The Refugee Journey: An Exploration of the Role of Organizations and Psychological Processes

Throughout history, both human-made crises and natural disasters have displaced populations, forcing people to leave their homes. This not only results in lasting scars on those who flee but can also profoundly impact entire societies. Drawing from the fields of organizational studies, migration studies, and psychology, we argue that understanding the long-term effects of refugee migration requires a comprehensive examination of the entire refugee journey. During pre-, mid-, and postmigration phases, organizational actors play a pivotal role in shaping refugees’ individual and collective experiences. At the individual level, refugees may experience posttraumatic stress disorder and posttraumatic growth. At the collective level, transgenerational trauma evolves into a shared memory, profoundly influencing the long-term outcomes of refugee migration, which is intersected by coping skills and spillover-crossover effects from work to family. By highlighting the intricate interplay between these psychological processes and organizations, we shed light on how much contemporary society has been—and will continue to be—shaped by the opportunities extended to, or withheld from, refugees. We underscore the imperative for organizational scholarship to more clearly theorize refugee migration as distinct from broader migration phenomena and outline a path forward for research, policy, and practice.