Hostalgia: How Nostalgia of Host Culture Facilitates Repatriates’ Re-Entry to Their Home Culture

Repatriation often fails, as manifested by low job satisfaction rates, and cultural distance exacerbates this failure.  In a sample of over 700 international teachers who, after a substantial stay in the U.S. (host country), returned to their home countries, we found supportive evidence that feeling nostalgic about host culture contribute to repatriation success; we identify this phenomenon as "hostalgia".   Host culture nostalgia counteracted the barriers that cultural distance raised to re-entry success. And it did so by fostering a sense of self-continuity. Among participants who felt more nostalgic about the host culture, cultural distance facilitated home re-entry success via stronger self-continuity. The findings have implications for the (a) multicultural experience, repatriation, and organisational effectiveness literature, and (b) emotion of nostalgia and its contribution to repatriation success.