Being flexible and accommodating diversity: The challenge for multinational management

This article presents an opposing view to the current populist position that corporate culture can be utilised to bind the multinational together. It critically examines the appropriateness of corporate culture as a 'soft' control mechanism, concluding that highly committed, inculcated managers (believers) may actually be a barrier to the goals of flexibility, responsiveness and innovativeness in the face of rapidly changing, diverse global operations. However, the calculatively compliant manager is not proferred as an alternative. Rather, we argue that the quest for conformity to a given corporate culture may be counterproductive. The real challenge for multinationals is to develop mechanisms that encourage mixed voices and messages, and support a diversity of perspectives. It is suggested that multinationals might even look at the university model, in which it has long been recognised that knowledge advances in a climate of critique and dissent.

Internasional Human Resources Management

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Are virtual international assignments feasible?

Some international companies are using advanced communication and information technology to manage virtually, rather than sending a traditional expatriate into the foreign location. This article explores the feasibility of using virtual assignments as a replacement for the traditional expatriate international posting

Cultural and bureaucratic control in MNEs: the role of expatriate performance management

This conceptual paper examines the role of performance management in the development and maintenance of cultural control in multinational enterprises. A framework is presented showing elements of cultural control and their links with the performance management process, as part of bureaucratic control within multinational enterprises

Cultural and bureaucratic control in MNEs: the role of expatriate performance management

This conceptual paper examines the role of performance management in the development and maintenance of cultural control in multinational enterprises. A framework is presented showing elements of cultural control and their links with the performance management process, as part of bureaucratic control within multinational enterprises

Gender and export behaviour: Evidence from women-owned enterprises

The original publication can be found at www.springerlink.comThis article draws on the results of a qualitative, exploratory study of 20 Australian women business owners to demonstrate how using a ‹gender as social identity’ lens provides new insights into the influence of gender on exporting and entrepreneurial behaviour. Interview data reveal perceptions of gender identity and gender relations varied and influenced the interpretations which women business owners placed on their exporting activities. Women in the study used different terms to describe exporter and entrepreneurial characteristics to those found in extant literature. A strong theme was exporting as a life-changing experience that allowed the women to grow personally as well as grow the business and succeed as exporters.Catherine L. Welch, Denice E. Welch and Lisa Hewerdin