Academic expatriation to emerging economies: A career perspective

Although the globalization of the academic labor market offers many advantages to academic institutions and their students, less is known about its (dis)advantages for academic expatriates’ careers. This paper seeks explanations of how academic expatriates aspire to invest in their careers in emerging economies by engaging both with the evidence of intelligent career theory, and with the literature on academic expatriation to emerging economies and on higher education. On the basis of these different streams of the literature, this paper identifies and outlines the institutional practices that could influence academic expatriates’ careers. This paper suggests that future research on academic expatriation to emerging economies can develop in at least three directions, namely, (a) the institutional practices at academic institutions in emerging economies, (b) the careers of academic expatriates, and (c) a reciprocal relationship between institutional practices and the individual careers of academic expatriates.