Laurence Romani

Stockholm School of Economics · Department of Management and Organization

Western companies’ outsourcing of projects to emergent markets is increasingly being replaced by strategic partnerships that require close collaboration between clients and vendors. This study focuses on interorganizational boundary-spanning activities in the context of global information technology (IT) development projects from the rare perspecti...

Ethicalisation processes that partake in the construction of a firm or a professional group’s ethical identity are often described as a relatively linear combination of several components, such as policies (starting with the development of a code of ethics), corporate practices, and leadership. Our study of a professional community dealing with the...

Cross-cultural management research is done in both the positivist and the interpretive paradigms. Calls are repeatedly made to consider this diversity, thus asking for more multiparadigm research, which is both challenging and methodologically vague. This article proposes a clear method for a bi-paradigm study leading to theory development. Multipa...

This is a unique, alternative view of culture that has both practical and theoretical significance. The creative analysis of cases from around the world moves the field beyond the sophisticated stereotyping that can result from relying solely on cultural value dimensions to decode interactions. The cases address significant cross-cultural issues, p...

How does the misrecognition of their skills explain the under-employment of educated migrants in Europe? Our study addresses this question at the level of recruitment. Current research points to the potential limitations of recruitment processes, in particular in the screening of candidates with foreign sounding names, and in the international expe...

How can managers reach a critical position from which to develop more responsible management practices? The literature suggests that the answer lies in critical reflexive learning, explaining how reflexivity can detach individuals from the grip of harmful ideologies. We challenge this premise, according to which critical reflexive learning and ideo...

In this research anthology, inequality in Swedish working life in a Sweden marked by increased inequality, is studied. Racialised inequality, racism and discrimination in individual workplaces are focused, but inequalities based on class and gender are also studied. The concept of inequality regime is used by several of the authors to analyse work...

Why has the gender-based reservation system not succeeded in achieving gender equality in Indian politics? Both token theory and critical mass theory posit that equilibrating number of representatives from both genders will achieve gender equality. In India, this led to the reservation system for women in politics in 1993 and an increase in women r...

Why do highly skilled migrants encounter difficulties getting a skilled job? In this study, instead of searching for an answer in migrants’ characteristics, we turn to organizations and ask: why do organizations underemploy migrants? With an in-depth qualitative study of a program for highly-skilled migrants’ labour integration in Sweden, we show t...

In this editorial, we plea for radicalizing diversity research by re-engaging with the notion of class. We argue that theories of class, which are today seldom used in critical diversity research, have the potential to conceptualize the relationship between difference and power in ways that go beyond the current focus on equality within capitalist...

Full chapter can be accessed as preview pdf at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351121064. Full book description: Comparative cross-cultural management (CCM) aims to identify objective cultural differences between national and societal macro-cultures. This is done via comparing selected aspects of culture which are assumed to exist in al...

Full introductory chapter and conceptual background can be accessed as preview pdf at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351121064. Description: This book is a collection of 16 empirical cases in critical Cross-Cultural Management (CCM). All cases approach culture in CCM beyond national cultures, and all examine power as an integrative par...

Extant research on tokenism has documented the adverse consequences for employees in minority positions and how women's possibility of action is constrained in male‐dominated contexts. We present an in‐depth qualitative case study of a male‐dominated organization in a masculine industry in which, despite all expectations, the experience of tokenism...

This article contributes to critical diversity management studies by exploring how human resources professionals do not see that the diversity measures they initiate can contribute to the reproduction of inequalities. We argue that framing such practices as benevolent obscures the fact that they are discriminatory acts. Drawing on the concept of be...

Critical perspectives on cross-cultural management (CCM) are increasingly present in our research community; however, they are spread over multiple research fields (e.g., international business, International Human Resource Management (IHRM), diversity, and gender and/or race studies). Critical researchers tend to have agendas and foci that address...

Cross-cultural management research is often confined to the positivist tradition, which is archetypically illustrated by the seminal work of Hofstede. However, this gives an incomplete overview of the field to which three additional research paradigms contribute: interpretivist, postmodern, and critical. Our ambition is to raise awareness of the pr...

This case study illustrates how the voluntary engagement of the HR personnel into diversity initiatives targeting migrants inscribe their actions into an act of benevolence that re-establishes a social hierarchical relationship between natives and migrants. Through diversity initiatives, HR practitioners create an ambiguous social relationship blen...

https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508418812585 Organization 1 –20 © The Author(s) 2018 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1350508418812585 journals.sagepub.com/home/org Benevolent discrimination: Explaining how human resources professionals can be blind to the harm of diversity initiatives Laurence Romani Stockhol...

Managing the complex global forces that affect all businesses requires managing organizational processes effectively. Managing processes effectively requires influencing and accepting influence from people. Beginning from the first greeting on the first day of one's first job and continuing until the final goodbyes are spoken at a retirement ceremo...

Critical perspectives on cross-cultural management (thereafter CCM) are increasingly present in our research community but spread over multiple research fields such as international business, IHRM, diversity, gender or race studies. Critical scholars researching CCM tend to have different research agendas and foci, oftentimes investigating topics t...

Despite a context of challenging working conditions, ethnocentrism, post-colonial tensions and no valorization of local Greenlandic professional knowledge, the Danish Police Officers sent to Greenland report knowledge development. And not intercultural knowledge or interaction skills, but rather important professional learning, which leads them to...

According to Acker’s (2006:443) all organizations have inequality regimes ‘defined as loosely interrelated practices, actions and meanings that result in and maintain class, gender and racial inequalities within particular organizations’. This paper aims to explore how organizational inequality based on systematic disparities is produced and perpet...

Zwischen Diversity Management und Interkulturellem Management existieren in Forschung und Praxis nur wenige Wechselbeziehungen, obwohl sie sich wichtige Impulse liefern könnten. Dieser Buchbeitrag stellt zum einen auf Basis eines Paradigmenmodells aus der Organisationsforschung einen Orientierungsrahmen für den Forschungsstand in Diversity Manageme...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the decreasing role of professional associations in governing the work of entrepreneurial, knowledge-intensive professions such as management consulting. It presents the example of an alternative path to traditional professional regulation. This organic professionalization path is introduced through...

Zwischen Diversity Management und Interkulturellem Management existieren in Forschung und Praxis nur wenige Wechselbeziehungen, obwohl sie sich wichtige Impulse liefern könnten. Dieser Buchbeitrag stellt zum einen auf Basis eines Paradigmenmodells aus der Organisationsforschung einen Orientierungsrahmen für den Forschungsstand in Diversity Manageme...

Globalization is creating challenges which need to be addressed through new thinking. This panel symposium places these challenges at its heart and queries how firms, people and business schools can make a difference, with global leadership and as global leaders. For this panel symposium we have brought together an international group of scholars t...

How does a global company deal with inter-organizational boundary spanning activities? If the company is a vendor from an emerging economy, and the client a Western multinational company in need of major transformations, the answer to this question challenges prior research. This paper builds on a field study of Indian IT vendor managers who are re...

Zwischen Diversity Management und Interkulturellem Management existieren in Forschung und Praxis nur wenige Wechselbeziehungen, obwohl sie sich wichtige Impulse liefern könnten. Dieser Buchbeitrag stellt zum einen auf Basis eines Paradigmenmodells aus der Organisationsforschung einen Orientierungsrahmen für den Forschungsstand in Diversity Manageme...

In a series of interviews with leading cross-cultural management (CCM) educators, we examine the state of the CCM field within business education. We invited eight prominent scholars and executive educators to consider the following main questions: What is the role of cross-cultural management in business curricula? What challenges do we face teach...

Cross-cultural management research has developed under the influence of distinct paradigms and foci and can be organized in diverse streams with their own assumptions, definitions and sometimes methodologies. We use the term cross-cultural management for the compilation of research and practice of cross-national comparisons, intercultural interacti...

Cross-national research is plagued by many obstacles. This article focuses on one of these obstacles: the fact that research in more than one country usually involves respondents with different native languages. We investigated whether the language of the questionnaire influences response patterns. More specifically we tested whether responding in...

The objective of the study presented in this article is to answer the question of when nationality matters regarding employees’ interpersonal leadership preferences. Based on a literature review, 16 tenure- and demographic-based groupings of employees (four departments, five work positions, five age groups and gender) were identified. Hypotheses we...