The recent UK election results made me decide to sit on the fence before any comments are made on what lies ahead. I am concerned about a BREXIT and the Human Rights Act. I worry about zero-hour contracts and wonder how we can support small/medium business entrepreneurs in the next five years. I’m currently working on a set of papers (co-authored with two very talented people, both former students from Middlesex University) about work in this interconnected world.
One of the main conclusions from these papers (abstracts below) is that PERCEPTION is very important. It’s a skill that we may take for granted, especially if we occupy managerial and/or leadership roles. Being mindful of one’s position and how this impacts others and how others perceive us is a talent but it can be cultivated. I hope these papers will contribute towards that. And isn’t it odd that some of us are ‘expatriates’ whereas others are ‘immigrants’?
Below it you can see an image from the campaign “I am an immigrant”. I went to the launch and it was great – so much positivity around the idea that we’re all international now. See more here Movement Against Xenophobia
Paper 1
Working title: How can we help you, Odysseus and Odessa? An investigation of the effects of personal characteristics and of organisational support, family support and support from host country nationals on the cross-cultural adjustment of international expatriates
As a consequence of the globalisation in today’s markets, organisations frequently use expatriate business managers to maintain their position and competitiveness across borders. With increased transfers of expatriates follows the consideration of how the assignee may be successful in the assignment. The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of three forms of support, namely support from the organisation, family support and the support from host country nationals, on cross-cultural adjustment with a qualitative approach to increase the in-depth understanding of the relationships. Findings from semi-structured interviews conducted with 24 expatriates transferred to eight different host countries point to a relationship between all forms of support and general, interaction and work adjustment. Expatriates’ personality also had an impact, with three additional antecedents for adjustment emerging through the interview process: previous experience, cultural novelty and self-effort to acquire knowledge. We suggest that organisations should aim to pursue a more holistic selection process, taking into account support available additional to skills and abilities to work towards to higher performance abroad.
Paper 2
Working title: The Influence of Transferring HRM Practices on Employee Commitment and Intention to Leave: A Study of Hybridity within British MNCs in Saudi Arabia.
The awareness of context within which Human Resources Management (HRM) practices are managed in Multinational Corporations (MNCs) has become a critical issue, especially in unfamiliar territories. The present study explores how MNCs adopt transferred models of HRM by examining hybridization in Saudi Arabia. Qualitative data from two British MNCs in Saudi Arabia showed that the hybridization process and faith have a distinct influence on local employees’ organizational commitment and intention to leave. These results are explored in the macro-level context (World Bank, Hofstede, 2001) to propose practical and theoretical contributions of the study in terms HRM hybridity.
