M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / Only a minority of companies invest resources in the task of creating an effective repatriation programme, even though repatriation is more challenging than expatriation. A qualitative method was chosen and was conducted on two South African multinational companies (MNCs), AEL and Telkom to establish the extent to which these companies' repatriation programmes comply with international models of repatriation. The conclusions drawn from this study are that the two South African MNCs do not have formal repatriation programmes and management of repatriates needs to be further implemented within the company. For example an articulated process consisting of the three different steps: before, during and after the assignment should be elaborated for the company to reduce anxiety and repatriation turnover.