‘Hidden’ expatriates: international mobility in the United Arab Emirates as a challenge to current understanding of expatriation

Expatriates are often assumed to have enhanced terms and conditions and, because that makes them expensive, to be in key managerial or technical specialist roles. Employees who come from abroad and are in more manual or even menial roles are usually referred to as ‘migrants’. However, there are millions of people around the world who are not migrants, their intended sojourn in a foreign country is seen by them and their employers as temporary, but their employment contracts are far from advantageous compared with those of locals. These ‘hidden’ expatriates are brought into focus in the emerging Arab Gulf States. In some of these countries, the population consists mainly of expatriates, with the local population a small minority: These expatriates include many in lower‐management or manual or menial jobs. We demarcate these expatriates from organisationally assigned expatriates, self‐initiated expatriates and migrants. We use qualitative data from such expatriates in the United Arab Emirates to explore the issues this raises for governments, employers and the expatriates – and for our understanding of the phenomenon of expatriation.     

Towards the use of chronological age in research – A cautionary comment

In recent years, this journal published several articles that used chronological age in their models to distinguish customer behavior between younger and older people. While all these articles are in line with the growing importance of age-related research, chronological age is not discriminant when behavior and motivations enter the fray. By taking two recent articles in this journal as examples, this short note calls for a cautious application of chronological age and highlights other age-related constructs for research. The note ends with practical implications and avenues for further research in age-related projects.     

Do perceptions of time affect outbound-travel motivations and intention? An investigation among Chinese seniors

How people conceptualise time can play a critical role in their travel intention. However, relatively little research attention has been directed to the links between time perspective, outbound-travel motivation and outbound-travel intention. In this study, survey data from a sample of Chinese seniors were analysed to test hypotheses regarding these links. The results showed that present-time perspective and future-time perspective were directly related to travel motivation, and that the associations between present and future perspectives and travel intention were fully mediated by travel motivation. These findings not only highlight the relevance of time-perspective styles to travel research, but also have specific implications for tourism-destination marketers with senior audiences.     

The combined impact of managerial and relational capabilities on innovation in firms

In this paper, a survey of more than 1600 firms in the five largest city regions of Norway is described in order to examine how a firm's innovative capacity is affected by three types of factors: factors related to the manager, the structure of the firm and the broader geographical location. By combining perspectives from the fields of management and economic geography in a logistic regression analysis, we find that the two key drivers of firm-level innovation in Norway are the presence of open-minded managers and evidence of collaboration with international partners. Moreover, these two factors are mutually reinforcing, as firms with open-minded managers also tend to engage more with international partners and vice versa.     

主客位视角在少数民族地区研究中应用的思考

现代化进程加速,少数民族地区社会发展成为重要议题,民族学作为专门研究不同民族的学科,承担着科学、客观及准确认知各个民族并为政府提供政策性建议,推动民族地区繁荣发展的重任。而民族学一向重视研究视角的选择,因为这关系到能否获得对研究问题的可靠认识。通过选取少数民族社会研究中的四个问题予以探讨,阐释关于民族学两种传统研究视角在民族地区现实问题研究中应用的思考,希望能为正确认识少数民族社会发展中遇到的问题与困境,进而促进民族地区健康、和谐及可持续发展提供有益见解。     

思想政治理论课程文化模式及其建构

社会学视野中,思想政治理论课程建设的文化标准是高度复合化的指标系统,多元文化的碰撞与交融构成了思想政治理论课程建设的文化背景。思想政治理论课程文化要代表先进文化的前进方向,就必须提升课程文化的政治鉴别力和判断力,发挥课程文化的主导性,营造从科学世界向生活世界回归的新型课程文化生态。     

中国经济学教育面向新世纪的思考

回顾建国以来我国现代经济学教育走过的道路,要对新世纪中国经济学的教育进行展望,中国经济学教育界有一个基本的问题需要澄清,这就是什么是“经济学”。作者从经济学发展的历史轨迹中去寻找答案,认为所谓的“经济学”实际上是一个由问题、工具、理论等三个不同阶段构成的生动的“过程”。借助这个“过程论”,作者分析了中国经济学界的一些问题,并据此对新世纪中国经济学的教育进行了展望。     

关系型交易对审计费用的影响——基于经营风险理论视角

关系型交易模式可能会在议价能力、关系专用性投资成本转换等方面加剧上市公司的经营风险,进而影响审计费用。已有研究主要集中于关系型交易对审计行为的影响,鲜有文献关注其中的作用机制。本文基于经营风险理论视角,选取2008~2017年沪深A股制造业上市公司的相关数据,实证分析了关系型交易对审计费用的影响,结果表明:关系型交易显著加剧了企业经营风险的集聚,进而提升审计费用,即经营风险在关系型交易对审计费用的影响中起到了中介作用。进一步研究,在区分了产权性质以及耐用品特征后,实证结果显示关系型交易与审计费用的正相关关系在非国有企业以及耐用品行业的企业中较为显著,为审计师进行合理审计定价提供了经验证据支持。     

过程视角下高校实验教学质量调查研究——以N大学为例

实验教学质量高低直接影响高校人才培养的质量及层次,科学的实验教学管理模式有利于提高实验教学质量。从实验教学过程的视角,以N大学812名学生和92名教师为调查对象,就实验教学准备、实施、考核与评价三个过程的教学质量状况进行问卷调查的结果显示,师生对实验教学过程质量的总体评价较高,但对实验设备配置、实验室开放程度、实验项目数量与层次、实验教学考核等过程因素评价指标较低,故高校需进一步加强实验教学过程的质量控制,不断提高实验教学管理水平。