Redefining success abroad: career success schemas of self-initiated expatriate women

Abstract

Purpose This study examines how self-initiated expatriate (SIE) women construct and articulate career success schemas in their home country and identifies the factors shaping their understanding of career success after expatriation. To capture these dynamics, we draw on two temporal episodes, the pre-move origin episode and the post-move host episode, to gain insights into women's lived experiences within global mobility. Design/methodology/approach Employing a qualitative research methodology, we use thematic analysis to interpret data from 30 semi-structured interviews conducted with Tunisian SIE women, structured through a temporal bracketing approach. Findings Our findings offer a fresh perspective on the career success schemas of SIE women, highlighting the multidimensional, contextually embedded nature of these constructs. First, we identify four holistic career success schemas (i.e. Stability, Autonomy, Advancement, and Solidarity) that, together, capture how Tunisian SIE women define career success beyond dominant Western paradigms and the objective/subjective dichotomy. Second, we show that these schemas are not static but are cognitive and contextual. Third, we identify a set of host-country factors that participants found most relevant, acting as editing mechanisms that can amplify or mute career schemas, highlighting the necessity for a more dynamic, context-sensitive approach when examining career success. Originality/value This study is among the first to apply a schema-based lens to investigate SIE women in an emerging-market context empirically, a group often overshadowed by male-centric and Western paradigms. We advance the literature by offering four contextually embedded interdependent schemas of career success and show how non-Western collectivist origins, and the set of host-country factors, inform the configuration of these schemas across transnational contexts.