Coming home - understanding the corporate re-entry of international employees

The cross-border mobility of staff is an everyday reality readily taken for granted by internationally minded employers and employees. Cross-border resettlement in business, education, leisure and political spheres has increased over the last few decades as the fingers of international commerce have encircled the globe

Spinning the Web of Reentry: (Re)connecting Reentry Training Theory and Practice

Reentry transition has often been documented as potentially being the most challenging phase of the international transition cycle. Moreover, while the expatriating individuals are thoroughly prepared for their international sojourn, the returning individuals and their organizations rarely expect any adjustment difficulties upon reentry. This trend of underplaying the difficulties of reentry translates directly into the quantity and quality of available repatriation support practices and empirical research addressing them. This dissertation directly tackles this issue. To begin with, a comprehensive analysis of the field of cross-cultural reentry training is presented by means of two distinctive theoretical streams, after which a number of recommendations related to the training’s design and execution are introduced. Furthermore, the issues related to the ethics and politics going on behind the scenes of HRM practices are exposed and directly challenged. On the theoretical level, the twofold examination undertaken in this study leads to acknowledging two important factors. Firstly, the distal approach to organizations is insufficient for comprehending their complexity. Secondly, only analysing the content-related aspects limits our possibilities for fully understanding of organizational practices. Consequently, this dissertation advocates a proximal, processual approach to conducting empirical studies as an alternative for the existing, often oversimplified research accounts

Communication and culture in international business – Moving the field forward

The centrality of communication in international business (IB) is undeniable; yet our understanding of the phenomenon is partially constrained by a cross-cultural comparative focus as opposed to intercultural, process-oriented research designs that capture the dynamic nature of communicative interactions. Our brief review of studies at the intersection of culture and communication in the context of global work interactions reveals the dominant research trends that guided IB scholarship to date in this domain. We propose eight shifts in perspective to advance the field\u27s theorizing and create avenues for further research

Engaging business in refugee employment: the employer's perspective

This study looks at the perceptions of employers that have and have not hired refugees. The aim is to gain insight into employers’ perceptions, misconceptions and experiences of the integration of refugees into the workforce by investigating: motives for hiring refugees; challenges and best practices for integrating refugees into the workforce; desired support and incentives that could help employers hire refugees successfully; and measures that government or non-governmental groups could take to increase sustainable refugee employment in Australia.Centre for Policy Development. This study was funded in part by the Australian Government Department of Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business

Honorable Surrender : On the Erosion of Resistance in a University Setting

This article addresses the temporality of resistance in the work context. We focus on the challenge of increasingly diminishing professional autonomy in higher education institutions as well as the vulnerability of staff subjected to academic managerialism. A case where a lecturer is exposed to the requirements to revise grading by senior administration is investigated. Power is understood from the “target’s” perspective and viewed as the erosion of resistance. We introduce the concepts honorable surrender and smoothers to capture the process of giving up of resistance. We argue that these concepts are of special significance in autonomy-espousing work contexts where multiplicity of power resources are employed to subordinate employees and influence their professional identities. We contend that de-subjectification is key in understanding the erosion of resistance

The micro-processes during repatriate knowledge transfer: The repatriates’ perspective

Purpose–The purpose of this paper is to add a process perspective to the literature on repatriate knowledge transfer (RKT) and to understand how the knowledge transfer process unfolds in the repatriation context. Thus, this qualitative study uses existing knowledge transfer process models to assess their applicability to the context of repatriation and explain the micro-processes during RKT. Design/methodology/approach–To provide a rich understanding of these processes from the repatriate perspective, critical incidents reported by 29 German and US American repatriates were content-analyzed. Findings–The findings are summarized in a proposed RKT process model, which describes the roles and knowledge transfer-related activities of repatriates, recipients and supervisors as well as their interaction during four transfer phases: assessment, initiation, execution and evaluation. Research limitations/implications–The experiences of repatriates from different geographic areas as well as the perspectives of knowledge recipients and supervisors were not studied but should be included in future research. In addition, future research could test the applicability of the identified micro-processes to different knowledge transfer contexts. Practical implications–Managers can use the findings to facilitate the RKT process more effectively because the type of organizational support offered can be aligned with the changing needs of repatriates, recipients and supervisors during the four identified phases. Originality/value–This is the first study that takes a process perspective to understand RKT. The integration of the current findings with the existing literature can enable a more nuanced view on RKT

The micro-processes during repatriate knowledge transfer: the repatriates' perspective

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to add a process perspective to the literature on repatriate knowledge transfer (RKT) and to understand how the knowledge transfer process unfolds in the repatriation context. Thus, this qualitative study uses existing knowledge transfer process models to assess their applicability to the context of repatriation and explain the micro-processes during RKT. Design/methodology/approach: To provide a rich understanding of these processes from the repatriate perspective, critical incidents reported by 29 German and US American repatriates were content-analyzed. Findings: The findings are summarized in a proposed RKT process model, which describes the roles and knowledge transfer-related activities of repatriates, recipients and supervisors as well as their interaction during four transfer phases: assessment, initiation, execution and evaluation. Research limitations/implications: The experiences of repatriates from different geographic areas as well as the perspectives of knowledge recipients and supervisors were not studied but should be included in future research. In addition, future research could test the applicability of the identified micro-processes to different knowledge transfer contexts. Practical implications: Managers can use the findings to facilitate the RKT process more effectively because the type of organizational support offered can be aligned with the changing needs of repatriates, recipients and supervisors during the four identified phases. Originality/value: This is the first study that takes a process perspective to understand RKT. The integration of the current findings with the existing literature can enable a more nuanced view on RKT