EXPATRIATES, MIGRANTS, GENDER, RACE, AND CLASS DAPHNE P. BERRY University of Massachusetts Isenberg School of Management Amherst, MA 01003 ABSTRACT In the International Management literature, “expatriate” refers to transnational movement of employees by MNCs, applicable to a specific group of privileged workers and overlooking others (migrants) who move across national boundaries for work. I develop a critical framework of IM’s narrow view of expatriation and call for more inclusive research. INTRODUCTION …Asian immigrant women provide a readily available cheap labor force in the United States. Additionally, they provide a cheap labor force for American multinational corporations with factories in Asia (Vo, 2001: 283). Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines the word “expatriate” as one who leaves or withdraws from residence in one’s native (home) country (Merriam-Webster, 1984: 799). Usages in the literatures of various academic disciplines are variations on this definition. In most of the IM literature, “expatriate” is used in reference to temporary work assignments and movement of an employee by a multinational corporation (MNC) (Richardson & Mallon, 2005). In other literatures, while “migrants” and “migration” are the terms more often used in reference to people who move across national boundaries for work, the term “expatriate” is also used. For example, in International Migration, a policy-oriented journal concerned with migration issues, “expatriate,” “migrant,” and “migration” are all used regarding people and their movement across international borders. Variations in the definition and usage of these terms across disciplines inform different understandings of the concept of moving from one’s home country to work elsewhere. In this paper, I develop a critical framework for research on women who leave their home countries to work elsewhere: “expatriates”, who move across national boundaries to work for MNCs and “migrants”, who move across national boundaries to find work without assistance from MNCs. Drawing from usages of the term expatriate in IM and in the literatures in other disciplines, I provide a conceptual lens that can be used to examine gender, race, and class issues that exist for migrants and that are ignored in the IM literature. IM’s narrow definition of the term excludes large groups of people, who differ by race, and class from IM’s expatriate. Expanding the definition would allow expansion of the scope and depth of research related to expatriate women within globalizing work processes. GLOBAL MOVEMENT FOR WORK AS CONCEPTUALIZED IN DIFFERENT LITERATURES By lay definition, the concepts of expatriation and migration are quite similar. However, notable differences exist between the experiences and attributions associated with the expatriates