Expatriate management and national culture: a bibliometric study of prolific,productive, and most cited authors and institutions

Abstract

This is a bibliometric study of reference literature related to the influence of national culture issues on expatriate management. It is based on publications in elite Management, International Business, and Human Resource academic journals between 2000 and 2012. The database comprises 222 articles involving 368 authors and 223 academic institutions. The analysis uses a broad scoring procedure that includes: (I) scholars and institutions’ productivity in terms of number of publications (both, total and adjusted), (II) authors and institutions’ productivity in terms of potential impact based on journals’ performance (a wide spectrum of different metrics is used in order to allow for alternative perspectives), and (III) a citation analysis. The use of multiple and diverse scores provides a comprehensive understanding of the ranking of academic institutions and scholars within this particular subfield of research. In addition, the article analyzes collaborative research patterns, expected institutional influence in the near future, and main issues to be included in the field’s research agenda.     

Entrepreneurs and internationalization: A study of Western immigrants in an emerging market

Our interview-based study began as an investigation of Westerners residing in Vietnam. Our sample fell into three groups: local expatriates, expatriate entrepreneurs, and hybrids (those who worked for a multinational while owning a local company). Based on this finding, we re-examined the data to explore expatriates as employers. Two themes emerged. The first revealed expatriate entrepreneurs and hybrids as active market players who were competitors for local talent and/or potential local distributors or partners in Vietnam. The second theme indicated a parallel process: the internationalization of firms entering a foreign market and the internationalization of individuals entering that same market. Our contribution is the opening of the ‘homogeneous’ black box of Western immigrants and the expansion of the concept of the expatriate entrepreneur, thus reinserting the role of the individual in the process of firm internationalization.     

A stakeholder approach to expatriate management: Perceptions of hotel expatriate managers in China

Expatriates are critical to the navigation of an increasingly complex business environment as more hospitality companies operate beyond domestic domains. The present research took a stakeholder approach to examine the expatriate experience. The study posited that cross-cultural issues faced by expatriate managers are contextualized in stakeholder issues and that satisfying multiple stakeholder interests constitutes the ultimate test of expatriate success. In-depth interviews were conducted to examine stakeholder-specific issues and challenges faced by expatriate hotel managers in China. A conceptual framework and related propositions were developed based on an analysis of textual data. The research showed that cross-cultural issues and stakeholder issues are intertwined, but one set of issues can be more salient than the other in a specific manager–stakeholder relationship. Theoretical and managerial implications of the study were also discussed.     

Toward fairer global reward: Lessons from international non-governmental organizations

Global reward management plays a fundamental role in supporting the attraction, motivation and retention of employees, and yet recent research has underscored limitations of the dominant balance sheet approach, including inequity between host country national and expatriate staff. To shed light on how reward in international contexts can be structured to address issues of fairness and equity, this study explores approaches to global reward in international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), an underexplored context where fairness may be particularly salient. Through an inductive study of 15 INGOs, we show how organizations are reconceptualizing global reward systems by questioning dominant assumptions of the expatriate workforce and the jobs they do, and broadening consideration of reward to include both monetary and non-monetary components. Doing so enables incremental shifts toward strategic alignment of global reward with underlying social values. Our findings provide important insights for organizations operating internationally about how global reward can be structured to address concerns of fairness, while still enabling organizations to meet their demands for particular skills.