How do Individuals Form Their Motivations to Expatriate? A Review and Future Research Agenda Y. N. Arifa*, S. El Baroudi and S. N. Khapova Department of Management and Organisation, School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands For two decades, individual motivations to expatriate have received substantial attention in the expatriation literature examining self-initiated and assigned expatriation. Recently, however, this literature has changed direction, demonstrating that prior to forming their actual motivations, individuals undergo a process wherein they actively form those motivations. No review has yet unraveled this motivation process, and this systematic literature review fills this gap. Using the Rubicon Action model that discusses the motivation process of expatriation, this article demonstrates that for self-initiated and assigned expatriation, individuals follow similar processes: expatriation expectations are formed; then, they are evaluated; and finally, preferences are built that result in motivations to expatriate. Findings for each stage are discussed in light of their contributions to the expatriation literature. For major gaps, new research suggestions are offered to advance our understanding of the individual motivation process that expats experience prior to forming their motivations to move abroad. Keywords: motivations, global mobilty, self-initiated expatriate, assigned expatriate, expatriation INTRODUCTION For many countries, expatriation is of paramount importance, especially because it brings in knowledge and talent from abroad, strengthening the competitive advantages of regions and cities within countries (Ridgway and Robson, 2018), and it may even improve a country’s global economic status (Caligiuri and Bonache, 2016). Many countries therefore adopt national and regional strategies to attract talent, as is the case, for example, in the Gulf State of Qatar, where highly skilled expatriates are attracted from Europe, North America, Australia, Egypt, Jordan and the Philippines. The experience, skills and competencies of these expatriates are expected to benefit the country’s stakeholders (Baruch and Forstenlechner, 2017). Also, China welcomes branch campuses of international universities to attract academics from the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany, thus strengthening the country’s human capital (Cai and Hall, 2016). Recognizing the importance of expatriation to countries, researchers have also paid substantial attention to this topic in academic work. This research conducted over the past two decades has identified two main types of expatriation: self-initiated expatriation (SIE) and assigned expatriation (AE) (Andresen et al., 2014; Pinto and Caldas, 2015; Farcas and Goncalves, 2017). Studies have sought to make better sense of these types of expatriation by studying, in particular, individual motivations to expatriate (Suutari and Brewster, 2001; Hippler, 2009; Lee and Kuzhabekova, 2018; Ridgway and Robson, 2018). Perhaps because individual motivations to expatriate to a specific country reflect the country-level factors that attract Edited by: Luisa H. Pinto, University of Porto, Portugal Reviewed by: David P. Lindstrom, Brown University, United States Vilmante Kumpikaite-Valiuniene, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania *Correspondence: Y. N. Arifa y.n.arifa@vu.nl Specialty section: This article was submitted to Migration and Society, a section of the journal Frontiers in Sociology Received: 20 November 2020 Accepted: 09 August 2021 Published: 19 August 2021 Citation: Arifa YN, El Baroudi S and Khapova SN (2021) How do Individuals Form Their Motivations to Expatriate? A Review and Future Research Agenda. Front. Sociol. 6:631537. doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.631537 Frontiers in Sociology | www.frontiersin.org August 2021 | Volume 6 | Article 631537 1 REVIEW published: 19 August 2021 doi: 10.3389/fsoc.2021.631537