Managing a Global Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities in International Human Resource Management

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Key HRM strategies for M&A integration in the global banking industry: a comparative study of the USA, Europe and South America

Based on in-depth interviews with over ten major banks and financial corporations in the USA, Europe, and South America, this paper identifies the main reasons for the more effective post-merger integration strategy of European and South American banks than that of their US counterparts. Overall, we found that human resource managers are essential to the M&A integration process in Europe and South America owing to the influence of labour laws in those regions. In particular, substantial differences were noted in the retention strategy and negotiation process regarding compensation between the USA and both European and South American banks

Building intercultural alliances: a study of moves and strategies in initial business negotiation meetings

This paper proposes a conceptual model to study the discourse of initial negotiation meetings between members of New Zealand and Chinese corporations. It attempts to make two contributions to existing cross-cultural negotiation research, especially to rapport management. Firstly, it develops a conceptual position where negotiation meetings require mutual effort for building intercultural alliances. Secondly, the application and further division of initial moves (initiating moves-relational [IM-R] and initiating move-transactional [IM-T]), responding moves (responding move-cooperative [RM-C] and responding move-uncooperative [RM-UC]), and strategies into politeness strategies (PS) and uncooperative strategies (UC-S) offer an in-depth analysis of the nuances of positioning construction between parties. The findings indicate that a successful negotiation meeting establishes and develops intercultural alliances through appropriate use of moves and strategies. Negotiations, however, derail if inappropriate moves and strategies are used, and potential conflicts and communication breakdowns are not addressed in time. © 2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG

Exploring Expat-preneur Similarities and Differences between Self-initiated and Company-Assigned Transitioned Expatriates

Based upon the authors’ collective international experience and observance of emerging trends, this paper explores two different types of expat-preneurs as a new growing international career phenomenon: self-initiated expatriate expat-preneurs and company-assigned expatriate transitioned expat-preneurs. While the former is comprised of entrepreneurs who initiate their own expatriation to a new host country, the latter refers to expatriates who, during or at the end of a traditional international expatriate assignment, have started their own transition away from multinational organizations and into an entrepreneurial career in the host country or region of residence. This paper first summarizes the backgrounds and development patterns of these two distinctive types of expat-preneurs. It discusses similarities and differences between the two groups and suggests research propositions in terms of their approach to identifying business opportunities, meeting contextual conditions, and other characteristics. Finally, the paper discusses important implications and potential future research directions

The evolution of business ethics in China and the United States: convergence, divergence or crossvergence?

This study presents a cross-temporal comparison of managerial ethics in China and the US. Although it is well established that cross-cultural differences exist in business ethics and that culture and values in a society may evolve over time, little attention has been paid to the longitudinal changes in such cross-cultural differences that might have occurred over time. Building on the three different perspectives on values evolution, namely, convergence, divergence, and crossvergence, we investigate whether and how cross-cultural differences in managerial ethical decision-making and the associated moral philosophy have changed in China and the US over a decade between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s. Our analysis reveals that the difference in Chinese and American managers’ ethical decision-making evolved in many different directions over the decade, lending support to the crossvergence perspective. Interestingly, however, we discover that the divergence outlook prevails when it comes to the moral philosophies behind their decision-making. These findings provide critical insights into cross-cultural as well cross-temporal evolution in business ethics in a world of increasing cross-cultural and multicultural interactions. 本文对中美两国经理人员的商业伦理决策进行了跨期比较研究。已有研究普遍认为，商业伦理中存在着跨文化差异，且一个社会的文化和价值观会随着时间的推移而演化。但是，相关研究对这种跨文化差异随着时间的推移而发生纵向变化的关注相对较少。基于价值观演化的三种不同视角——趋同、趋异和交叉融合，我们研究了在20世纪90年代中期至21世纪最初十年的中期这一阶段，中美两国经理人员的商业伦理决策和相关道德哲学的跨文化差异的纵向变化。我们的分析表明，在这十年中，中美两国经理人员的商业伦理决策差异在多个不同方向上演化，存在着交叉融合。然而，有趣的是，我们也发现，当涉及到商业伦理决策背后深层次的道德哲学时，相互间的差异点占了上风。这些发现为在全球日益增多的跨文化和多元文化互动中深度认识商业伦理的跨文化和跨时间演化提供了重要见解

Convergence in international business ethics? A comparative study of ethical philosophies, thinking style, and ethical decision-making between US and Korean managers

This study investigates the relationship among ethical philosophy, thinking style, and managerial ethical decision-making. Based on the premise that business ethics is a function of culture and time, we attempt to explore two important questions as to whether the national differences in managerial ethical philosophies remain over time and whether the relationship between thinking style and ethical decision-making is consistent across different national contexts. We conducted a survey on Korean managers’ ethical decision-making and thinking style and made a cross-cultural, cross-temporal comparison with the results presented by previous studies that surveyed Korean and US managers with the same questionnaire at different points in time. Our analysis revealed that Korean managers have become more reliant on rule utilitarianism for ethical decision-making over the last two decades, which is dominantly used by US managers, corroborating our convergence hypothesis built on social contracts theory. However, as opposed to previous research, we found that managers with a balanced linear and nonlinear thinking style do not necessarily make more ethical decisions compared to those with a predominantly linear or nonlinear thinking style. This study contributes to international business ethics literature by presenting a theoretical framework that may explain the convergence of ethical philosophies employed by managers in different national contexts over time, and that the relationship between thinking style and managerial ethical decision-making may not be universal, but contingent on contextual factors

Expatriate managers and MNC's ability to control international subsidiaries: the case of Japanese MNCs

Building upon the notion of behavioral means of control, this paper contends that the level of cultural knowledge of expatriates plays a critical role in determining the effectiveness of expatriates as a means of control over international subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs). An empirical investigation with a sample of Japanese MNCs indicates that while expatriate personnel with adequate cultural knowledge of the host country contribute to the MNC's control ability, those without cultural knowledge do not.