Despite the growth in the number of women in international management, very few studies have been conducted outside North America on the topic of repatriation of female corporate executives. Considering the large investment to develop, maintain, and transfer global assignees, research studies on repatriation have shown that repatriates returning to parent company are more likely to resign and seek employment elsewhere, and losing the repatriated employee with valuable expatriate experience is costly and can affect the MNC’s bottom line. Therefore, in this regard, it is important to know what factors of female repatriates’ commitment increase their intention to stay in the organization. Analyzing data from seven IT companies using structural equation modeling technique, the study shows that affective commitment had dominant effect on the female repatriates’ turnover intentions.

Expatriation is the process of sending managers to another country to run a subsidiary of a multinational organization. Companies spend huge amounts of money on their expatriates. In a study done by Stelmer (2001), it is estimated that most companies spend between $300,000 and $1,000,000 annually on an individual on foreign assignment. On completion of the international assignment, the expatriates return home and then the process of repatriation begins. However companies often underestimate the repatriation process because the employees are just ‘coming back home’ so there are supposed to be no difficulties in adjusting to their own environment (Adler, 1981; Tung, 1998; and Stroh et al., 1998). Because companies underestimate the repatriation process, there is a tendency that employees who have been sent to work abroad are more likely to seek new job opportunities than the ones who have not (Stroh, 1995). Black and Gregersen (1999) show in their study that 25% of the repatriates left their companies within one year of repatriation, which is twice as much as the ones who have not experienced expatriation; and in addition, if the employee leaves the organization the cost of replacing the employee is almost 29% (non-management) to 46% (management) of the person’s annual salary.

Management Research Journal, Empirical Study, Organizational, Commitment, Repatriated, North America, Affective Commitment, Continuance Commitment, Female Employees.