The challenge of international human resource management: balancing the duality of strategy and practice

Over the last two decades there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of organizations that have internationalized their operations. The international movement of labour that has been concomitant with such expansion of international business has meant that issues associated with the management of human resources across international borders are increasingly important to international human resource managers and academics. The research presented in this paper examines international human resource management (IHRM) pedagogy and practice in Australia. It reports IHRM academicians' and practitioners' understanding of the major issues for teaching and practice in IHRM and elucidates current developments and directions for this field.     

The impact of consumer inattention on insurer pricing in the Medicare Part D program

The Medicare Part D program relies on consumer choice to provide insurers with incentives to offer low‐priced, high‐quality pharmaceutical insurance plans. We demonstrate that consumers switch plans infrequently and search imperfectly. We estimate a model of consumer plan choice with inattentive consumers and show that high observed premiums are consistent with insurers profiting from consumer inertia. We estimate the reduction in steady state plan premiums if all consumers were attentive. An average consumer could save $1050 over three years; government savings in the same period could amount to $1.3 billion or 1% of the cost of subsidizing the relevant enrollees.     

The Korean Air nut rage scandal: Domestic versus international responses to a viral incident

This article investigates responses of the international and domestic (South Korean) publics to one of the most hotly debated corporate scandals in recent years: Korean Air’s so-called nut rage incident. By analyzing both international and domestic media coverage of the occurrence, we reveal contrasting interpretations between the two. Whereas the South Korean public tends to generate intense debates addressing a lack of ethics in Korean Air’s public communication following the incident, international public criticism is dominated by questions regarding South Korea’s chronic chaebol system and its negative image in relation to South Korea’s unique institutional context. Korean Air’s incongruent notice of the employee as a key stakeholder is also discussed in the international media. Our research findings indicate how, rather than focusing on legal responsibility, the normative attitude of businesses toward stakeholder pressures is crucial as a means of escaping legitimacy-threatening events. The results of this study demonstrate how public responses to a single incident are diverse in global society and offer new insights regarding the importance of ethics in management leadership and public communication after a crisis incident.