Travelling through the class ceiling? Social mobility of ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ expatriates

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of international assignments on expatriate managers and executives’ social position and status, depending on their country of origin’s economic and societal state of development, and social position before expatriation. Based on qualitative data from a sample of expatriates in Nigeria, we analyse a variety of profiles and trajectories. Expatriation enables expatriates from emerging countries and middle-class managers from developed ones to experience a rapid improvement of their social condition. Those individuals are yet confronted with a ‘class ceiling’ that limits their upward mobility within the firm and the community of expatriates. Expatriation thus extends social hierarchies on a global scale, confirming the dominant status of an elite class. This article contributes to management research as it explores emerging categories of expatriates and sheds light on social differences and power relationships between them. The combination of management and sociological theoretical frameworks provides some original explanations about the emergence of social and professional hierarchies.