This conceptual paper bridges international management literature with paradox theory to contribute to a paradoxical perspective for understanding expatriate competence. Synthesizing the international management literature, we argue for a ‘both/and’ approach for expatriates to effectively engage with tensions in a dynamic and ever-changing international environment. Our discussions provide novel insights on salient paradoxical tensions across three areas, namely, expatriate learning, expatriate identity, and expatriate performance. We develop strategies to address those tensions and a theoretical model that delineates the interactions of these three areas for superior performance on international assignments. We contribute to the international management literature by drawing attention to the dynamic and enabling role of paradoxical tensions as facilitators of, rather than barriers to, the development of expatriate competence and superior performance on international assignments.

这篇概念性论文将国际管理文献与悖论理论联系起来，为理解外派能力提供了一种悖论观点。综合国际管理文献，我们主张外派人员在动态和不断变化的国际环境中有效应对紧张局势。我们的讨论为三个领域的显着矛盾矛盾提供了新的见解，即外派学习、外派身份和外派表现。我们制定了解决这些紧张局势的策略和一个理论模型，该模型描述了这三个领域的相互作用，以在国际任务中表现出色。