Historically speaking, nation states, strict borders and boundaries, and nationalism are rather new concepts, having their origins in the turn of the 19^th and 20^th century, though their meaning in the 2020s conflicts and public discussion has gained a strong emphasis and momentum. The geopolitical turmoil and related increased protectionism have made attempts to efficiently deteriorate the grounds of a much older perspective, namely cosmopolitanism, reflecting openness to the world and free movement of people.

From the perspective of mobility, especially in terms of labour and work, the discussions in the 2020s, for example, on the global race for talent, are not reflecting a new phenomenon, but rather echo developments that have been present during the past centuries. For example, during the 17^th to early 20^th century finding employment and sustenance in another country’s army, sending one’s offspring to gain education, craftsmanship and business experience abroad, or moving to another country for better future prospects were not unusual life trajectories.

In this regard, the modern-day cosmopolitanism is not a new-to-the-world invention, but potentially yet another manifestation of the phenomenon. Cosmopolitan disposition, and underneath it, the emergence of a cosmopolitan identity, have recently, during the past decade, gained increased attention, among others, in the international business and migration research streams. In the context of this study, cosmopolitans are define as individuals who “voluntarily and independently move from country to country in pursuit of self-fulfilment in both life and work” (Nummela, Harikkala-Laihinen, Paavilainen-Mäntymäki & Raitis, 2024) We have contemporary research evidence about the identity formation of cosmopolitans and cosmopolitan entrepreneurs from the latter half of the 20^th and the early decades of the 21^st century (Raitis, Harikkala-Laihinen, Nummela & Paavilainen-Mäntymäki, 2025), but there is still less knowledge about whether the identities of the earlier century cosmopolitans (Wolff, 2020; 2022) followed a different path.

Cosmopolitanism can be seen as a life philosophy, as open-mindedness, citizenship of the world that may form a noticeable denominator in one’s identity. The context of the cosmopolitans naturally plays a role, for example, in how the cosmopolitan disposition may be manifested, but potentially the mechanisms giving rise to cosmopolitan identity might have similarities across time. This comparative study sets about to uncover, whether cosmopolitans living in the 19^th and 21^st century share similarities in terms of their cosmopolitan identity formation, and could one potentially uncover a more general mechanism underlying the cosmopolitan identity formation. What makes this study timely now are the counterforces currently at play in undermining cosmopolitanism, which, after all, has a longer history in tinging attitudes and human behaviour than nationalism.

We approach our research gap with archival data from a cosmopolitan male entrepreneur born in the latter half of the 19^th century and conducting business operations across the globe until the 1940s and with secondary and real-time interview data from an entrepreneurially-oriented female cosmopolitan born in the 1960s, leading an internationally mobile life. Following the lines of Wolff (forthcoming), in our study the “primary sources are ego-documents, such as manuscript letters and diaries but the study also uses printed sources and previous research literature”. By comparing the life courses and the mobility paths via personal reflections, including correspondence, diaries and interviews, we attempt to uncover similarities and differences, patterns and special characteristics of the emergence of cosmopolitan identities in different times.

The expected contributions of our study include narratives of life courses of cosmopolitans from two different times, offering us contextualized, over time vistas to the emergence of cosmopolitan identities. Based on the narratives through a comparative assessment, we aim to observe whether similar impetuses have played a role within cosmopolitan inclination and identity formation, understanding the role of context, but also trying to see beyond to potential common denominators in the core of cosmopolitanism. Our contributions focus on understanding the core assumptions and features of cosmopolitanism that could characterize cosmopolitans and cosmopolitan entrepreneurs from different times. The contributions of our study fall primarily to the fields of international business, global mobility and entrepreneurship.