Seconded National Experts and global mobility—Extending the paradigm

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/tie.21951
• Author: Emma Parry,Phil St John Renshaw,Michael Dickmann
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018

THE CHANGING NATURE OF EXPATRIATION

Seconded National Experts and global mobility—Extending

the paradigm

Phil St John Renshaw | Emma Parry | Michael Dickmann

Cranfield University, School of Management,

Cranfield, Bedfordshire, England

Correspondence

Phil St John Renshaw, Cranfield University,

School of Management, College Road,

Cranfield, MK43 0AL, UK.

Email: phil.renshaw@cranfield.ac.uk

Global mobility is an expanding field of academic research, which identifies an increasing range

of modern variants of people working abroad. The community of Seconded National Experts

(SNEs) in the institutions, bodies, and agencies of the European Union (EU) is a distinct cate-

gory of internationally mobile employees, which has so far been neglected. This article assesses

the features of this influential group of people and compares them to other communities within

the generally recognized expatriate community. The unique nature of SNEs and hence the chal-

lenges that need to be considered by human resource (HR) practitioners to ensure they achieve

their desired goals at organizational and individual levels are identified. The findings suggest

that expatriate typologies should be extended to include this unique community and provide

further guidance to HR practitioners. Finally, areas for additional research are offered, with the

aim of learning from SNEs to extend international assignment theory.

KEYWORDS

global mobility, international assignments, Seconded National Experts

1|INTRODUCTION

The complexity involved in global staffing decisions, as well as the

significant costs involved at both a human and organizational level,

are widely acknowledged (Caligiuri, Tarique, & Jacobs, 2009; Dick-

mann, Doherty, Mills, & Brewster, 2008; D. E. Welch & Worm, 2006).

Accordingly, it is imperative to understand the different potential cat-

egorizations of international assignment (IA) to enable both effective

management of the processes by human resource (HR) practitioners

and the achievement of successful outcomes for each IA. Baruch,

Dickmann, Altman, and Bournois (2013) provided a typology of global

careerists to assist in this. Nevertheless, global mobility research has

to date neglected to discuss Seconded National Experts (SNEs). SNE

is a defined term within European Union legislation (Council of the

European Union, 2014), and a small vein of literature on SNEs exists

within the field of politics, governance, and bureaucratic representa-

tion, for example (Sundström, 2016; Suvarierol, Busuioc, & Groenleer,

2013; Trondal, Murdoch, & Geys, 2015). The SNE community has

several characteristics that distinguish it from existing IA frameworks,

including, for example, the movement of individuals between sepa-

rate organizations that might have conflicting agendas.

The majority of research in the field of expatriation and IAs con-

siders the benefits and implications for private, profit-driven multina-

tional corporations (MNCs) and seeks to categorize the different

types of assignees by career types or MNC organizational needs. In

addition, there has been a focus on U.S. MNCs (Collings, Scullion, &

Morley, 2007). In line with other papers seeking to expand this

research (Collings et al., 2007; McNulty, De Cieri, & Hutchings,

2013), this article draws attention to a distinct European group of

public-sector IAs. It seeks to identify the characteristics of the SNE

community, determine how best to categorize this within extant

frameworks, and consider the implications for our understanding of

expatriation.

This article argues that the SNE warrants specific consideration

within existing IA frameworks given the inability to fit it into any

existing categorization and, more importantly, given the conse-

quences for expatriate theorization and practical HR management.

Such a new categorization supports the need for flexibility within HR

processes and systems. This will enable updated guidance for HR

practitioners including in public-sector organizations at a time when

global changes, such as the “Brexit”phenomenon, create increasing

levels of uncertainty and complexity (Cumming & Zahra, 2016).

DOI: 10.1002/tie.21951

Thunderbird Int Bus Rev. 2018;60:897–909. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/tie © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 897