This study investigates how expatriate willingness emerges as a function of company policy design within Portuguese multinational corporations. While traditional expatriation frameworks often present standardized mobility approaches, this research explores how policy-induced resource dynamics shape employee motivation, engagement and adjustment, especially across heterogeneous global assignments in under-researched contexts. The study identified three distinct motivational profiles among expatriates: (1) Conformist expatriates, whose engagement was shaped by psychological contracts and a sense of organizational belonging; (2) Protean expatriates, driven by strategic career advancement and a desire for autonomy; and (3) Disrupted expatriates, characterized by defensive compliance and heightened contextual strain. Company policy design emerged as a critical qualifying mechanism, either facilitating broaden-and-build resource spirals or amplifying depletion trajectories. Dynamic, inclusive policies fostered protean motivation by enabling job crafting and providing robust support structures. In contrast, rigid, functionalist policies tended to constrain disrupted profiles, intensifying allostatic load and hindering adjustment. This study advances Conservation of Resources (COR) theory by conceptualizing expatriate willingness not as a static trait, but as a negotiated outcome shaped by the organizational resource ecology. It introduces a threefold typology (conformist, protean and disrupted) that captures motivational diversity and illustrates how policy orientation influences psychological contracts and adaptive behavior. The empirical setting of Portuguese multinational corporations operating in transitional economies further extends the geographical scope of global mobility research, offering fresh insight into supply-side readiness and the strategic alignment of mobility policies.

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Global mobility,IHRM,Expatriation,Expatriate recruitment,Expatriate willingness,Conservation of resources,Resource passageways

• Psychology - Social Sciences
• Economics and Business - Social Sciences
• Sociology - Social Sciences