Multinational corporations have been sending their executives to various countries across the globe for decades. Though these multinationals managed the process of expatriation properly, empirical research reveals that they have been an outright failure when the management of repatriation of their expatriates was concerned thus leading to a high attrition rate of these knowledge-rich, crossculturally experienced executives. This is partly due to the inability and unwillingness of the HR managers to understand and deal with the intricacies of a repatriation program and largely due to dearth of any comprehensive repatriation management framework, which combines all the critical components of repatriation, in the literature of international human resource management. This research study, based on grounded theory research methodology provides a comprehensive and practical framework, which the HR managers can apply, in order to bring in greater retention of their valuable repatriates. The framework suggested through this study can be applied in any organization as long as the intention is to retain these repatriates so as to make full use of their rich, cross-cultural work experience.

With increasing globalization, the number of corporate executives crossing international borders has grown manifold and their cross-border transition management dominates the agenda of human resources departments of multinational companies (MNCs). Economic and social factors are operative to increase global competition and global operations, and subsequently an acceleration of traffic in expatriation and repatriation.

For many companies, over half of their revenues come from markets in other countries, and there is a tremendous growth for companies doing so Dolins (1996). One of the most important determinants of a foreign venture's success is to effectively transfer a company's critical human resource capabilities on an international basis. Research shows that transferring managers from country to country in particular was found to be the most effective means to transfer critical capabilities Con & Yip (1997).

Furthermore, to ensure effective application of their core competencies on a global scale, companies need expatriates who can support this expansion through both technical expertise and cultural understanding. An MNC obtains, through its selection, training and retention of employees sent on international assignments, a pool of global knowledge to be capitalized upon. This is because executives who have lived and worked in a foreign country location are seen as valuable resources for the organization upon their return.

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