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This study examines how dispositional resistance to change (DRTC) – a change-specific personality trait – affects the expatriation willingness of Japanese employees in multinational corporations (MNCs) headquartered in Japan. We theorize that DRTC affects expatriation willingness through two situationally relevant mediators (motivational cultural intelligence (CQ) and foreign language anxiety) to discover ways in which organizations can change their employees’ attitudes for them to be willing to expatriate.

We tested mediation hypotheses using a two-wave survey of 693 Japanese MNC employees in various industries. Data were analyzed with structural equation modeling using Mplus 8.

The results indicate that motivational CQ and foreign language anxiety fully mediate the negative relationship between DRTC and willingness to expatriate.

The current study offers insights into expatriation willingness by revealing that DRTC is a personality trait relevant to be studied in the expatriation context. Second, and more importantly, the study finds that motivational CQ and foreign language anxiety are crucial mechanisms through which DRTC influences expatriation willingness. This is important because the study reveals that MNCs can influence their employees’ career choices even if they cannot directly change their personality traits (i.e. DRTC).

This study aims to understand how female globally mobile employees (GMEs), a group that is gaining a stronger presence in global work, exert their career agency within the context of structural constraints.

Using theoretical perspectives of career-agency theory and person-environment fit as frames of reference, this study collected 113 blog posts written by 19 female GMEs and conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 female GMEs who are currently living and working in Japan.

This study found that the informants exercised career agency as a response to challenges related to foreignness and gender. Through career-related agentic behaviors, the informants strove to increase their fit with their environments while interacting with different aspects of structural constraints. This study also found that people in different stages of global mobility exhibited different mindsets toward their foreignness, consequently influencing their career agency.

This study highlights the dynamic interaction between structural constraints and the agency of female GMEs, advancing the understanding of career agency in women’s global work. In addition, it recognizes the presence of expatriate residents as a distinct subgroup within the GME population, shedding light on the evolving ambiguous boundaries between self-initiated expatriates and other talent categories.