The article is focused on the analysis of the cross-cultural competency framework of the NGO managers within international organizations. The results of the qualitative research project demonstrate a consistent pattern of three perceived mandatory competencies for efficient managers: communicative competence, intercultural competence and linguistic competence. The qualitative phenomenological research was conducted in Ukraine and US; the insights of 22 in-depth interviews with managers of the international NGOs reveal vision and perception that US and Ukrainian managers have regarding the required education, skill set and knowledge of the successful international managers.
The purpose of this article is to identify the benefits and weaknesses arising from intercultural interactions arising between foreigners and local staff in the German subsidiary operating in Poland. The research procedure was a case study, and a method was 12 semi-structured interviews with Polish managers. Research problems concerned the general perception of the Polish managers in relation to cooperation with foreigners. The respondents indicated the benefits and problems of this cooperation, as well as practical guidance (advice) to improve these interactions. This case study enriched the empirical achievements in the area of the new trend in management sciences, which is the positive organizational scholarship (POS).
It can be assumed that globalization, leading to the unification and assimilation of many processes which take place in the world economy, technology, and culture will transform the contemporary world into a global village, and thus the problem of cultural differences will be marginalized. If the easiness of acquisition and transmission of information via Internet as well as fast and cheap movement of people offered by economic airlines are taken into account, it can be concluded that the discussion about culture shock and reverse culture shock experienced by expatriates is unjustified. However, in practice, the phenomenon of culture shock still occurs, and its course and scope depends on expatriate’s personality, his preparation for work and life in a foreign country, and the degree of cultural diversity. Culture shock extends the period of adaptation to a new culture, has negative impact on well-being, achievements, effectiveness, and reduces job satisfaction. Some managers cannot adjust to work and life in a foreign cultural environment and decide to return earlier to their home country. The ones who are able to overcome culture shock and adapt to new conditions of work and life can experience reverse culture shock after coming back home, because in the meantime everything has changed. Culture shock also applies to inpatriates, local managers delegated to the headquarters. Complete elimination of negative consequences of culture shock and reverse culture shock is not always possible but there are some methods of reducing negative effects of this phenomenon. Hence, the purpose of this article is to identify the essence and the course of culture shock, and indicate the ways leading to the reduction and mitigation of its consequences. Studies and analysis of literature illustrating culture shock and reverse culture shock were conducted to achieve the aim of this paper, and the monographic method was utilized to the presentation of the results of the research.
Development and geographical expansion of multinational corporations makes it more complex and more often we are dealing with cultural diversity within teams of employees. Mutual cooperation of foreigners and local staff raises many intercultural interactions, both negative and positive. The purpose of this article is to identify the benefits and weaknesses arising from intercultural interactions between foreigners and local staff in the German subsidiary operating in Poland. The research procedure was a case study and a method was 12 structured interviews with Polish managers. Research problems concerned the general perception of Polish managers in relation to cooperation with foreigners. The respondents indicated the benefits and problems of this cooperation, as well as practical guidance (advice) to improve these interactions. This case study enriched the empirical achievements in the area of the new trend in management sciences, which is the positive organizational scholarship (POS).
The purpose of this article is to diagnose the symptoms of ethnocentrism in subsidiaries of foreign corporations in Poland on the basis of empirical research. This paper presents partial results of the study, which was conducted in two research projects. From the first titled “Staff expatriate managers in multinational companies in Poland” (No. UMO- 2011/01/D/HS4/01700) questionnaire surveys were obtained from 112 expatriates working in Poland, in which the questions were asked about approach to the management of a subsidiary in Poland. The second research project concerned “Perceptions of expatriate managers by the Polish-managers.” In the interviews 20 Polish managers working in branches of foreign corporations in Poland were involved.
In the contemporary world, economically and communicatively interconnected, more and more people live and work in different cultural environment. Expansion of transnational corporations, development of international joint ventures, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, and international project teams cause growing demand for professionals – expatriates and inpatriates – travelling and working worldwide. Sometimes virtual solutions are employed in managing international teams. Business practice shows that international managers have to face much more difficult challenges than domestic ones. Globalization, with the growing mobility of highly educated, talented people, resulted in the development of global labour market, powered by professionals coming from diverse countries and cultures. As a result, the intercultural problems and conflicts become more and more burning, which creates the need for cultural intelligence – an important attribute of expatriates, together with general intelligence, emotional intelligence, and other managerial competencies which was the reason for researching cultural intelligence in international business. The aim of this paper is to identify the essence, the origin, the dimensionsn and the sub-dimensions of cultural intelligence, and to indicate its importance in different types of international teams. Studies and analysis of relevant sources were conducted to complete the task. To present the results of the findings the monographic method was utilized.
This paper considers the impact of shared imaginaries of mobility among so-called elite, mobile professionals - early-career expatriates living in Nepal for a period of one to three years. Based on 18 months of fieldwork among expatriates in Kathmandu, I explore the ways in which these actors construct, navigate and narrativise the boundaries between themselves and the many tourists who visit Nepal each year. While in some transnational contexts, these guests may seek to align themselves with other guests such as tourists and foreign residents as a means of asserting and expressing shared commonalities of transnationality and mobility, expatriates in Kathmandu are keen to highlight perceived distance between themselves and other guests as much as they are the perceived proximities between themselves and native Nepalis. In focusing on this former interaction, I show that tourist imaginaries become important means for expatriates to negotiate difference as they learn their new local identities in a context of spatial and temporal transience. Though the academic literatures of migration and tourism have developed more or less in isolation from one another, these two spheres of mobility are in fact very much interrelated. I suggest that anthropological research into the self-conceptions of mobile professionals take into consideration other non-local groups with whom they share local spaces, since these actors can be used instrumentally as a means of strengthening both group and individual identities. If anthropology engages effectively with the interactions between hosts and guests in colonial spaces, I argue that just as much can be gleaned by looking at engagements between guests and other guests. Through a consideration of these border zones of encounter, anthropologists can illustrate ethnographically how individual expatriate identities are negotiated within communities of elite, mobile professionals.
The Croatian society is still coping with traumatizing events (World War II and civil war) and memories of them. The politics of memory, articulated by Tudjman´s strategy of generational and memory reconciliation of the society in the early 1990s, led to the relativization and even promotion of the pro-fascist Ustashe regime, and simultaneously to the marginalization and stigmatization of narratives relating to the role of national liberation struggle within multi-ethnic partisan movement. This also included members of local Czech minority. The study shows how - despite this - the narratives concerning the partisan resistance are still alive in family memory, and they form, through generational transmission, a value alternative to the contemporary nationally-oriented state ideology as well as to the cultural presentation of Czech minority. Family memory works as an autonomous ”intimate space/area” of expatriates in Croatia, which is based on searching for a generational value continuities in the period of post-communist social uncertainties.
This article fills a gap in migratory research in Poland by exploring patterns of social adaptation of intra-EU migrants living temporarily (i.e. up to five years) in Poland. The paper explores the spaces of everyday social practices of people of British, French and German nationality that came to work here or followed a family member and uncovers a family and female perspective on social adaptation of highly skilled elite migrants in Warsaw. It presents original empirical material employing creative research techniques gathered in Warsaw. The study reveals that social adaptation of intra-EU highly skilled migrants is spatially selective and expats develop connections with spaces related to their family life reproduction, such as international schools, expatriate associations and places of leisure and consumption. The article argues that more attention should be paid in future research to intra-EU mobility and the gender imbalance in accessing particular local resources, such as the labour market.
The article presents the role of Human Resource Development (HRD) in the process of international assignments by identifying how analyses and interventions taken under HRD add value for expatriates and for multinational enterprises. The study is of a conceptual nature and is based mainly on an analysis of the subject literature, the purpose of which is to identify the essence and features of strategic and international HRD and, on this basis, to prepare a model depiction of HRD impact on the creation of values in the process of international assignments.
PL
W artykule przedstawiono miejsce rozwoju zasobów ludzkich (RZL) w procesie zarządzania misjami (wyjazdami) zagranicznymi pracowników. Określono, w jaki sposób analizy i interwencje podejmowane w ramach RZL tworzą wartość dodaną dla ekspatriantów i zatrudniającej ich organizacji. Opracowanie ma charakter koncepcyjny i bazuje na analizie literatury przedmiotu, której celem było określenie istoty i cech strategicznego i międzynarodowego RZL i na tej podstawie opracowanie modelowego ujęcia jego wpływu na tworzenie wartości w procesie misji zagranicznych. Konkluzją przeprowadzonych rozważań jest teza, że podejmowanie w ramach RZL działań stymulujących procesy indywidualnego i organizacyjnego uczenia się przyczynia się do tworzenia i dostarczania wartości dodanej w tym procesie.
W ciągu ostatnich 20 lat transformacji polityczno-gospodarczej Polska stała się jednym z atrakcyjniejszych krajów Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej pod względem lokalizacji bezpośrednich inwestycji zagranicznych, w szczególności typu greenfield, co wiąże się z obecnością ekspatriantów w naszym kraju. Celem niniejszego artykułu jest zaprezentowanie profilu demograficznego ekspatów, motywów ich przyjazdu do Polski oraz problemów, z jakimi borykają się na co dzień. Poza studiami literaturowymi treścią artykułu są wstępne rezultaty badań stanowiące fragment projektu badawczego „Kadra menedżerów ekspatriantów w przedsiębiorstwach międzynarodowych w Polsce” (nr UMO-2011/01/D/HS4/01700), finansowanego przez Narodowe Centrum Nauki.
EN
Over the past twenty years of political and economic transformation, Poland has become one of the most attractive countries of Central–Eastern Europe in terms of locations for foreign direct investments, especially of the greenfield type. This is tied with the presence of expatriates in the country. The goal of this article is a presentation of the demographic profile of expatriates, motives for their coming to Poland, and problems that they face on a day–to–day basis. In addition to literature studies, this article includes the preliminary results of research, a fragment of the “Expatriate Managerial Staff in International Companies in Poland” research project (No. UMO–2011/01/D/HS4/01700) as financed by the National Science Center.
This article examines how the international mobility of corporate professionals is entwined with the rise of the knowledge economy within a ‘flexible’ capitalist system. As telecommunication technologies transform the economy, transnational organizations have been employing mobility strategies that affect the work and life of highly-skilled professionals and their families. Evidence is reviewed through a perspective of mobile labor studies, assuming international professional mobility as a privileged site of analysis. The article outlines the corporate expatriate population as the background for comparing mobility practices and regimes adopted by conventional and information-intensive industries. This comparison seeks to identify what is specific and new about professional mobility in the knowledge economy. The analysis confirms that patterns of mobility in information-intensive industries are more dynamic, unstable and contingent - in a word, more “flexible” - than those found in conventional or mature industries.
A growing number of foreign country nationals in economies worldwide challenges academics to raise a question whether one’s country of origin (COO) matters when selecting candidates for managerial positions. Thus the aim of this paper is to analyze the COO effect on the evaluation of managerial competence of a foreign individual. The analysis includes both the literature review and the empirical findings from the authors’ pilot research. A focus group interview is the method that was applied in the study. The analysis contributes to the nascent streams in international business and cross-cultural management research that concern the COO effect and the liability of foreignness (LOF) that refers to foreign newcomers (i.e. immigrants, ex/inpatriaties). It also adds some practical implications for the International Human Resource Management literature with that respect. The empirical findings suggest that COO is apparent when managerial skills are evaluated by locals.
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