Too much of a good thing: Does international experience variety accelerate or delay executives’ career advancement?

This study integrates the contradictory predictions of human-capital and social-network perspectives about the relationship between executives’ international experience and speed of career advancement. We postulate that these perspectives are rather complementary, and that the relationship between international experience and time to the top follows a U-shaped form. Initially, the acquisition of international experience speeds-up executives’ career progress until a threshold where the social-network costs of cross-country mobility outweigh the human-capital benefits. Our results support the U-shaped relationship. They also show that this relationship is influenced by factors at different layers of context—suggesting that contextual aspects play an important, contingent role.