What Predicts Receptivity to International Careers of Young Employees? The Links of Personal Agency and the Perceived Environment

This study sought to understand the person and environment factors related to young employees' receptivity to international careers using constructs from social cognitive career theory. The longitudinal sample comprised 213 Australian employees aged 26 or younger who responded to a follow-up survey, two years after they were surveyed when final year undergraduate business students. Beyond 2-year earlier receptivity to international careers and control variables, receptivity to international careers was positively related to current and 2-year earlier outcome expectancies, negatively to current family influence and presence of partners, and positively to working in organizations with an international focus. Destination made a difference. Employees who preferred countries easy to work in had lower receptivity to working in culturally dissimilar but not culturally similar countries to Australia than those who did not. The qualitative results supported respondents' missing family and friends as the major barrier to taking international jobs, and outcome expectancies as a key factor. Discussion centered on the links found for barriers, opportunities, and outcome expectancies, to receptivity to international careers, in contrast to the lack of links found for human resource support and self-efficacy for international work and life.