Cosmopolitan Appeal: What Makes a City Attractive to Expatriates?

Research has increasingly focused on career development in a globalized economy. It has investigated the impact of international assignments on careers and their implications for organizations. Surprisingly, academic research has largely failed to address the importance of a city’s attractiveness to expatriates. This exploratory study makes an initial attempt to fill this gap using data from Vienna, Austria. The study shows that expatriates distinguish between work and non-work location factors when considering an assignment. In the work area they distinguish between more organisation-focused career issues and the professional environment in the target location. Expatriates report a definite increase in knowing-how and knowing-why. Increases in knowing-whom are uncertain. This is one of the first studies that look at the attractiveness of a metropolitan area to expatriates and the perceived career impact of an assignment to Vienna. The study provides data on a city that so far has not featured in the literature on expatriation.