Repatriation Adjustment: A Study on Sri Lankan Academic Repatriates

Abstract

A large and growing body of literature investigated the return of corporate repatriates; the repatriation of academics has not yet been sufficiently discussed in the literature. Particularly, in Sri Lanka, repatriation of academics was unnoticed so far. About the repatriation of university academics, it is not clear whether academic repatriates experience repatriation issues as corporate repatriates. Therefore, this study investigated if academic repatriates experience adjustment issues, and the influences of repatriates personal and situational variables such as length of overseas assignment, the time passed upon repatriation, cultural disparity, and age on repatriation adjustment. The study was conducted with a group of 140 Sri Lankan academics and used t-test and multiple regressions to test the proposed five hypotheses. For this study, the researcher collected data from two groups of academics: one group of academics are those who have no repatriation experiences, and the other group of academics is those who have repatriation experiences. The second group consists of academics (repatriates) who had been attached to a foreign university or academic institution for more than one year, had been involved in academic activities, and, at the survey date, had returned within the past two years. Results indicated that academic repatriate’s experiences less fit with their home university compare to academics who do not have repatriation experiences. Multiple regression analysis proved that repatriates’ personal and situational variables had no any significant impact on repatriation adjustment.

 Keywords: Repatriation, Adjustment, Academics, Internationalization