Introduction: overview of early expatriate studies, 1952 to 1979

Expatriation as a teaching and research subject has existed for more than 60 years. Although it is often assumed that the birth of expatriate studies occurred in the 1980s with publications by Rosalie Tung (1981, 1982, 1984a, 1984b, 1986, 1987, 1988a, 1988b) and J. Stewart Black (1988), or perhaps a little earlier with the now-seminal study by Anders Edstrom and Jay Galbraith (1977) about the reasons for using expatriates, a review of extant literature shows that a substantial body of expatriate research existed well before this time. While much of this early literature, and most especially pre-1970, was lacking in theoretical grounding and with only a few empirical studies published, it nonetheless provided an initial foundation upon which subsequent research and interest in expatriate studies would come to be based.