Bibliometric analysis of expatriates in the scope of human resource management

Abstract

In the current era of globalization in the workplace, employees no longer labor solely within a single nation. Current employees are also able to work abroad, apply for positions abroad, and work for domestic companies with overseas locations. This era of globalization affords us the chance to observe cross-cultural diversity and the development and expansion of intercultural interaction, so that expatriate adjustments are very significant and management of cross-cultural employees presents significant challenges. Expatriates are employees brought in by companies from abroad to be employed in the company. Expatriate employees are required to adapt to local culture and be able to manage their stress. This study uses Bibliometric Analysis as a research method using the keyword Expatriate. This study aims to find out the literature review related to expatriates in the scope of Human Resource Management. There were 7,193 articles found obtained from Scopus, then the articles were selected so that 123 articles were used in this study. This study also uses the Vos Viewer application to categorize and visualize co-authorship, co-accuracy, and citation.

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ASIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
2023, VOL. 2, NO. 2, 528 – 533
https://doi.org/
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CONTACT Rikardus Kurnia Lango
rikardus.kurnia.2204138@students.um.ac.id
© 2023 The Author(s) . Published with license by Lighthous e Publishing .
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License
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Bibliometric analysis of expatriates in the scope of human resource management
Rikardus Kurnia Lango*
Madziatul Churiyah
Arief Noviarakhman Zagladi
Master of Management, State University of Malang, East Java Indonesia
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
In the current era of globalization in the workplace, employees no longer labor solely within a single
nation. Current employees are also able to work abroad, apply for positions abroad, and work for
domestic companies with overseas locations. This era of globalization affords us the chance to observe
cross-cultural diversity and the development and expansion of intercultural interaction, so that
expatriate adjustments are very significant and management of cross-cultural employees presents
significant challenges. Expatriates are employees brought in by companies from abroad to be
employed in the company. Expatriate employees are required to adapt to local culture and be able to
manage their stress. This study uses Bibliometric Analysis as a research method using the keyword
Expatriate. This study aims to find out the literature review related to expatriates in the scope of
Human Resource Management. There were 7,193 articles found obtained from Scopus, then the
articles were selected so that 123 articles were used in this study. This study also uses the Vos Viewer
application to categorize and visualize co-authorship, co-accuracy, and citation.
Bibliometric Analysis;
Expatriates; Human Resource
Management
Received: 1 April 2023
Accepted: 2 May 2023
Published: 6 May 2023
Introduction
In the current era of globalization in the world of work, employees now do not only work within the country.
Current employees can also work abroad, apply for jobs abroad, and work for domestic companies located abroad.
This era of globalization is an opportunity to see cross-cultural diversity and to see the development and increase of
intercultural interaction so that expatriate adjustments are very significant and require important challenges in
managing cross-cultural employees (Panda et al., 2022). Expatriate employees also have the term Self-Initiated
Expatriates (SIEs) which is useful for meeting the needs of employees within the company as well as providing
important competitive knowledge for the companies where they work to remain relevant in the business world in this
modern era. (Kumar et al., 2022). Self-Initiated Expatriates (SIEs) usually organize their expatriates in a country of
their choice for personal and professional development experience (Mello et al., 2023). With the increasing
internationalization of business life, the need for skilled workers called expatriates working abroad will increase
dramatically (Biswas et al., 2022). In general, expatriate workers have long-term work experience in companies and
are considered socialized before they work abroad. (Ahrens et al., 2018).
Some of the explanations above note that in the current era of globalization, employees can work abroad and
see cross-cultural diversity from the destination country and can interact across cultures. Expatriate employees also
have a place to increase competitive knowledge to meet employee needs. These expatriate employees generally have
a lot of experience in their scope of work so those who will be taken abroad are ready to work professionally. Expatriate
employees have high challenges at work. Apart from cultural differences, they also experience obstacles after the
world experienced the covid 19 pandemic. It can be seen from expatriate employees that they often receive different
treatment and certain prejudices by residents because of their status as foreign citizens, the possibility of
discrimination in the workplace, and triggering related stress. work that has a high-stress environment due to the
Covid 19 pandemic (Koveshnikov et al., 2022). The opportunity for discrimination is also a challenge for expatriate
workers who are female. There are barriers to the presence of women in the international workforce because the lack
of international experience of women workers can be an obstacle to their career advancement. In addition, there is
host country prejudice against female expatriate employees and their rejection of foreign cultures and cultural
differences between the host country and the country of origin (Bastida, 2018).
Based on this phenomenon, the authors are very interested in researching expatriate employees using
bibliometric analysis. The analysis will go through 5 stages and the results of this analysis are expected to be able to
find out what terms link the keywords of expatriates and be able to find out which countries have researched research
that discusses expatriate employees themselves. The analysis uses the VOS Viewer application which will display the
results of the analysis and then continue in the discussion session and conclusions.

ASIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 529
Method
This study uses a bibliometric analysis method which consists of five steps, namely: Determining the keywords
to be searched for, initial search results, improving search results, making initial statistics, and data analy sis This
research uses five methods (Setyaningsih et al., 2018). The five stages of the research can be presented in Figure 1
below:
Figure 1. 5 Stages in Bibliometric Researrch Process
Search keywords
This study was conducted in April 2023 by conducting a database search using the search term "Expatriate".
In this case, the author uses bibliometrics to find out several relevant research topics as well as development research.
The initial stage starts by typing the keyword "expatriates" in the Keywords section of the Scopus application. The
final step in this process is to determine the year of the data item, namely the period 1997-2023.
Initial search result
In stage 2, the authors set specific keywords that produce search data for journals on Scopus. In the first
search stage, authors using the keyword "Expatriate" found 7,193 articles they were looking for according to that
keyword.
Refinement of Search Result
The next step is to filter by sorting a consistent object data set based on predefined keywords. The selection
of object data is done directly in Scopus by adjusting the existing filters so that after the filters in Scopus have been
set, there are 123 journals used in this study.
Liminary data statistics
The next step is after finding 123 journals that will be used in the bibliometric analysis, the authors save all
of these journals in CSV form with the file type Microsoft Excel. The file already contains the complete identity of the
article such as the author's name, keywords, title, abstract, journal publication, year of publication, editor, volume,
and analysis of references related to this research topic.
Data analysist
Furthermore, in this study, the authors used the VOSviewer software or application to analyze and visualize
the bibliometric network of results from predetermined keyword searches. VOSviewer itself can be used to create
author maps or journals based on co-citation data or keyword maps based on co-occurrence data. VOSviewer can
display keyword maps and journal publication authors in different ways depending on the research topic.
Result
The purpose of this study is to find out the sources of literature with the keyword "expatriate", from the period
1997 - 2023. The author has analyzed three aspects, namely: co-authorship, co-occurrence, and citation. With the help
of bibliometric analysis of literature studies conducted with VOSviewer software, the results are obtained as described
Five Stages of Bibliometric Research
Search Keyword
Initial Search Result
Refinement of Search
Results
liminary Data Statistics
Data Analysist

530 Rikardus Kurnia Lango, Madziatul Churiyah, Arief Noviarakhman Zagladi
in the following section. Researchers used at least one event in each presentation of co-authorship, co-occurrence,
and citation metadata for available literature on expatriates from various research studies. The use of VOSviewer
software is to classify and visualize data collected by researchers.
Figure 2. Network Visualization of Co Authorship Metadata (Keyword)
Figure 2 demonstrates that there are a variety of Expatriates-related keyword categories. Expats have a
significant impact on a country's culture. Expats are also required to acclimatise to the host country's culture. They
must adapt to and navigate daily life in the host culture while being influenced by cultural distance, knowledge of the
host culture, and contact with citizens of the host culture. (Reed et al., 2023). In addition to adjusting to the local
culture, expatriate employees must also manage their work stress. It is possible for expatriates to experience high
levels of work-related tension due to the fact that, in addition to the cultural differences of the host country, they also
work far from their families. However, expatriate employees have their own methods, such as female expatriate nurses
using a variety of social media communication tools to maintain emotional stability, strengthen their mental health,
and continue to extend their tenure in the host country. (Mohd Yusuf et al., 2021).
Figure 3. Overlay Visualization Against Co-Occurance Metadata (Keywords)
According to the preceding image, there is a progression of keywords that emerge from year to year. The more
recent the research, the more yellow these keywords will appear. There are host country nationals, talent, and
diplomat as the most recent keywords for research. According to research by Peltokorpi (2020), 1,290 National Host
Country employees in Japan support the hypothesis that HCN organisational identity moderates the positive

ASIAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 531
relationship between HCN expatriate outgroup categorisation and dual identity, and that dual identity mediates the
relationship between outgroup expatriate categories and two prosocial behaviours: information sharing and
citizenship behaviour affiliate.
Figure 4. Network Visualization of Co Authorship Metadata (Country)
According to Figure 4, these nations conduct the most searches using the keyword "expatriot." Frequently, the
United Kingdom conducts research on employee expatriates. Additionally, the United Kingdom itself is a popular
destination for prospective expatriate employees. In addition, several Asian nations conduct research on expatriates.
Singapore and Malaysia are among the nations that have conducted research on expatriate employees. Singapore and
Malaysia are also popular destinations for expatriates seeking employment opportunities.
The purpose of analysing the most cited publications on the topic of expatriate employee research is to
determine which research articles have the greatest impact on the growth of knowledge in this field. Information
about five journals was extracted from CSV files in Microsoft Excel.
Table 1. Top five cited journals
No
Year
Author
Title
Journal
Cites
Publisher
1
2007
Collings D.G.;
Scullion H.;
Morley M.J.
Changing patterns of global
staffing in the multinational
enterprise: Challenges to the
conventional expatriate
assignment and emerging
alternatives
Journal of
World Business
464
Elsevier Inc.
2
1997
Inkson K.;
Arthur M.B.;
Pringle J.; Barry
S.
Expatriate assignment versus
overseas experience: Contrasting
models of international human
resource development
Journal of
World Business
297
Elsevier Inc.
3
2014
Andresen M.;
Bergdolt F.;
Margenfeld J.;
Dickmann M.
Addressing international
mobility confusion - developing
definitions and differentiations
for self-initiated and assigned
expatriates as well as migrants
International
Journal of
Human
Resource
Management
173
Routledge
4
2010
Howe-Walsh L.;
Schyns B.
Self-initiated expatriation:
Implications for hrm
International
Journal of
Human
Resource
Management
153
Routledge
5
2007
Huang T.-J.; Chi
S.-C.; Lawler J.J.
The relationship between
expatriates' personality traits
and their adjustment to
international assignments
International
Journal of
Human
Resource
Management
132
Routledge

532 Rikardus Kurnia Lango, Madziatul Churiyah, Arief Noviarakhman Zagladi
Based on the table presented above, 5 supporting journals have the most citations of other supporting
journals. The research year of the journal is also different, from the latest in 2014 and the oldest in 1997. The journal
is published through Elsevier Inc. and Routledge so these journals are all on an international scale. The journals all
discuss the expatriate keyword.
Discussion
According to the results presented in the section above, the expatriate keyword has a close relationship with
other keywords. Beginning with the first bibliometric results, expatriate employees are subject to the host country's
cultural influence. Additionally, expatriates must be adept at assimilating to the local culture, which may be distinct
from that of their home country. In addition, expatriates are inextricably linked to the gender equality of expatriate
employees. Self-Initiated Expatriate is also closely associated with the term "expat." Successful Self-Initiated
Expatriates (SIEs) are more likely to have professional cultural competence and are better equipped to interact with
nationals of the host country. However, SIEs are not a homogenous group, as they come from different countries with
different beliefs, values, and expertise (Singh et al., 2022). Based on the year of research in the results of the
bibliometric analysis, each year's research on expatriates contains the most recent keywords. Yellow-colored keywords
signify that they are only used in the present tense. In addition, the third bibliometric view reveals that the majority
of European countries featured in the study contain expatriate-related topics. The United Kingdom is the nation that
discusses expatriates most frequently. In addition to European nations, there are non-European nations like Singapore,
Malaysia, Japan, and others.
Additionally, the five journals related to expatriates with the most citations are listed below. Research
journals have the most citations of other journals written by (Collings et al., 2007) that companies recruit expatriates
to fill positions when qualified nationals of the host country (HCNs) are unavailable. Second, as a method of
management development, it aims to improve the individual competence of managers. Thirdly, as a method of
organisational development intended to increase the transmission of knowledge within multinational corporations
(MNCs) and to modify and maintain organisational structures and decision-making processes. The second journal
(Pringle & Arthur, 1997) that examined Expatriate Assignment and Overseas Experience suggested that OE could be a
more significant means of knowledge acquisition, individual enrichment, and national human resource development
than EA. Third Journal from (Andresen et al., 2014) who examined expatriates using the keywords self-initiated and
assigned expatriates. Similarly, (Howe-walsh & Schyns, 2010) investigated Self-Initiated Expatriates and sought to
understand the implications for human resource management. The fifth journal examined by (Huang et al., 2007) also
examines expatriates through the lens of personality.
Conclusion
Based on the results of the bibliometric analysis collected, as well as the discussion on expatriates, it is
explained that expatriate employees must adapt to the culture of the host country's citizens, besides that expatriate
employees must also manage their work stress in one way of contacting their families using social media applications.
There are new keywords in every research related to expatriates, as well as countries that often conduct research
related to expatriates because these countries are favorite destinations for prospective expatriates who will later work
abroad. The limitations of this study are that researchers only use open-access journals related to expatriates, besides
that researchers do not use books and others as research references and the journal only uses English text.
Researchers hope that other researchers who will study expatriates can use journals other than English and use
references such as books and other sources in research.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the parties involved in this research
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.
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