8 17 6 4% Learning and personal development 34 4 3%
Challenge 34 3 2% Stability 35 25 2 1%
Total country respondents (131) 39 8 15 19 21 29 148 100%
7% of all answers stated indifference regarding both cases home and abroad,
relatively more importantly for French (in line with the observation of
AVGSUMABSDXj), German and Belgian respondents. For example:
– « I don't see much difference in criteria depending on where I work. I indeed wish to work abroad but I will not change my expectations in order to do so. Working expectations and working abroad are for me two different things. » (Belgium, M, 25 years, Master in Business Engineering, Solvay Brussels School).
74
9% of answers insisted on aspects possibly found when working abroad that are
not choice criteria purely related to job:
– «Cultural experience abroad (language, culture, etc.) is more important than the skills you learn from the job itself. » (Germany, M, 26 years, Master in Industrial Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology).
Answers under the Timing subtlety category represent 1% of all answers and
concerns respondents who indicated willingness to work abroad rather
concerning short missions abroad; this is particularly the case for Italian and
Belgian respondents:
– « I would prefer several short missions abroad (e.g. 6 months) than several years in a row without seeing your friends/family/etc. Therefore, the indirect benefits, the career development opportunities and the job tenure are less important than for a job in my home country. On the other hand other (ethics, challenge, etc.) issues are the same home or abroad. » (Belgium, M, 25 years, Master in Electromechanical Engineering (Energy), Université Libre de Bruxelles).
Answers under the Company support category represent 3% of all answers and
concern respondents, mainly coming from Italy, Belgium and Portugal, who
insisted on the support that must be provided by the company when working
abroad:
– « I think that reputation of the company is more important if you are sent abroad. Indeed, you need to rely on the company to not be left to yourself foreign! » (Belgium, 25 years, Master in Civil Engineering (Architecture), Université Libre de Bruxelles).
The ΔX<0 category represents 17% of all answers and concerns comments
rather indicating an openness to compromise on some criteria when working
abroad versus when working home. 5% of answers referred to any criterion
being subject to be compromised on when working abroad, and this was
especially the case for Italian, French and German respondents:
– « If I get the occasion to work in my home country, I prefer a job that can give me the opportunity to work abroad from time to time, or can allow me to live a relevant learning/professional experience. If I get the occasion to work abroad, I am more tolerant because I think that being abroad you live a more stimulating and challenging situation, thus the environment itself leads you to development and improvement, if you are willing to. » (Italy, F, 26 years, Biomedical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano).
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5% other more specifically dealt with salary; again it was particularly the case
for Italian respondents:
– « I think a good salary is more important in the case of a job home than a job abroad because I feel it like something definitive, while a job abroad is a temporary opportunity (some years), so I can accept some compromises. Same for other criteria, a job abroad is important as an experience, for personal growth, etc. » (Italy, M, 21 years, Automotive Engineering, Politecnico di Torino).
– «I think that the salary is less important when you work abroad because the everyday life is usally cheaper abroad. » (France, M, 21 years, Master in Industrial Engineering, INSA Lyon).
Finally, 7% of answers indicated they could accept lower job stability abroad,
especially among French, Spanish and Belgian respondents:
– « The stability of a job abroad is less important, because I would plan to come back in my home country at some point. » (France, M, 23 years, Master in Mechanical Engineering, ENSTA ParisTech).
The ΔX>0 category represents 63% of all answers and concerns answers rather
indicating required more advantageous job characteristics when working abroad
versus when working home. 6% of all answers stated to consider everything
more carefully, and emphasis was put on leaving personal relationships as a
reason to that:
– « You should get compensated for the willingness to start working abroad for a company, as companies don’t find a lot of young engineers that are willing to do this. » (Belgium, M, 25 years, Master in Civil Engineering (Business), Gent Universiteit).
– « In my opinion, everything becomes more important if you are asked to work abroad. As working abroad is kind of a burden because you have to leave your country, family and friends, the financial as well as the social/psychological aspects have to compensate for it. » (Belgium, 22 years, Master in Business Engineering, Université Libre de Bruxelles).
Specifically, Italian and German respondents abroad mentioned required better
working benefits:
– «Non-‐monetary bonuses are more important abroad to make life easier. » (Germany, M, 26 years, Master in Industrial Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology).
– « I think the benefits outside the salary are more important when working abroad, since you will face a less "stable" situation once you move abroad. » (Italy, M, 27 years, Physics and Nanotechnology, Politecnico di Milano).
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Nevertheless, 39% of all answers insisted on a better salary required abroad, in
line with the observations about DAVGXij. Mainly Spanish, Italian, French and
German respondents stated it as a general requirement:
– « A good salary is more important in a job abroad because I would like to go back some day to my home country, and also because I think the extra effort should be rewarded. » (Spain, 28 years, Civil Engineering (Architect), Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, BEST).
– « Home country has poor economy, this is why I think of working abroad in the early years is good to learn and come back with experience to survive in this struggling situation. Also money is very important to be independent. » (Portugal, M, 21 years, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Universidade de Lisboa).
Among this type of answers, 7% of answers coming from respondents from all
countries insisted on the fact of requiring a monetary compensation for leaving
their personal relationships:
– «I think a good salary is more important in the case of a job abroad than a job home because you are leaving your country and your live there (family, friends...) and that is a very high value. » (Spain, M, 27 years, Industrial Engineering, Polytechnic University of Madrid).
20% of answers insisted on higher expected expenses abroad, when stated in
general this was mainly coming from German, Spanish, Portuguese and Belgian
respondents and represented 1% of all answers. Reasons attributed to these
rising expenses were from various natures. Some Italian respondents mentioned
changing routines abroad as involving more costs, which represents 5% of all
answers:
– « I think a good salary is more important in the case of a job abroad than a job home because you have to adapt 100% to a new culture and of course country. It means that you have to change probably your routine and usually it means you are going to spent more money. » (Italy, M, 28 years, Civil Engineering, Universita degli Studi di Napoli Federico II).
Concerns about more expected travels to get back home when working abroad
came from Spanish respondents, representing 1% of all answers:
– «If I work abroad I would need a better salary to buy my flights back home, just as an example. » (Spain, F, 23 years, Master in Industrial Engineering, Polytechnic University of Madrid).
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The fact of leaving parent’s house was also mentioned as turning out to be more
costly abroad, especially by Portuguese, Belgian and Spanish respondents,
representing 3% of all answers:
– « A good salary is more relevant when working abroad due to rent and living expenses: currently I live with my parents, so a job close to my hometown would allow me to stay there. Also, the cost of living is likely to be higher than in Portugal. » (Portugal, F, 21 years, Industrial Engineering, Universidade de Porto).
Finally, a reason for more expected expenses when working abroad was the fact
of having less security, representing 5% of all answers and mainly coming from
French, German, Portuguese and Spanish respondents:
– « I believe if I'm working abroad, I need a better salary, because I would be out of my comfort zone and probably have no references to turn in case some problem would happen, and money, many times, is a problem solver. » (Portugal, M, 28 years, Environmental Engineering, University of Algarve).
In the ΔX>0 category, answers also sometimes concerned a required better
company’s reputation, representing 6% of all answers, among which none came
from French respondents and main answers came from Portuguese, Belgian,
German and Spanish respondents. Specifically, this company’s reputation was
sometimes referring to a plus-‐value to add on the CV, especially for Portuguese,
Italians and Belgians:
– « I think that if I'm working abroad and therefore far away from my family and friends, the job I do has to be particularly significant, interesting and in agreement with my values and the company has to be one that would look great on my CV. Otherwise, which reasons would I have to partly "sacrify" my social life? » (Belgium, F, 22 years, Master in Business Engineering, Université Libre de Bruxelles).
Career development opportunities was also stated as expected to be better
abroad, especially among French, Spanish, German and Portuguese respondents
and representing 4% of all answers:
– «The only thing that would change for me in Portugal would be the future of the job that is to say if you get opportunities to get a higher position. Even though I think the criteria would be the same: working with people who know a lot, and that provide me with an environment where I can also
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learn.» (Portugal, 25, Master in Telecommunications Engineering, Universidade de Lisboa).
Moreover, solely Spanish respondents abroad also mentioned required better
learning and personal development opportunities as well as challenge if working
abroad, which makes 2% of all answers:
– «I think that in the case of a job abroad, it should give you more for your own development than a job home, just because if it doesn't you should stay home.» (Spain, M, 21 years, Bachelor in Telecommunications Engineering, University of Seville).
Finally, respondents from Germany and Italy gave reasons to require more job
stability abroad, making 1% of all answers:
– « (…) Experience abroad is important besides the job. Finding a job home is easier than finding a job abroad, so I want to be sure that I can keep on working abroad: tenure is very important. » (Italy, M 28 years, Industrial Engineering (Business), Universita di Padova).
As a conclusion of this section, it appears that there is indeed a difference in
terms of perceived importance when considering a job home in comparison with
considering a job abroad among respondents, and this difference mostly
concerns Income and Working Benefits. However, variations between countries
are not easy to catch, even regarding the data taken separately in the cases job
home and job abroad. Furthermore, except in the data related to stated potential
reasons to work abroad, a clear difference between data from Western versus
Southern countries does not appear. The interpretation of the data hereby
observed is held in the next section.
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Chapter 3 - Back to Basics
“Se viaja no para buscar el destino sino para huir de donde se parte.” Miguel de Unamuno
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DISCUSSION The research question asked whether, to what extent and why engineers from
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain would perceive job and
organisational attributes importance differently with regards to their intention
to apply for a job abroad than with regards to their intention to apply for a job in
their home country, and whether there is a significant difference in results
depending on the engineer’s home country. The following section14 intends to
present the main findings and to discuss them in order to answer these
questions: “Does ΔX exist?”, “To what extent does ΔX exist?”, “Why does ΔX
exist?” and “Does ΔX significantly differ between countries?”. This section ends
with an insight on possible implications of these results for International
Recruitment.
Does ΔX exist? In order to determine whether such difference in perceived importance exists,
averages of perceived importance ratings given to choice criteria with regards to
the intention to accept a job (AVGXjk) by respondents15 from all countries were
descriptively observed.
When respondents considered a job in the home country, the general trend of
values (AVGXHjk) showed Income, Working benefits and Company’s reputation
criteria perceived as less important than criteria such as Learning, Personal and
Career development opportunities, Challenge, Opportunities to work abroad and
Fit with ethical values. These trends could be due to the fact that respondents are
relatively young, thus at the beginning of their career and without the financial
responsibility of a family. Another explanation could be linked to the fact that
access to most respondents was permitted through networks supposing
existence of their interest in experiences of volunteering, complementary
education and learning, often internationally. The reason why they once got in
touch with such networks might be the same reason why material criteria such
14 ΔX refers to the difference in terms of perceived importance (in the sequence “abroad -‐ home”) of choice criteria regarding the intention to accept a job. 15 i refers to the respondent, j refers to the country and k refers to the criterion.
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as Income and Working benefits were not the ones they rated the most.
However, it is important to note that social desirability bias could have
undermined the answers regarding material criteria.
Before asking respondents to give ratings to criteria regarding their intention to
accept a job abroad, it was important to first check whether they would be
willing to work abroad in the early stage of their career. A particularity of our
samples is that 70% of respondents were highly willing to do so. This is not
surprising given the specificities of the different channels used. Again, another
reason could be linked to their young age (Intelligence Group and The Network,
2010) (Suutari & Brewster, 2000), which is also supported by the fact that most
interviews respondents showed preferences in working abroad for less than
three years.
Given the high level of willingness to work abroad among respondents, almost all
of them were allowed to answer the question concerning a job that would
require working abroad. In this case the observation of the values (AVGXAjk)
showed that Income and Working benefits criteria were perceived more
important than in the case of a job home, coming before Fit with ethical values.
Also, Support provided by the company came in between both Income and
Working benefits criteria, possibly because this criterion might have been
understood as material support regarding aspects such as housing,
transportations, etc. as it was mentioned during some interviews.
Thus, considering our six samples as a whole, there is indeed a difference in the
configuration in terms of perceived importance and we can consider that ΔX
exists.
To what extent does ΔX exist? In order to determine to what extent such a difference exist, on the one hand
interviews data were analysed. These showed 63% of answers expressing
tougher requirements and 17% mentioned openness to more lenient
requirements considering a job abroad. On the other hand, existence of more
clearly expressed tougher requirements was confirmed by survey data. Indeed,
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the descriptive observation of DAVGXjk = AVGXAjk -‐ AVGXHjk values confirmed
trends regarding Income, Working Benefits and Company’s reputation being
perceived more critical in the intention to accept a job abroad. Nevertheless,
though slightly negative when counted for all countries, DAVGXjFit with ethical values
shows mitigated results between countries, while values corresponding to
Learning, Personal, Career development opportunities and Challenge show more
clearly that these are perceived less critical in determining the intention to
accept a job abroad.
This general trend might be interpreted with the idea that the decision to accept
a job that requires working abroad involves a trade-‐off; as Income, Working
benefits and Company’s reputation are perceived more important, these
represent compensations for the sacrifice made when not choosing to work in
the home country. Similarly, the fact that Learning, Personal and Career
development opportunities are perceived less important might be due to the fact
that making the move to work abroad can be believed to already bring such
opportunities through aspects not properly being job and organisational
attributes: for example interviews mentioned learning a new language,
discovering a new culture, learning how to work with people from other
backgrounds, etc. However, DAVGXjk results should be relativised because as
previously discussed, perceived importance when considering a job in the home
country of Income, Working benefits and Company’s reputation were the lowest
ones.
Thus, it appears that ΔX exists in a higher extent concerning Income, Working
benefits and Company’s reputation. Regarding the material criteria, this might
simply mean the same as what companies sending their workers on
international assignments have already understood: employees most likely will
require compensation. However, ΔX also concerned more lenient requirements
on the other investigated criteria, which can be interpreted as the fact that in
light of a high interest for working abroad in the early stage of the career, such
experience is valued enough to compromise on some job and organisational
aspects.
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Why does ΔX exist? Insights about the reasons behind these differences in ratings came from
interviews data. These reasons were from various natures when it came to both
expressed tougher and more lenient requirements.
Tougher requirements regarding the intention to accept a job abroad rather
concerned personal relationships. In terms of choice criteria, these mostly
concerned Income, Working benefits (41%) and Company’s reputation (6%), in
line with survey results. Reasons that were mentioned indicated a need for being
materially compensated on leaving personal relationships, but also higher
expected expenses that might come with more travels home (to visit personal
relationships), changing routines, leaving parents’ place and less job security.
Expressed reasons attributed to tougher requirements on Company’s reputation
were that working for a renown company abroad could add value on the resume,
permitting to have access to better opportunities when coming back home.
More lenient requirements in terms of criteria regarding the intention to accept
a job abroad rather concerned Income, as some respondents considered the
experience to work abroad valuable enough to lay down on money, and job
stability, main stated reason for this being that respondents were thinking of
working abroad for a short term and not all their lives.
Thus, it appears that reasons explaining ΔX>0 are indeed linked to the idea of
being compensated for the sacrifices made when going abroad to work, but also
to higher expected expenses. On the other hand ΔX<0 can be explained with the
idea that compromises are acceptable because the experience of working abroad
can bring valued elements other than job and organisational attributes, or
because the experience is seen as temporary.
Does ΔX significantly differ between countries? Averages per country of the sum for all criteria of absolute values of differences
in perceived importance (AVGSUMABSDXj) showed a ranking indicating French,
Portuguese and Italians as the most indifferent, and Germans, Spaniards and
Belgians as the least indifferent regarding the perceived importance of criteria in
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determining intention to accept a job abroad versus in the home country.
Nevertheless, the Kruskall-‐Wallis test performed on SUMABSDXij values
indicated that there was no significant evidence that these follow different laws
between countries.
Even though not significant given the result of the Kruskall-‐Wallis test, slightly
different trends appeared between countries. In order to understand them, we
found relevant to discuss variations between countries of two types of results:
first the levels of willingness to work abroad and ratings of the criterion
Opportunities to work abroad, secondly DAVGXjk values in parallel with
interviews answers about ΔX.
Ratings of the criterion Opportunities to work abroad when considering a job
home and average levels of willingness to work abroad in the early stage of the
career appeared both high for Italian, Spanish and French and low for Belgian
respondents. For French respondents, this might be due to the local educational
system that provides many incentives to travel, which may have made
respondents more open to the idea of working abroad. Regarding Belgian
respondents, other types of local channels were used, that make previous
interest in international experiences less likely. The results for Italians and
Spaniards might be due to the fact that most of the respondents were met at
specific recruiting events supposing they were actively looking for a job abroad.
On the other hand, reasons related to worse macroeconomic situations in their
home country could be used to explain a higher willingness, however this
justification has to be taken carefully. First, no “Southern versus Western” trend
appeared clearly our results. Secondly, Portuguese respondents did not show
such high willingness. Nevertheless, Southern countries respondents were more
likely to identify the fact of looking for better opportunities, working conditions
and income as reasons to be willing to work abroad, which is probably due to
macroeconomics16. Nevertheless, in the interviews answers about how much
respondents wanted to work abroad, all Southern respondents mentioned the
economic situation but 40% of them did not consider the economic situation as
16 Cfr. Backround section.
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the main reason to be willing to work work abroad. Social desirability bias might
be at cause; however, this indicated that even though Southern respondents
were aware of the situation in their country, the shortcut “worse economic
situation leads to higher willingness to work abroad” is confirmed not to be
accurate (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010).
Regarding DAVGXjk results, these indicated that Portuguese, Spanish and Belgian
respondents were more demanding in general for a job abroad than the others.
Income became more important in a higher extent for Spanish, Portuguese,
Belgian and German respondents, and Working benefits for Portuguese, Belgian,
Italian and Spanish respondents. Regarding Spaniards and Portuguese, this
might be due to the fact that they are more likely to find jobs with better wages if
they consider Western Europe, for example, or that they worry about higher
costs of living outside their country. Regarding Belgian, as they showed lower
willingness to work abroad, the reason might be that they are more needy for
incentives to make the move. For German respondents, a higher requirements
regarding Income might be due to the fact that in order to be incentivised to go
abroad, given the presence of good opportunities for engineers in their home
country, the job has to be highly valued, for example in a country where the field
of preference is a speciality. Observing DAVGXjCompany’s reputation results, this
criterion became more important in a higher extent for Portuguese, Spanish,
Belgian and French respondents. In fact, in both survey and interview data,
tougher requirements on Company’s reputation seem to concern mainly
Portuguese respondents, justifying it with the fact that working for a renown
company in Portugal might be hard and having such experience added on the
resume can make it easier when coming back home. In interviews data,
specificities such as Portuguese respondents worrying about higher cost of living
abroad, Italians about changing routines, German and French rather worrying
about job security and personal relationships issues appeared; however, given
the unequal and small number of respondents per country, these differences
probably do not mean anything. Likewise, different trends between countries
regarding DAVGXjk values for the other criteria appear, however no satisfactory
possible reason has been found to explain them.
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Thus it appears that our results showed some descriptive differences between
countries regarding ΔX, though no evidence was found that they are significant;
furthermore, explaining theses difference is not straightforward, especially given
that the data at our disposition is not sufficient to do so. In the scope of the
present research, we therefore conclude that the respondent’s home country is
not a satisfactory factor to explain variations of ΔX.
Implications for International Recruitment In practice, the actual existence of ΔX would imply that a recruiter should take
into account the fact that in order to accept the job he offers, a young engineer -‐
potential employee -‐ will not have the same requirements as he would have for a
job at home. In general, the potential employee’s tougher requirements would
concern the material rewards and support the recruiter could provide when
working abroad. Nevertheless, there exists among young engineers a higher
willingness to work abroad that has not been proven to be exclusively driven by
material incentives, including when it concerns avoiding bad local
macroeconomics. In fact, there might exist out there young engineers that are
open to compromise on job and organisational attributes, including material
ones, because they value the experience of working abroad for other aspects
that, for example, contribute to their personal development, and that they can
only find abroad. In a context of crises and increased necessity of recruiting
abroad, especially for Engineers positions, this represents an opportunity for
companies to attracts international young engineers with job offers that do not
necessarily require the most advantageous and costly attributes.
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LIMITATIONS Given the exploratory nature of most of the present work and the limited means
available to conduct it, limitations are numerous. In the following, a non-‐
exhaustive list of the identified limitations regarding both theoretical and
practical aspects is presented.
Theoretical limitations No previous work investigating ΔX has been found, thus making it not
straightforward to design the model. In fact, the investigation is based on the
assumption that ΔX and the level of willingness to work abroad are linked, one
influencing the other. However, no previous evidence of the existence of such
link exists. The design of the model is also limited in the sense that some aspects
are treated vaguely: for example, the model does not distinguish the different
types of assignments and the time frame behind the idea of working abroad.
Regarding the gap between intention and actual choice, the Theory of Reasoned
action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) was stated in order to theoretically narrow it, as
our investigations happened at the level of the individual personal attitude
towards the behavior of accepting a job home or abroad. However, we did not
take into account the potential influence of the degree of social pressure relative
to the social circles to which respondents belong.
Practical limitations The present research hypotheses that ΔX exists. However, no adequate statistical
model was found in order to determine whether ΔX was significant or not.
Furthermore, the Kruskall-‐Wallis test performed on SUMABSDX values from
each country was the best statistical alternative found, though it might not be the
most appropriate, especially given that the information about the direction of ΔX
was not taken into account because of the computation of absolute values.
The main practical limitation concerns the samples that are neither
representative nor unbiased thus do not permit generalisation of the results.
Indeed, the minimum number of respondents per country for the survey was set
to 30, which is low for a survey. Likewise, number or interviews and specific
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question respondents per country were also small. Furthermore, samples were
unequal, especially regarding Belgian respondents who were more numerous.
Also participants were not randomly selected as networks such as BEST,
ESTIEM, Career Internationals, Solvay, etc. might have involved various biases.
Likewise, the fact that the questions were asked in English for all methodologies
used could also have involved a bias, as it required respondents to already have
knowledge of the language, which is maybe not the case for all “average
engineers” in the investigated countries. Finally, this researches focuses on
engineers as a general term, but no differentiation is made between the different
branches or specialisations of engineering, though these might also involve
biases in the samples. For example, a higher amount of Business Engineering
among Belgian respondents is observed, while in fact this study curriculum is
very different from other branches of Engineering and even from Industrial
Engineering in the other investigated countries.
Concerning the survey in particular, the description of the scenario was
relatively long thus some respondents may not have read it carefully before
answering, or did not notice that the second scenario mentioned a job abroad.
Furthermore, some of the respondents were not actively looking for a job,
sometimes even bachelor students, thus maybe not answering conscientiously.
Also, the survey originally contained the criterion “Job tenure”, however results
concerning this were not analysed because it appeared that the meaning was not
clear for some respondents, who often left the related square blank on the paper
surveys. Other similar misunderstandings could have happened, especially given
the English language used. Another issue was that respondents from each
country did not have the same amount of “points” to give to criteria importance,
which means first that respondents from some country were on average more
generous, thus affecting the comparison of results between countries, secondly
that averages of perceived importance were high for all criteria. Finally, the
survey surely took into account a presence of willingness to work abroad for the
respondent before allowing him to answer the part related to a job abroad.
However, the survey did not take into account the cases of respondents not
willing to work in their home country, while in fact some respondents expressed
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during interviews that they were not interested in working in their home
country at all.
Concerning the interviews in particular, these were conducted towards even less
randomly selected participants. It was harder to obtain sincere answers from
strangers than from friends, as some of the questions were relatively personal.
Furthermore, in some situations, Alumni or career events participants were
busy, thus in a hurry to end the interview. Also, career events respondents were
typically prepared for interviews with companies, thus it could have happened
that sometimes the answers they gave were based on what they prepared to tell
the companies, therefore not so sincere neither. Finally, some interviews were
conducted through Skype, which did not permit to have a perception on the body
language of the respondents.
Concerning the specific question, it appears that respondents often did not
understand well the question and failed to give relevant or clear answers, even
after re formulating the question or re directing the answer. This resulted in
lower amount and poorer quality of collected exploitable answers.
Regarding factors linked to the home country, not much investigations regarding
the educational systems in the different countries was performed, while it
appeared afterwards that such factors could have helped for the results
discussion. Likewise, even though data related to cultural aspects was collected,
it turned out to be too poor to be exploited.
Other factors that influence the willingness to work abroad such as age, gender,
presence of previous professional experience, personality, etc. were not
discussed, though according to our model they might be expected to also
influence ΔX. In particular, a smaller amount of females was represented, though
this might be a specificity of the Engineering domain. Furthermore, in
additionally collected data, it appeared that host country factors were very
important, especially regarding the field of speciality in engineering, or the wage
levels. However, our questions did not specify any host country, not even the
continent. It is thus difficult to know what respondents had in mind when
answering the questions. In fact, not only the host country sounded important
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but also the city did. Finally, other factors that our literature review did not
identify as influencing the willingness to work abroad also appeared to matter
for ΔX according to interviews answers: for example spoken languages,
socioeconomic background or university.
To conclude this section, the vague nature of the conducted investigation
involved numerous limitations that force us to take the results and discussions
carefully and prevent us from making generalisations.
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SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH Despite the numerous limitations stated in the previous section, the present
research highlighted some insights about ΔX, that might be interesting for
further research about job and organisational attributes importance in an
international context. In the present section, four suggestions for further
research are presented.
First, conducting a similar research that controls more factors can permit better
quality of results. Furthermore, the scenario to investigate ΔX could be made
more specific, for example specifying the host country (that could for example be
fake in order to avoid cultural prejudices), the international assignment type, the
job and organisational criteria (for example a hypothetical income based on the
home country of the participant).
Another suggestion is that it could be interesting to investigate further the
influence of the cultural background on ΔX, in order to better highlight what are
the preferences of Portuguese of French engineers in their home country and
what they are looking for abroad that are not linked to macroeconomics, or other
factors.
Thirdly, it is important to note that the present research collected data about all
factors identified in the literature review as having an influence on the
willingness to work abroad. However, only a small part of the collected data was
kept for analyses and discussion. It would be thus interesting to further exploit
these additionally collected data by considering the investigation of another
factor than the home country, of even several other factors.
Last but not least, the present research assumed the existence of a link between
ΔX and the willingness to work abroad. However, the nature of this link has not
been investigated. Thus it might be interesting to consider investigating the
relation between the willingness to work abroad and the ΔX regarding specific
critical job and organisational attributes. For example, it seems interesting to
note that, in survey results, respondents from countries that showed the worst
perception of the effects of working abroad on personal relationships coincide
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with countries with the lowest willingness to work abroad, in line with previous
evidence in the literature domain (Zhu, Luthans, Chew, & Li, 2006). On the other
hand, in interviews results, bad perception about working abroad on personal
relationships seems to correlate with tougher requirements regarding choice
criteria for a job abroad, that is to say with higher ΔX. This coincidence could be
interesting to investigate further in order to determine the nature of the
relationship between ΔX and level of willingness to work abroad.
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Conclusion “Uma coisa é você achar que está no caminho certo, outra é achar que o seu
caminho é o único.” Paulo Coelho
In order to investigate whether, how much and how companies would have to
adjust their job offers to attract young engineers from other countries, and
whether these adjustments would differ when trying to attract engineers from
one country or another, the present research analysed data on the difference
(namely ΔX) between both scenarios of considering a job abroad versus
considering a job home of ratings in terms of perceived importance given by
young engineers and engineering students to a set of organisational and job
attributes for determining their intention to accept the job. Additionally, their
willingness to work abroad was investigated.
The six samples of respondents from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal
and Spain showed high willingness to work abroad in the early stage of their
career and expressed the existence of ΔX in both surveys and interviews data.
Furthermore, ΔX existed in a higher extent concerning tougher requirements on
“Income”, “Working benefits” and “Company’s reputation” criteria when
considering a job abroad. Most often, these results embedded the classical idea of
requiring a material compensation when being asked to work abroad, especially
because of leaving personal relationships, but also because of expected
additional expenses that would go with settling in a foreign country: more
travels, changing routines, less security, etc.
On the other hand, ΔX also concerned expressed more lenient requirements on
the other investigated criteria. Indeed, in light of a high interest for working
abroad among respondents, such experiences are sometimes valued enough -‐
because they are believed to bring benefits that a job in the home country could
not bring -‐ to accept compromises on some job and organisational aspects, and
especially on “Learning and personal development opportunities”, “Career
development opportunities”, “Challenge” and “Fit with ethical values” criteria.
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Nevertheless, results showed weak descriptive ΔX estimations variations
between countries. First, reasons to explain these variations do not seem
convincing; secondly the Kruskall-‐Wallis test performed on ΔX estimations for all
criteria did not provide evidence that these variations were significant, leading
us to conclude, in the scope of the present research, that the respondent’s home
country is not a satisfactory factor to explain variations of ΔX.
Though in the scope of this work no generalisation appeared to be acceptable
because of numerous theoretical and practical limitation, in practice results
about the existence of ΔX would imply that companies willing to internationally
recruit engineers out of the investigated European countries should take into
account the fact that the job and organisational criteria job seekers consider
critical at home are not necessarily considered as critical for a job abroad, and
vice versa. Specifically, for a given company with its fixed reputation, the
required adjustment would most likely concern the material rewards associated
to the job, including support during the assignments. On the other hand, there
exist young engineers that are open to compromise on job and organisational
attributes, including material ones, because they value the experience of working
abroad for benefits unrelated to job and organisational attributes that they
believe can only found through experiences of working abroad. In a context of
crises and increased necessity of recruiting abroad, especially regarding
engineers positions, this represents an opportunity for companies to attract
international young engineers with other arguments than purely related to job
and organisational attributes.
95
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Appendices NETWORKS
BEST BEST, Board of European Students of Technology is a non-‐profit and non-‐political organisation. Since 1989 it provides communication, co-‐operation and exchange possibilities for students all over Europe. The network consists of 95 Local BEST Groups in 33 countries. BEST mission is to help European students of technology to become more internationally minded, by reaching a better understanding of European cultures and developing capacities to work on an international basis. In order to do that, BEST provides opportunities for the students to meet and learn from one another through academic and non-‐academic events, educational symposia and an international career centre (BEST, 2013). The General Assembly of BEST is the annual meeting of the organisation, gathering delegates from all Local Groups. From the 18th to the 26th of April 2013, the event took place in Valladolid, Spain. The BEST Career Day opened the event, as it was a good opportunity to gather companies and engineering graduates/students, for fund raising regarding the event and for recruiting regarding the companies. The BEST Career Day was opened to participants of the General Assembly, as well as to applicants from all Europe – mainly reached through BEST channels – and local Spanish engineering graduates/students. Finally, the Alumni Meeting also happened in Valladolid during the General Assembly, providing additional pool of young engineers facing the beginning of their careers.
ESTIEM ESTIEM is an organisation for European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management, who combines technological understanding with management skills. The goal of ESTIEM is to establish and foster relations between students across Europe and to support them in their personal and professional development. The network consists of 72 Local Groups in 28 countries, reaching out to 50 000 students (ESTIEM, 2013). The Council Meeting of ESTIEM is a biannual general assembly of the organisation, gathering delegates from all Local Groups. From the 29th of April to the 5th of May 2013, the event took place in Eindhoven, The Netherland. The opening of the event consisted in Companies presentations. Also, an Alumni Meeting was held in Eindhoven during the Council Meeting.
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Careers International Careers International is a platform that specialises in bringing engineers together with employers, especially around Europe but also worldwide, and regarding international careers, through employer branding, sourcing, attracting, pre-‐selecting and recruiting. Careers International also organises International Recruitment Summits – such as both Top Engineering Europe summits that happened in Brussels during the 26 and 27th of April and in Berlin during the 6th and 7th of May 2013. These events permitted to companies and graduates to meet each other in face-‐to-‐face interviews on an invitation-‐only basis to fill job openings. These days give participants the opportunity to get to know each other and make informed career decisions (Careers Internationals, 2012).
Intelligence Group and The Network Intelligence Group is a Dutch research and consultancy agency with regard to recruitment marketing and recruitment that uses research methods in order to analyse and solve recruitment problems. This ranges from research reports and consultancy to recruitment marketing and Employer Branding problems on both national and international level. Intelligence Group is a trendsetting partner of important employers and recruitment-‐related parties especially in The Netherlands and also internationally (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010). The Network is an alliance of job boards (employment websites) dedicated to global recruitment and that provides hiring companies specific support and service on international recruitment. This service consists in a partnership between 36 partners bringing a direct link to job boards in a 119 countries worldwide, covering 84% of the world population (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2011).
Global Trend Mobility Survey
The GTMS is a large-‐scale international research carried out in 2006, 2009 and 2011 by members of The Network in partnership with Intelligence Group. This began with research across eight European countries: Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the UK, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, and later carried out across 66 countries. In all, 162,495 jobseekers were asked for their views on geographic mobility between June and September 2011. The GTMS aims to enable employers and recruiters to get a better understanding of how their national labour market works, and how it relates to the dynamics of the global labour market by looking at the latest recruitment trends and developments (Intelligence Group and The Network, 2010).
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SURVEY Notes:
• The greyed questions are the ones from which we did not analyse answers in the present work. Additionally collected data can be made available for further research.
• The criterion representing job stability, named “Job tenure”, was removed from our analysis because it appeared that many respondents did not understand or misunderstood was “Job tenure” means.
• The survey that was communicated online can be found via the following link: http://www.hrsurvey.be/index.php?sid=57258&newtest=Y&lang=en
Crit er ia o f f i r s t j ob cho i c e and wi l l ingnes s to work abroad
This survey is targeted to young European engineers or engineering students. It aims to assess your willingness to work abroad and to determine the critical factors taken
into account for your job choice at an early stage of your career. The information that you provide in the survey will stay confidential and will only be used for the purpose of my Business Engineering Master thesis at the Solvay Brussels School.
If you have any question regarding this survey, do not hesitate to contact me: [email protected].
In advance, thanks for taking the time to complete it.
A. General questions 1. *Age: __________ years 2. *Gender:
F M 3. a) Country of citizenship ___________________________________________________________ 3. b) Do you consider the country of your citizenship as your home country?
Yes No 3. c) If not, which country do you consider as your home country? ___________________________________________________________ 4. a) *What is the highest degree you obtained so far?
High school degree
Bachelor degree
Master degree
Ph.D. Other (specify): ______________________________________________
4. b) If you are still studying, what is your ongoing degree?
High school degree
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Bachelor degree
Master degree Other (specify): _____________________________________________
5. a) In which universities did you study so far? For each university, state the complete name and the number of semesters between parentheses. Example: Université Libre de Bruxelles (8 semesters) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 5. b) *What branch(es) of engineering did you study/are you currently studying? Also state your specialisation(s) between parentheses. Example: Electromechanical engineering (Business) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 6. a) Do you have working and/or learning experiences abroad ?
Yes No 6. b) If yes, through which of these means?
Erasmus/University exchange program
Events from international student organisations
Implication in international student organisations
Job/Internship
Volunteering
Job fairs
Other (specify):____________________________________________________
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B. Criteria of job choice *You just had a first interview with a company for a job that fits your profile. The JOB proposition requires you to work IN YOUR HOME COUNTRY. The interview went well and you are admitted the next step of the selection process. However, you remember the proposition and the information you were given during the interview, and you are still asking yourself whether you would accept the job if you successfully pass the final step. Rate the importance of the criteria that will drive your decision to accept the job or not. Please consider the criteria relative to each others (avoid choosing the same column for all criteria). Not
important Neutral Relatively
important Important Very
Important Income (=net salary)
Working benefits (other than monetary)
Career development opportunities
Challenge (=variation, difficulties in the tasks)
Job Tenure (=whether you are likely to keep the job as long as you want)
Learning and personal development opportunities
Company's reputation
Fit with your ethical values
Opportunities to travel and work abroad
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C. Willingness to work abroad 1. Regarding the maintaining of you personal relationships (family, friends and love), do you perceive the fact of working abroad for a period of time of 1 to 4 years as (circle one proposition):
§ Very harmful : I would not leave for more than one year § Harmful : I would try and see how it goes § Neutral : If it is still on the same continent, distance does not matter § Positive : My closest ties will accept it and I will make even more ties
abroad § Irrelevant : My career is more important § Other (specify):_________________________________________________
2. *Would you accept a job that requires you to work abroad?
Yes No -‐>Go to 2. a) -‐> hand in the survey 2. a) Willing to work abroad
1) How much are you willing to work abroad in the early stage of your career? (Circle a number)
1 2 3 4 5 Not much very much
2) You are in the same situation as explained in section B., except that the JOB proposition requires you to work and live ABROAD. Rate the importance of the criteria that will drive your decision to accept the job or not. Please consider the criteria relative to each others (avoid choosing the same column for all criteria).
• Regarding the job
Not important
Neutral Relatively important
Important Very Important
Income (=net salary)
Working benefits (other than monetary)
Career development opportunities
Challenge (=variation, difficulties in the tasks)
Job Tenure (=whether you are likely to keep the job as
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long as you want) Learning and personal development opportunities
Company's reputation
Fit with your ethical values
Support provided by the company (i.e. abroad : accommodation, administration, etc.)
• Regarding the host country (=The country where you will work if you accept the job)
Not important
Neutral Relatively important
Important Very Important
Language (whether you know it/are willing to learn)
Security and risk (political stability, economic situation, etc.)
Cultural differences
Accessibility to home country (affordable flights, short distances, etc.)
• Regarding your relation ties
Not important
Neutral Relatively important
Important Very Important
Friends
Family
Boy/girlfriend or spouse
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3) Regardless of the job you want or the company you want to work for, for
what reasons you would be willing to work abroad? I value the new experiences it will bring me
I want to learn a new language
I want to discover new cultures
I am adventurous
I am young
I am an extravert
I am open-‐minded
I have relation ties abroad
I have few ties in my home country
I do not like living in my home country
There are more interesting job opportunities abroad than in my home country
Working conditions are often better abroad than in my home country
My net income would be better abroad that in my home country 2. Your e-‐mail address:_________________________________________________ (OPTIONAL -‐ It will be used only in case further information is required.
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INTERVIEW GUIDE Notes: • The greyed questions are the ones from which we did not analyse answers in
the present work. • The underlined question also corresponds to the specific question asked to
some respondents after filling the survey. 1. Personal characteristics
a. Gender b. Context of meeting the respondent c. How old are you? d. What is your home country? e. What did you study?
i. Did you already obtain your degree? ii. Which branch(s) of engineering do you/did you study? iii. Which specialisation(s) did you choose?
f. In which universities did you study? 2. Previous international experience
a. Did you go on exchange/ERASMUS? b. What kind of international experiences do you have (except holiday
travelling)? 3. Previous professional experience
a. Do you currently have a job? i. In which company do you/did you work/have an internship?
ii. What is/was your main task? iii. If you are not working there anymore, why so?
b. Are you currently looking for a job? 4. Important criteria taken into account for a job
a. What kind of job are you/would you be looking for? b. What are the main criteria you take into account in a job you are
looking for? 5. Willingness to work abroad
a. Are you interested in working abroad? Explain. i. How much are you willing to work abroad? ii. How long could you work abroad?
1. How do you think it will impact your relationships in your home country? (Family, friends, love, etc.)
iii. Why are you looking for a job abroad? 1. What are you looking for abroad that you cannot
find in your home country? 2. Would you value the job choice criteria you consider
important the same way when considering a job home than when considering a job abroad? If so, why? Or: When completing the survey, did you value job choice criteria the same way when considering the
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job home and when considering the job abroad? If so/if not, why?
iv. Do you have a preference for a country? 1. Have you already been there? Explain. 2. Why do you prefer this country?
v. Think about a country with a very different culture from yours. Which country would it be?
1. Have you already been in such country? 2. Would you accept to work in such country? 3. If you were assigned in such country, do you think
you could adapt to the local culture?
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SURVEY RESULTS
AVGXHjk Notes:
• Scale: 1 = Not important; 2=Neutral; 3=Relatively Important; 4=Important; 5=Very Important
Country Moyenne Ecart-‐type
N
XH1Income Belg 3,58 ,924 103 Fran 3,83 ,643 46 Germ 3,74 ,658 43 Ital 3,47 ,935 59 Port 3,86 ,724 56 Spai 3,61 ,825 74 Total 3,66 ,827 381
XH2WorkingBenefits Belg 3,49 ,884 103 Fran 3,65 ,849 46 Germ 3,67 ,837 43 Ital 3,47 ,935 59 Port 3,86 ,819 56 Spai 3,66 1,011 74 Total 3,61 ,904 381
XH3CareerDevOp Belg 4,34 ,835 103 Fran 4,37 ,645 46 Germ 4,44 ,666 43 Ital 4,42 ,792 59 Port 4,63 ,558 56 Spai 4,53 ,646 74 Total 4,45 ,718 381
XH5Challenge Belg 4,18 ,825 103 Fran 3,80 ,885 46 Germ 4,37 ,846 43 Ital 3,86 1,008 59 Port 4,07 ,759 56 Spai 3,85 ,975 74 Total 4,03 ,901 381
XH6Learning Belg 4,54 ,683 103 Fran 4,26 ,773 46 Germ 4,53 ,702 43 Ital 4,42 ,835 59 Port 4,45 ,737 56 Spai 4,43 ,760 74 Total 4,45 ,744 381
XH7Company Belg 3,08 1,082 103 Fran 3,15 1,053 46 Germ 3,14 1,037 43 Ital 3,32 ,937 59 Port 3,48 1,009 56 Spai 2,97 1,046 74 Total 3,17 1,041 381
XH8Ideals Belg 3,71 1,072 103
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Fran 3,67 ,920 46 Germ 3,84 ,949 43 Ital 3,53 1,056 59 Port 3,95 ,923 56 Spai 3,85 1,002 74 Total 3,75 1,006 381
XH9OppAbroad Belg 3,55 1,118 103 Fran 4,04 1,115 46 Germ 3,81 1,139 43 Ital 4,34 ,863 59 Port 3,91 ,959 56 Spai 3,81 ,917 74 Total 3,87 1,049 381
AVGXAjk Notes:
• The difference between number of respondents for the same question related to a job home and the present question corresponds to the respondents who mentioned they were not interested in working abroad in the early stage of their career.
• Scale: 1 = Not important; 2=Neutral; 3=Relatively Important; 4=Important; 5=Very Important
Country Moyenne Ecart-‐type N XA1Income Belg 3,97 1,029 100
Fran 3,87 ,694 45 Germ 3,91 ,840 43 Ital 3,59 ,956 58 Port 4,13 ,728 54 Spai 4,01 ,852 74 Total 3,92 ,895 374
XA2WorkingBenefits Belg 3,71 1,047 100 Fran 3,80 ,757 45 Germ 3,77 ,972 43 Ital 3,67 ,846 58 Port 4,07 ,773 54 Spai 3,85 ,871 74 Total 3,80 ,908 374
XA3CareerDevOp Belg 4,19 ,971 100 Fran 4,36 ,712 45 Germ 4,56 ,548 43 Ital 4,45 ,705 58 Port 4,61 ,596 54 Spai 4,38 ,753 74 Total 4,39 ,777 374
XA5Challenge Belg 4,07 ,820 100 Fran 3,84 ,673 45 Germ 4,05 1,022 43 Ital 3,78 ,974 58 Port 4,02 ,858 54 Spai 3,82 1,052 74 Total 3,94 ,911 374
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XA6Learning Belg 4,51 ,643 100 Fran 4,22 ,735 45 Germ 4,40 ,728 43 Ital 4,43 ,819 58 Port 4,41 ,714 54 Spai 4,38 ,753 74 Total 4,41 ,726 374
XA7Company Belg 3,29 1,113 100 Fran 3,29 1,036 45 Germ 3,28 1,202 43 Ital 3,29 1,092 58 Port 3,81 ,953 54 Spai 3,19 1,106 74 Total 3,34 1,099 374
XA8Ideals Belg 3,63 1,098 100 Fran 3,69 ,874 45 Germ 4,00 ,900 43 Ital 3,45 1,079 58 Port 4,06 ,899 54 Spai 3,69 1,033 74 Total 3,72 1,021 374
XA9SupportFromCompany
Belg 3,92 ,918 100 Fran 3,78 1,020 45 Germ 3,70 1,124 43 Ital 3,83 ,881 58 Port 4,20 ,762 54 Spai 3,88 ,950 74 Total 3,90 ,942 374
Levels of W
Incentives and obstacles to W
Reasons to work abroad Tableau croisé Country * ReasonBetterOpp
Effectif ReasonBetterOpp Total
0 1 Country Belg 67 36 103
Fran 34 12 46
How much are you willing to work abroad ? Total Other Not much A bit Neutral A lot Very
much Country Belg 7 5 9 20 25 37 103
Fran 1 1 1 4 19 20 46 Germ 0 1 2 11 14 15 43 Ital 1 0 2 9 15 32 59 Port 2 1 4 11 14 24 56 Spai 0 0 1 14 30 29 74
Total 11 8 19 69 117 157 381
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Germ 39 4 43 Ital 23 36 59 Port 18 38 56 Spai 23 51 74
Total 204 177 381 Tableau croisé Country * ReasonBetterWorkingConditions Effectif ReasonBetterWorkin
gConditions Total
0 1 Country Belg 93 10 103
Fran 31 15 46 Germ 42 1 43 Ital 19 40 59 Port 22 34 56 Spai 28 46 74
Total 235 146 381 Tableau croisé Country * ReasonBetterIncome Effectif ReasonBetterIncome Total
0 1 Country Belg 79 24 103
Fran 39 7 46 Germ 38 5 43 Ital 29 30 59 Port 20 36 56 Spai 42 32 74
Total 247 134 381
Perception of effects on personal relationships Tableau croisé Country * WillPerception
Effectif
WillPerception Total
-‐oth Very harmful
Harmful Neutral Positive Irrelevant
Country Belg 1 3 8 28 11 46 6 103
Fran 0 0 3 8 8 27 0 46
Germ 0 0 5 11 7 18 2 43
Ital 0 0 1 10 17 23 8 59
Port 0 0 2 11 14 25 4 56
Spai 0 0 0 13 12 41 8 74
Total 1 3 19 81 69 180 28 381
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Previous international experience
• For information purpose: another important characteristic of our sample is the presence of previous international experience, which gives us an idea of how they might have been reached given that we used several channels in order to do so. The following graph shows the percentage of respondents per type of international experience and per country.
Percentage of respondents with international experience, per type of international experience and country
Int. Students Org.: 36%
ERASMUS/
Exchange: 43%
Job/Internship: 13%
Volunteering: 13%
Job Fairs: 7%
Other: 7%
No int. Experience: 19%
Belgium 25% 52% 22% 13% 2% 9% 20% France 37% 33% 28% 15% 2% 4% 11% Germany 51% 40% 44% 7% 14% 9% 5% Italy 41% 51% 39% 12% 19% 2% 17% Portugal 31% 33% 29% 12% 4% 8% 33% Spain 43% 40% 35% 15% 6% 8% 21%
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%
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DAVGXjk Delta averages : Abroad-‐Home Average Belgium France Germany Italy Portugal Spain -‐0,05 -‐0,06 -‐0,04 -‐0,14 0,02 -‐0,02 -‐0,05 -‐0,06 -‐0,17 0,00 0,12 0,02 0,00 -‐0,15 -‐0,10 -‐0,14 -‐0,02 -‐0,33 -‐0,09 -‐0,02 -‐0,03 0,28 0,39 0,07 0,16 0,14 0,31 0,41 0,21 0,24 0,18 0,09 0,22 0,26 0,19 -‐0,03 -‐0,09 -‐0,02 0,16 -‐0,07 0,11 -‐0,16 0,17 0,20 0,18 0,14 -‐0,05 0,33 0,22
ABSDXjk Notes:
• Corresponding results equal to the ones resulting from the job home scenario have replaced the blanks for respondents not willing to work abroad, therefore resulting in a difference equal to 0.
• The following shows results corresponding to the differences between job choice criteria ratings for a job abroad and job choice criteria ratings for a job home, for each respondent, brought then in absolute value.
Statistiques descriptives Country Moyenne Ecart-‐type N ABSDX1Income Belg ,51 ,624 103
Fran ,28 ,455 46 Germ ,49 ,506 43 Ital ,34 ,633 59 Port ,45 ,502 56 Spai ,46 ,601 74 Total ,44 ,575 381
ABSDX2WorkingBenefits Belg ,49 ,624 103 Fran ,30 ,511 46 Germ ,47 ,702 43 Ital ,46 ,678 59 Port ,39 ,562 56 Spai ,43 ,599 74 Total ,43 ,615 381
ABSDX3CareerOpp Belg ,38 ,702 103 Fran ,39 ,577 46 Germ ,35 ,573 43 Ital ,25 ,544 59 Port ,18 ,386 56 Spai ,31 ,547 74 Total ,31 ,581 381
ABSDX5Challenge Belg ,27 ,489 103 Fran ,28 ,502 46 Germ ,42 ,731 43 Ital ,36 ,580 59 Port ,30 ,537 56 Spai ,41 ,660 74
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Total ,33 ,577 381 ABSDX6Learning Belg ,31 ,578 103
Fran ,22 ,417 46 Germ ,33 ,606 43 Ital ,19 ,508 59 Port ,23 ,467 56 Spai ,35 ,508 74 Total ,28 ,524 381
ABSDX7Company Belg ,50 ,684 103 Fran ,30 ,591 46 Germ ,33 ,522 43 Ital ,56 ,815 59 Port ,46 ,738 56 Spai ,49 ,707 74 Total ,46 ,693 381
ABSDX8Ideals Belg ,26 ,464 103 Fran ,15 ,363 46 Germ ,30 ,638 43 Ital ,27 ,582 59 Port ,34 ,668 56 Spai ,27 ,531 74 Total ,27 ,540 381
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SUMABSDXj SUMABSXDXTotal (all criteria) Country Moyenne N Ecart-‐type Belg 2,73 103 2,314 Fran 1,93 46 1,993 Germ 2,67 43 2,523 Ital 2,42 59 2,207 Port 2,36 56 2,153 Spai 2,72 74 2,291 Total 2,52 381 2,259 One-‐Way-‐ANOVA : Verification of homogeneity of variances absdifRanksSUMABSDX
Somme des carrés ddl Moyenne des carrés F Signification
Inter-‐groupes
15485,812 5 3097,162 1,076 0,373
Intra-‐groupes
1079239,389 375 2877,972
Total 1094725,201 380 Test de Kruskal-‐Wallis Rangs Countrynb N Rang moyen SUMABSXDXTotal 1 103 200,85
2 46 162,35 3 43 193,22 4 59 187,08 5 56 184,34 6 74 201,98 Total 381
Test SUMABSXDXTotal Khi-‐deux 5,102 ddl 5 Signification asymptotique ,404
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INTERVIEWS AND SPECIFIC QUESTION RESULTS Notes:
• The following table shows the categories of resulting answers and the percentages representing the amount of answers, per country and category, divided by the total for all countries of answers in the category. The last column to the right represents the percentage of total answers per category divided by the total answers for all categories.
• It is important to note that the total of answers given is not equal to the total of respondents, as one respondent’s words can contain several answers that can be put in different categories.
• In the previous table, it is difficult to see the differences between countries as the amount of respondents per countries are unequal. This is why, in the Results section, we divided the percentages with the number of respondents per countries, and the obtained numbers that were multiplied by 1000 in order to make them easily readable and comparable per country.
Percentages of complete interviews and specific question answers about DX (Abroad -‐ Home) per total of answers for all countries in the category (R values); the last column represents the percentage R/RTotal
Category of answer BE FR GE IT PT SP R %R Indifferent 35% 22% 33% 10% 10% 10 7% Other than job 62% 8% 8% 22% 13 9% Timing subtlety 55% 45% 2 1%
Company support 22% 58% 20% 5 3%
ΔX<0
Anything 15% 15% 56% 15% 7 5%
Salary 38% 13% 26% 13% 11% 8 5%
Stability 31% 40% 29% 10 7%
ΔX>0
Everything In general 28% 25% 48% 4 3%
Leave relationships 100% 4 3%
Working benefits 33% 67% 3 2%
In general 11% 11% 34% 44% 18 12%
Salary Leave relationships 10% 9% 17% 8% 19% 36% 11 7%
More expected expenses
In general 22% 21% 7% 15% 35% 14 9% Travels 100% 2 1%
Leave parents' place 28% 51% 21% 4 3%
Change routine 100% 2 1%
Less security 15% 27% 29% 29% 7 5%
Company's reputation
In general 33% 18% 35% 15% 6 4% For CV 37% 30% 33% 3 2%
Career opportunities 17% 17% 17% 48% 6 4%
Learning and personal development 100% 4 3% Challenge 100% 3 2% Stability 53% 48% 2 1%
Total country respondents (131) 39 8 15 19 21 29 148
