The Repatriation Workbook

Research basis

Repatriation research consistently documents that returning from international assignments is harder than going: studies find that up to 40-50% of repatriates leave their employer within two years of returning, primarily due to professional underutilization and identity mismatch rather than logistical failure (Black & Gregersen, 1991 / Lazarova & Caligiuri, 2001). The phenomenon of reverse culture shock — disorientation upon return to the home country — was first formally described by Gullahorn and Gullahorn (1963) as the W-curve of adjustment. Research published in the International Studies of Management & Organization found that repatriates who identified less with their home culture experienced significantly more repatriation distress, establishing that identity, not logistics, is the primary repatriation variable. Savickas's Career Construction Theory explains why repatriation disrupts professional narrative: the career story built abroad does not automatically transfer into a coherent home-country narrative — it must be actively reconstructed. Maslach and Leiter's burnout framework applies directly to professional underutilization: returned assignees whose international competencies are ignored by home-country employers exhibit classical disengagement patterns within 6-18 months. Berry's integration strategy — maintaining identity built abroad while acquiring or re-acquiring home-country contextual fluency — is the documented optimal repatriation mode and is the model underlying this workbook.