Having just returned from our annual family skiing trip I have been reminded of how important it is to conserve and restore your energy resources. A few consecutive, full days of skiing can easily sap your physical energy. But we all know that our mental energy is a finite resource as well. And sometimes it […]
Expats: Love is in the Air?
Although spring is far gone, summer is leaving us, and the colder, darker and, oftentimes grumpier, seasons are ahead, I have chosen to write about expats’ love and committed relationships today. At first sight, this topic may not seem as important as matters of adjustment, organizational support, child education possibilities and host country climate; yet, […]
Trailing Spouse: An Outdated Label with Important Implications?
A couple of years ago I wrote a post highlighting the important topic of trailing spouses and their need for more organizational support. According to the numbers of some industry surveys at that time, the adjustment problems and dissatisfaction of spouses/partners, as well as dual-career issues topped the list of expatriation challenges. Today, looking at […]
Introverts in an Extraverted Global World
How do you feel about big social gatherings? Do you consider yourself outgoing and at ease with blending into a group of strangers? Does your creativity spur in solitude or during team brainstorming? Do you prefer action or contemplation? As you have most probably sensed by now, all of these questions relate to the well-known […]
Why Would Countries Want to Befriend Their Diasporas Abroad?
Conventionally, emigration of the skilled, especially from developing to developed countries, is considered to be a brain drain and seen as problematic. That is especially relevant for countries with high emigration numbers, such as India and China, who work on luring back their talents. Also Ireland, considered as a nation of emigrants, has recently launched […]
‘Caring Economics’ Towards a Better World
Mediterranean refugee crisis and xenophobia. Eurozone and Greece bailout. War in Ukraine. ISIS. These are just some of the latest world news headlines, the ones that reflect the current geopolitical instability, and involve a lot of arguing, in-group out-group categorizations, blaming one another, confrontation, fear, aggression and intolerance. These issues are global, hence we need […]
HQ Involvement with Its Subsidiaries: Too Much of a Good Thing?
Multinational businesses expand their operations worldwide by establishing subsidiaries abroad. Given that a subsidiary is an asset of the multinational company and serves the economic aims of the business headquarters (HQ), HQ-subsidiary interdependence and a continuous relationship seem to be unavoidable. The degree of interdependence naturally differs with the degrees of freedom granted to the […]
The Migration Crisis: In Need of a Long-Term Solution
In this blog I speak a lot about globalization and migration. I discuss the matters of international business, cross-cultural communication, global talent and borderless workers. Mostly, when speaking about migrants here, I tend to refer to the skilled, educated and globally minded ones. Yet, although not fully serving the purpose of this blog, the matter […]
Benefits of Telecommuting: Recent Research
When speaking of progressive workplace policies, telecommuting is definitely one to mention. 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. As described in one of my earlier blog posts, telecommuting is a trend […]
Not Enough Jobs Now, But Will There Be Enough Workers Soon?
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis many countries are still battling with high unemployment rates. According to the recent overview of European economies provided in The Economist, youth unemployment in Greece and Spain is still around 50%, while in Croatia and Portugal it is well above 40%. Although the unemployment trends since 2013 […]
Multicultural Marketing: When Globalization Requires Even More Cultural Sensitivity
I believe that globalization is a term familiar to pretty much everyone; yet, the way people understand globalization may be quite different. On one hand, many believe that globalization is making the world smaller in a sense that local differences are replaced by global similarities. Indeed, it takes one just to travel around a bit […]
Will Travelling Make You Better at Work?
Imagine the following: you are an employee who needs to improve communication and problem solving skills, as well as become more creative and organized in your job. Yet, instead of organizing training hours and educational materials for you, the employer books some plane tickets in your name and sends you away to travel… That sounds […]
Expats vs. Immigrants: (How Much) Do We Discriminate?
On the surface it seems that discrimination based on race, gender and sexual orientation is fading into the past. For example, the times of separated public transport, schools and eating establishments based on race, which were part of a philosophy of ‘separate but equal’ in the US, are long gone. Instead, today is about equality […]
Spinning the Globe and Picking a Spot?
The latest Mercer quality of life survey shows an updated global city ranking and suggests the best places for relocation. Yet, for global business, the destinations with new opportunities rarely sound familiar.
Gender Diversity in the Workplace: A Global Matter with No Progress?
Gender inequality is one of the global topics that is continuously spoken about, be it in terms of inequalities in the attainment of health, survival and education in developing countries, or differences in economic opportunities in the developed world. Naturally, gender diversity is a hot topic also for global business, where females are consistently underrepresented […]
Gamification in a Global Workforce
Play hard, work hard? Do we know the difference between play and work? Play is more fun and engaging, while work is more like something that ‘you have to do’? When we play football with friends in the park, when we spend evenings playing table games in nice company, when we compete in video games […]
Shared Language in Multinationals: Practical Implications
A couple of weeks ago I introduced the main premises of my latest academic research (forthcoming) on the benefits of shared language in multinational corporations in the blog. Based on an extensive international sample, my colleagues Harzing, Pudelko and I argue that shared knowledge is related to increased knowledge inflows from HQ to multinationals’ foreign […]
