Another look at family adjustment

This chapter argues that in the international career context there is a need to conceptualise the adjustment of the family unit holistically. We discuss what that means and how it can be done. We note that to date the family has almost always been conceptualised as a hindrance to or a support for the working expatriate. However, in international assignments the family as a whole is expatriated and the family may become part of the expatriate resources with the line between work and family/personal life blurring. We draw on the Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response (FAAR) literature to argue that previous conceptions of adjustment have failed to capture the complexity of the process from the family perspective and we use that literature to develop our understanding of the process of adjustment of the family unit and suggest ways forward

International knowledge brokerage and returnees’ entrepreneurial decisions

Based on the knowledge brokerage literature and the international entrepreneurship literature, we investigate whether returnees’ international knowledge transfer affects their entrepreneurial decisions and the extent to which this relationship is contingent on perceived supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship and returnees’ difficulties with cross-cultural readjustment in their home countries. Analyzing first-hand survey data, we find a positive relationship between international knowledge transfer and returnees’ decisions to become entrepreneurs. This positive relationship is strengthened by the perception of the home country’s supportive policies for returnee entrepreneurship but is weakened by returnees’ perceived difficulties in readjusting to the local norms and culture in their home countries

The role of international assignees' social capital in creating inter-unit intellectual capital: A cross-level model

We conceptualize international assignees as informational boundary spanners between multinational enterprise units, and develop a cross-level model that explores how assignees' social capital translates into inter-unit intellectual capital. First, as knowledge brokers, assignees create inter-unit intellectual capital by linking their home- and host-unit social capital, thereby enabling cross-unit access to previously unconnected knowledge resources. Second, as knowledge transmitters, assignees' host-unit social capital facilitates their creation of individual intellectual capital, which, in turn, translates into inter-unit intellectual capital. We conclude that individual social capital needs to be explicitly transferred to the organizational level to have a sustained effect on inter-unit intellectual capital. Journal of International Business Studies (2009) 40, 509–526. doi:10.1057/jibs.2008.86

Organizational attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder: the interaction of demographic characteristics with foreignness

Our analysis of 4605 individual evaluations of the 60 companies in the Reputation Quotient Annual 2000 study suggests that foreign-headquartered companies are less attractive employers, whereas more international companies are more attractive. Moreover, we find that gender, race, respondent age and educational level significantly interact with our foreignness variables in predicting company attractiveness. Journal of International Business Studies (2006) 37, 666–686. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400218