Personnel Review

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add to knowledge on the environment of self-initiated expatriates and their perception of justice in their host country, to identify whether the concept of perceived host country justice applies to, or is relevant to, self-initiated expatriates.

Design/methodology/approach – In total, 33 interviews were conducted in two host countries and responses were clustered to identify emerging themes.

Findings – Self-initiated expatriates perceive justice and support from their host country in a similar way to how employees perceive organizational justice, though the consequences may not follow negative perception as quickly as they do in the organizational context.

Originality/value – This paper builds on a new subject perspective, there is no previous literature aiming to transfer perception of justice models from an organizational perspective to a national level.