Expatriados: aprendizes ou peixes fora d'água? Até onde a expatriação promove a aprendizagem do indivíduo e da organização?

Abstract

This research aimed to identify, describe and analyze what the Brazilian and foreign professionals, who were transferred to work in another country, and have returned to their country of origin are understood as resulting from the learning experience of expatriation. Intended to meet situations in which this learning occurred for the individual, and if this learning was absorbed by the organization. The study was based on psychological perspectives applied to studies of learning in organizations, studies of informal learning within institutions, and especially in studies of adult learning from the approach of transformative learning proposed by Jack Mezirow (1991). Therefore, it was conducted a basic interpretive qualitative study with ten participants. Data were collected through semistructured interviews, document analysis and observation, and were analyzed by the method of qualitative data analysis proposed by Flores (1994). The results show that the experience of expatriation triggers transformative learning processes through changes of views and assumptions of the individual. It has been found yet informal learning processes and examples of the connection between individual learning processes and organizational learning.