Repatriation to France and Germany: A Comparative Study Based on Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice. Matthias Walther, Springer (MIR edition), 2014, 328 pages

Matthias Walther offers a comparative study about the repatriation to France and Germany that stems from his PhD-thesis realized as a cotutelle de thèse at the Universities of Bamberg (D) and Lyon 3 (F). As the author explains, many Germans and French are involved with international careers and quit their jobs upon repatriation to their home country. However, the understanding about the re-integration of repatriates into the external labor markets of their home country is limited as most of the repatriation studies were conducted from a company-internal labor market view. Matthias Walther’s book being the first one published in this field of research significantly contributes to the academic literature by working out similarities and differences about the repatriation conditions to the German and French labor markets he explains by cultural and institutional factors. Before describing the content in a more detailed way, we will outline some key characteristics of the book that strongly contribute to its quality, academic excellence and interest: In the following, short summaries of every chapter will be given. Before the introduction, Matthias Walther provides abstracts in three languages, namely English, French and German. In this part of the book, Matthias Walther introduces the research problematic (chapter 1) and presents Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice as Theoretical Framework (chapter 2). Chapter 3 is already structured according to Bourdieu’s main elements and ideas and serves to review the academic literature in the relevant field of research. In chapter 1, Matthias Walther works out the research problematic and pertinence of his topic. Although there are many German and French expatriates in the international business world and though it is widely known that numerous repatriates quit their jobs shortly upon return, repatriation to France and Germany has not sufficiently been investigated from an external labor market perspective. The objective of the study is to identify the rules of the game on the German and French labor markets from an international career mobility perspective and to identify key mechanisms that determine a successful professional repatriation. The aim is to create two international career models that explain the re-entry mechanisms to France and Germany and to analyze if existing national career models also fit into an international career mobility context. From a practical point of view, Matthias Walther’s study aims at giving recommendations to repatriates regarding fruitful strategies to apply for the repatriation to France and Germany, whereas for companies, the study aims at deducing recommendations how to attract repatriating talent and to identify their worth from a human (career) capital perspective. In chapter 2, Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice as theoretical framework is introduced and applied to a Franco-German repatriation context. The chapter starts with a basic description and its classification as a Grand Theory that can be applied to different research contexts. Bourdieu’s theory reconciles the notions of structure and agency by the interplay of its major elements field, capital and habitus. Applied to a career context, career fields are characterized as playground for careers where rules apply and where capital is the major cause of distinction. Career capital exists in four forms: Economic capital, cultural capital, social capital and symbolic capital. While economic capital (e.g. the salary of an employee), cultural capital (e.g. a diploma in its institutionalized form or knowledge and competences in its incorporated form) and social capital (e.g. a person’s network) are independent forms of capital, the fourth form, symbolic capital, represents the value of the independent forms of capital on a specific field. The last element, the habitus as central component in Bourdieu’s theory is explained as psychosomatic mind that ensures that career …