Kaye Thorn

• MSc (Res. Mgt.) (Hons) PhD
• Professor (Associate) at Massey University

Purpose Despite burgeoning self-initiated expatriation (SIE) research, little attention has been given to the personal development that occurs as a result of the SIE. The authors address this gap, exploring how the SIE undertaken by older women contributes to their longer-term life-path goals. As personal development has barely featured in the SIE...

Purpose In this paper, the authors investigate and celebrate the contributions that qualitative research has made to Career Development International (CDI) and careers scholarship over the past 25 years. The authors highlight the positive impact of understanding the “lived/emic experiences” of individual career actors using qualitative research des...

Purpose Research into self-initiated expatriation (SIE) has increased exponentially, although the focus of these investigations has been on professional workers, and little has been gender specific. The purpose of this research therefore is to explore the career and personal motivations for SIE through the novel lens of older women. In this explora...

Purpose While there is a burgeoning literature on self-initiated expatriates (SIEs), the emphasis has been on expatriation not repatriation. The purpose of this paper therefore is to explore how repatriating SIEs perceive the experience of repatriation compared with their pre-repatriation expectations. Further, we examine the seminal work of Black...

Rationale/Purpose: The survival of New Zealand’s amateur sport clubs is threatened by a range of factors. This study investigated how club partnerships may address sustainability concerns brought about through sport environmental changes. Design/Methodology/Approach: Semi-structured interviews with representatives from five sport clubs explored how...

The global mobility literature almost exclusively focuses on the traveller, neglecting the experiences of the family. This is particularly the situation with families who stay behind. Using the Job Resources-Demand Model, this study seeks to address this issue. We concentrate on the partners and children of professional sailors, in order to develop...

Purpose Contemporary global mobility and dual careers are two key features of working life today. Little is known, however, about where they intersect, where one partner travels for their career, while the other partner is left behind, caring for the family and attempting to manage their own career. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the factors perceived to influence successful online learning in organisations. Design/methodology/approach Utilising an exploratory, qualitative approach, 20 participants were involved in semi-structured interviews before, during and after their involvement in an online development programme....

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the purported ‘penalty of motherhood’ endures under the contemporary New Zealand institutional umbrella, thus expanding understanding of the remuneration gap and the occupational immobility attributed to motherhood. Drawing on in-depth interviews with eight mothers, the study finds there is a penalt...

There is increasing interest in the human resource management strategies and practices of Chinese multinationals, including the important area of overseas assignments. This article focuses on the neglected area of employee perspectives, in particular workers' motivations for accepting an international assignment (IA). It is based on qualitative int...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relevance of personal and organisational factors contributing to workplace stress among Chinese migrants in New Zealand. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on surveys of 88 participants using the theoretical model of person-environment fit. Findings – The results reveal that perc...

This paper extends intelligent career theory to integrate the knowing - what, where and when elements with the established knowing- how, who and why aspects. We theorize the interrelationship between the six ways of knowing based on empirical evidence of expatriation from an Eastern to a Western context, thus extending Parker et al.’s (2009) concep...

There is increasing interest in the human resource management strategies and practices of Chinese multinational companies given their increased international profile. While an emerging body of literature has investigated international human resource management practices within these organizations, including the important area of managing overseas a...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the dynamic nature of boundaryless careers of Chinese early career corporate expatriates. It also investigates the demographic and contextual factors influencing individual perceived career mobility. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 31 Chinese corporate exp...

This study aims to explore relationships between the motives for international mobility and observed mobility patterns. The key motives of 2,608 skilled expatriate New Zealanders were identified as cultural and travel opportunities, career, economics, affiliations, political environment, and quality-of-life. Mobility patterns, described here as the...

Purpose – This special issue seeks to scope the past, present and future study of those individuals who independently journey abroad for work – the self‐initiated expatriate – a topic which is now attracting increasing attention among management scholars and practitioners alike. Design/methodology/approach – This introductory paper takes the form...

Purpose – This special issue seeks to scope the past, present and future study of those individuals who independently journey abroad for work – the self-initiated expatriate – a topic which is now attracting increasing attention among management scholars and practitioners alike. Design/methodology/approach – This introductory paper takes the form o...

In this chapter we focus on global careers as they apply to Australia (population 22.6 million) and New Zealand (population 4.2 million), developed countries whose culture, language and population has been shaped largely by those of the colonizing British, which they served originally as colonies, and later as dominions. The pressures of anti-colon...

A career has been defined as “the evolving sequence of a person’s work experiences over time”. In this chapter we argue that the time-based nature of careers, and their longevity, make mobility inevitable, and a key characteristic of careers. Careers are most commonly metaphorized as “journeys”, which have both physical and psychological elements....

Purpose This paper aims to explore the relative importance of the motives and sub‐motives which influence a highly educated individual's decision to move across global boundaries. Design/methodology/approach The approach takes a multi‐dimensional perspective of mobility, resulting in the development of a range of motives for self‐initiated mobilit...

With countries increasingly thinking like organisations as they recruit and retain global talent, it is posited that High Commitment Management (HCM) Human Resource Management (HRM) systems could be applied to help stem the brain drain, particularly in highly mobile/low organisational commitment professions such as Accountancy. In an online survey,...

Talent flow is a process whereby economically valuable individuals migrate between countries, and is arguably a more important global career influence than international flows of personnel within global organizations. In this article, we reject the term brain drain as too restrictive and focus on the psychology of migration, specifically the econom...

Recruiting talented workers has become a global international concern, yet the diversity of human motives driving labour mobility has yet to be captured in any psychometric measure. By means of an internet survey administered through 32 professional associations based in New Zealand, 2201 highly skilled but expatriated New Zealanders completed a 26...

This article presents the findings of a web-based survey examining the extent of e-business uptake in the New Zealand tourism industry. It provides a snapshot of both the implementation and usage of e-business. The survey extends the earlier research on New Zealand e-business by Clark et al. (2001) and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (2000), focusing spec...

This paper reports the findings of a monitoring survey of the extent to which principles of sustainability embodied in New Zealand's Resource Management Act have been addressed by public-sector planners dealing with tourism. The survey extends the earlier research by Dymond (1997) and Page and Thorn (1997) on public-sector planning responses to tou...

This paper examines the concept of sustainable tourism planning in New Zealand and its relationship to the Resource Management Act. The paper considers the public sector planning responses towards tourism development issues within the context of New Zealand's Resource Management Act, and the ability of these organisations to respond to tourism issu...

The study was undertaken within the broader context of sustainability - the mission statement included the requirement that the tourism industry on Great Barrier Island, New Zealand, must be managed in such a way as to preserve the island's character and environment for the benefit of residents; encourage the use and enjoyment of the island without...

Public participation is a desirable and necessary component of any decision-making process regarding the allocation of resources. In its present form, however, it is not as effective as it could be. The aim of this study is to develop a strategy leading towards effective public participation. The study focuses primarily on the participants. Criteri...