Gaining more than just vocational skills: Evaluating women learners’ aspirations through the capability approach

Vocational education and training had been a popular choice for women learners in the English Further Education sector. However, policy makers and policy researchers have characterized these women learners as providing a poor return on investment due to their failure to enter immediate employment. As a result, there have been significant cuts to funding. Such policy processes have not engaged with why these women returned to education and what they stood to gain from participation. This major absence is the focus of this chapter. Framed using a capabilities approach, women learners were asked why they had returned to FE and how they were going to use their knowledge and training. Using capabilities as a lens reveals a nuanced and complex picture of how education helps them to expand their well-being, agency, and freedom achievement.This work was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) [grant number 151171]

Inpatriate marketing managers: Issues associated with staffing global marketing positions

This article addresses the strategic role of an inpatriate marketing staffing approach in the development of a global marketing mind-set within global organizations. The premise lies in addressing the liability-of-foreignness concept, which, the authors suggest, impedes the inpatriate marketing manager’s integration process, from the individual level of analysis. Drawing from reference point theory, the article highlights potential hardships manages face with an analysis of the managerial and contextual liability of foreignness that inpatriate marketing managers may perceive in their transition from home countries to headquarter locations. Implications of identifying and attending to such hardships are important in light of the significance attributed to these semipermanent to permanent assignments across different cultural contexts