Introduction: Self-Initiated Expatriation: Individual, Organizational, and National Perspectives

This first chapter introduces our edited book by demonstrating its pertinence, showing its structure, and giving a brief overview of the different chapters. The area of Self-Initiated Expatriation (SIE) is still largely under-researched. In an attempt to draw a holistic picture about this field of research, we divided this book into three main sections. In a first part, general issues about SIE are discussed. The second part deals with processes of this type of international mobility. Self-initiated expatriates having been shown to be a diverse population, the last section is about different groups that undertake self-initiated foreign experiences