When thinking about relocations and expatriates’ mobile lifestyle, it has been common to acknowledge related challenges such as cultural shock, adjustment to a new environment, foreign language difficulties, and the slow process of socialization in the host country. Mostly, such discussions concern relocating adults, and when it comes to expatriates’ children, the common assumption is […]
The Aging Global Workforce: How to Turn Demographic Challenges into a Business Opportunity
Common to many publications about the future of the global workforce is the alarming notion of global demographic changes. Specifically, despite a growing global population, the future prospects indicate that the population in developed countries is aging, which means that the working population is shrinking. As a recent Ernst &Young report on business trends shows, […]
Want to Become more Culturally Competent? Start with your Cultural Self-Awareness
It is impossible to speak about being global without the ability to deal with different cultures. Global companies engage in cross-cultural business relations, lead multicultural teams, develop intercultural competencies, strive to increase cultural awareness and look for cultural intelligence. In short, a clear message in today’s globalized world is that success is built by joint […]
Global Leadership in Practice: Leading with your Head, your Heart and your Guts.
My last post presented a conceptual framework for defining the ‘global’ of global leadership and proposed some managerial implications. Indeed, as global leadership is a key challenge in many organizations today, research increasingly focuses on providing advice on how to develop global leadership competences. For instance, international experience, solid career plans, leadership talent programs and […]
Defining the ‘‘global’’ in global leadership
Global leadership is the buzzword of the 21st century. Reviewing the global leadership literature with my colleagues (Mendenhall, Reiche, Bird & Osland, 2012), we have noticed that although there is a plethora of definitions available, few attempts have been made to unify them. Hence, our intent was to fill this gap and we came up with a conceptual model of ‘global’.
The Persistent Underrepresentation of Women in Management: Implications for Change
My previous post explored the persistent underrepresentation of women in management, described the situation, and presented some reasons for it. This week’s post focuses on the assumption that this gender inequality can be changed, and discusses some organizational ‘TO DOs’ to advance gender diversity.
The Persistent Underrepresentation of Women in Management
One of my latest blog posts about accompanying partners in expatriation touched on the continuously changing perceptions of female gender roles, especially concerning their work-life empowerment. Indeed, in most developed economies – primarily Europe and North America – women account for nearly half of the overall workforce, according to World Bank statistics. Yet, when it […]
Winning through Diversity? The Case of Multicultural Management Teams
Given the increasingly global business environment, establishing management teams that consist of members from different countries of origin would appear to become necessary practice. Multicultural business requires multicultural management – isn’t this what common wisdom would suggest? Does the cultural diversity of management teams really benefit global companies?
Accompanying Partners on Expatriation: The Male Perspective
Traditional gender roles imply a scenario in which the male partner is employed and fulfills the task of a breadwinner in the family, while the female is in charge of raising kids and upholding the household. Although female work empowerment made their traditional role description quite faded today, the role attitudes and expectations of many people towards the male role have not changed much. The recent study by Nina Cole (2012) looks into the ‘unique’ role of males as expatriate accompanying partners.
Transforming HR Strategies for the Future: Implications from the ‘Global Talent 2021’ Report
About two decades ago the total of the world’s exports and imports accounted for only 30% of global GDP whereas today international trade makes up more than half of it. It indicates of rapid economic integration, which is naturally transforming the global business landscape. Based on this argument, Oxford Economics undertook an extensive global survey, and their results provide some valuable insights.
Spotlight Engagement: The Case of Expatriates
Generally speaking, expatriates share similar engagement drivers to non-expatriates. However, there are also some unique elements of expatriate engagement, which stem from the nature of their employment type. Specifically, expatriates seem to pay more attention to all factors related to a company’s future and actions of senior leadership, as well as their engagement tends to be more driven by one’s individual outlook and future prospects compared to non-expats.
2012 Global Workforce Study gives wake-up call: Organizations are in need of sustainable engagement
Over the last decade engagement has become a corporate buzzword, aiming at the goal of making employees to ‘go that extra mile’. However, the recent Global Workforce Study shows that the actions taken by organizations seem to be falling short, as just 35% of the 32,000 survey respondents indicated to be highly engaged. These numbers call for extra effort on developing sustainable engagement within organizations.
Best Practices of Managing Telecommuters
As stated in my previous post, telecommuting is becoming a normal part of the modern workplace due to several reasons, such as cost saving and workplace flexibility aimed at improving employees’ work-life balance. However, there are several drawbacks to these employment practices, which mainly stem from the fact that telecommuters are physically dispersed. Take a look at managerial implications.
A Modern Way of Commuting: Telecommuting
Given the ever increasing demands for business expansion, international partnerships and cooperation, today commuting ‘from here to there and in between’ is a normal part of employees’ work-life. While commuting can be very time inefficient and costly, the rapid development of mobile technology provides a solution. The term ‘telecommuting’ refers to employees using modern technologies to work outside their office, let it be their home or any other location, either regularly or from time to time.
Follow-up on International Itinerants: A Matter of Their Employment
International itinerants, although being referred to as self-managed professionals with a tendency to change employers quite frequently, are an important source for staffing. In line with more traditional expatriates, international itinerants can bring great value to MNCs, and can offer some advantages to employers that could not be offered by traditional assignees.
The key to successful expatriation lies more in developing appropriate skills than in possessing favorable personality traits? Some evidence.
Does the key to successful expatriation lie more in developing appropriate skills than in possessing favorable personality traits? A recent study by Shaffer and colleagues (2006) indicates that both stable personality traits and more dynamic cross-cultural competencies are important predictors of expatriate success.
