Luciara Nardon

Carleton University · Sprott School of Business

Support provided through social contacts in the host environment has long been recognized as critical for expatriate adjustment. Internet technologies are changing the way individuals form and interact with social contacts and access social support. These technologies have the potential to offer expatriates new sources and means for accessing socia...

This study explored the blogs of newcomers to Canada to investigate the role of blogging in newcomers’ efforts to make sense of a foreign culture. We describe the phenomenon of sensemaking in blogging and identify triggers, mechanisms, and introspective focus of cultural sensemaking in newcomers’ blogs. Our study contributes to research on intercul...

This study amplifies understanding of the occupational marginalization of skilled migrants by ela- borating the role of cognition in skilled migrants’ perception of contextual barriers and career options. Our qualitative analysis of interviews with 13 Filipino engineers who migrated to Canada revealed that migrants’ perceptions are influenced by th...

Measureable, data driven outcomes are not the only indicators of success in today’s multicultural and globalized workforce. How employees interact with their colleagues and customers is also a significant factor in their career development. Luciara Nardon draws on her extensive research and international experience to guide employees and managers...

We investigate how economic immigrants in Canada negotiate their identity in the process of “becoming Canadian” through an analysis of public texts. Drawing on the master narrative framework, we examine the interplay between individual and societal narratives as immigrants grapple with the tension between notions of “desirable” immigrants as those...

Purpose The authors answer calls for research on the experiences of international professionals' career transitions by investigating how highly skilled immigrants make sense of their career changes in the host country's labor market. Design/methodology/approach The authors report on a qualitative, inductive and elaborative study, drawing on sensem...

Sensemaking starts with the sensemaker; the process of identity work is thus central to immigrant integration. In this chapter, we discuss individual level sensemaking to understand how qualified immigrants (QIs) facing similar work integration challenges, with comparable education and work experiences, can have widely different career trajectories...

Communication is central to the process of sensemaking. In this chapter, we explore the interactional level of sensemaking. We argue that ongoing communications with local agents can significantly influence QIs’ decisions and actions as they navigate a new country and professional environment. We explore how QIs construct their reality through comm...

This chapter explores the role of organizational level sensemaking in qualified immigrants’ (QIs’) work integration. A sensemaking perspective on organizations uncovers the social processes through which discriminatory practices in workplaces and work-related institutions become acceptable and are maintained over time. We also explore the effect of...

This chapter explores the role of the broader social context in QIs’ work integration and sensemaking of their career options and actions. Sensemaking is ongoing and occurs within a dynamic social environment. The institutional level of sensemaking exposes the relationship between the broader society and individual actions. We discuss narratives of...

This concluding chapter reiterates the importance of the multiple levels of sensemaking and different actors to understand QIs’ work integration. We discuss some of the challenges to studying the process of sensemaking and propose some implications for research and practice. We end on a futuristic note with emerging avenues for research.

Sensemaking—the process through which individuals and organizations give meaning to events or situations—is critical in qualified immigrants’ (QIs’) work integration. In this chapter, we introduce the sensemaking perspective and elaborate on the properties (grounded in identity construction, retrospective, enactive, social, ongoing, focused on and...

This introductory chapter discusses qualified immigrants’ (QIs) work integration as a wicked problem, highlighting their underemployment or unemployment despite receiving countries’ reported labor shortages and need for talent. We outline the goals of this book and establish sensemaking as an emerging yet underdeveloped theoretical approach to stud...

This paper addresses the role of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in migration governance, support, and experience with particular attention to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, social media, and virtual reality. We propose a framework for technology use based on user groups and process types. We provide examples...

Scholars are increasingly calling for research that “makes a difference” through theoretical, practical, societal, and educational impacts. Recognizing that academic research lags behind practitioners’ issues and that most academic writing is inaccessible to those who need the knowledge, some scholars are calling for embedding social impact in the...

Refugee youth experience lots of challenges enrolling into, proceeding to, and transitioning from higher education to employment. Research on the youth’s transition from higher education to employment is limited and is scattered around several fields. This paper offers a systematic overview of the current knowledge on the important topic pertaining...

As the number of refugees worldwide continues to increase, Human Resource Management (HRM) scholars and practitioners have an opportunity to rethink their role in advancing workforce integration for this highly vulnerable group of jobseekers. In this introduction to a special issue on refugee workforce integration, we argue that in order to promote...

The overwhelming number of refugees in the world today constitutes a major socio-economic and political challenge. With more than 50 years of scholarship on global mobility, International Business (IB) should be well positioned to address this challenge. Yet the field’s historic emphasis on expatriates has resulted in dominant assumptions and persp...

Purpose Various forms of precarious employment create barriers to the integration and inclusion of migrant workers in receiving countries. The purpose of this paper is to review extant research in employment relations and management to identify key factors that contribute to migrant workers' precarious employment and highlight potential avenues for...

We analyse the experiences of international students living in Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of transnationalism that understands mobility as broadly uninterrupted, continuing and taken-for-granted, and international student migration (ISM) literature. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, people had to contend with sudden...

Purpose Despite immigrant-receiving countries' need for skilled professionals to meet labour demands, research suggests that many skilled migrants undergo deskilling, downward career mobility, underemployment, unemployment and talent waste, finding themselves in low-skilled occupations that are not commensurate to their education and experience. Sk...

Drawing on in-depth interviews with exchange and international students during the COVID-19 pandemic, we elaborate on the role of Imaginative Metaphor Elicitation (IME) to generate knowledge about participants’ experiences while helping them make sense of and cope with a difficult situation. Imaginative metaphors allow participants to explore feeli...

We investigate the challenges and opportunities of transitioning hospitality workers who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic to alternative careers through an action research case study. The case is an intervention based on a technology mentor training program created by Connected Canadians, an NGO which provides free training and technica...

How does professional employment support provided by newcomer support organizations (NSOs) influence highly-skilled refugees’ professional identities and workforce integration? To answer this question, we draw on interviews with 25 managers and staff of NSOs in Canada and 11 recently arrived, highly-skilled refugees. We contribute to the literature...

The centrality of communication in international business (IB) is undeniable; yet our understanding of the phenomenon is partially constrained by a cross-cultural comparative focus as opposed to intercultural, process-oriented research designs that capture the dynamic nature of communicative interactions. Our brief review of studies at the intersec...

Increasing levels of displacement and the need to integrate refugees in the workforce pose new challenges to organizations and societies. Extant research on refugee employment and workforce integration currently resides across various disconnected disciplines, posing a significant challenge for management scholars to contribute to timely and releva...

Increasing levels of cultural diversity requires a system of higher education structured to facilitate intercultural learning and develop individuals who are prepared to work in a culturally diverse environment, and can make decisions and manage people cognizant of cultural differences. Three main approaches to facilitate intercultural learning in...

In this paper we review multidisciplinary literature on refugees with the aim of stimulating informed interdisciplinary research that addresses the increasingly topical issue of refugee workforce integration. We organise our findings around three levels of analysis – macro-national, meso-organisational and micro- individual – to outline the complex...

Drawing on initial insights emerging from a panel at the EIBA 2016 Conference in Vienna, here discussants and expert panelists engage in a follow-on conversation on the HRM implications of global teams for international organizations. First we set out how HRM can enable global teams and their constituent members to overcome the new and considerable...

Cambridge Core - Organisation Studies - Management across Cultures - by Richard M. Steers

The process of innovation required to create, develop, adopt and use emerging technologies is both fostered and constrained by social and cognitive factors that influence the nature and extent of innovative activities. Our review of research focusing on the relationship between national and organizational dimensions of culture, organizational pract...

This study explored the blogs of newcomers to Canada to investigate the role of blogging in newcomers’ efforts to make sense of a foreign culture. We describe the phenomenon of sensemaking in blogging and identify triggers, mechanisms, and introspective focus of cultural sensemaking in newcomers’ blogs. Our study contributes to research on intercul...

The third edition of this popular textbook has been thoroughly expanded and updated throughout to explore the latest approaches to cross-cultural management, presenting strategies and tactics for managing international assignments and global teams. With a clear emphasis on learning and development, this new edition introduces a global management mo...

Although new organizational forms, technologies, and work arrangements allow individuals separated by distance to work together, distributed collaboration has proven challenging. Recent research on distributed teams and online communities suggests that successful distributed collaboration may require different behaviors than face-to-face collaborat...

In this paper, we argue that an understanding of cultural differences, while helpful, is insufficient to guide managers through the challenges of cross-cultural encounters. Our basic argument is that each cross-cultural situation is unique and, while culture matters, it matters in different ways across different situations. We explore the interrela...

This study examines the cultural roots of ethi- cal conflicts in the global business environment. It begins with a brief look at worldviews on ethical behavior in general. Based on this, it is argued that an in-depth understanding of ethical conflicts has been hampered by an overreliance on Western models and viewpoints. Three common sources, or ba...

Given the amount of knowledge required to succeed in the global business environment and the speed in which knowledge becomes obsolete, we argue that developing multicultural competence, or an ability to work successfully with partners in different parts of the world, is the best strategy available to managers that want to succeed. Building on the...

Understanding why organizations fail or succeed typically requires, among other things, an assessment of leadership behaviors and contexts. Some experts, mostly those with a stronger psychological inclination, emphasize the figure of those in charge, their personality traits and habits, their charisma and style, their personal or task orientations,...

The goal of this special issue is to present a set of articles that, collectively, explores the interrelationships between national culture, leadership, and organizational behavior. Our hope is that these articles will summarize where the field currently stands, as well as suggest new directions for future research and theory development on this im...

Much of the research on global leadership focuses on specific traits that managers and leaders should possess. While the literature acknowledges the importance of cultural differences in influencing both leadership and followership, it largely ignores differences in cognitive processes that can influence how attitudes are developed and behaviours a...

Management practices and processes frequently differ across national and regional boundaries. What may be acceptable managerial behaviour in one culture may be counterproductive or even unacceptable in another. As managers increasingly find themselves working across cultures, the need to understand these differences has become increasingly importan...

This chapter is part of a research project examining the role of culture and culture differences in foreign partnerships. We build on prior research on culture distance to explore the influence of perceptions of cultural differences on perceived relational risk. Perceived relational risk is defined here as the degree of satisfaction of being involv...

Cambridge Core - Management: General Interest - Cambridge Handbook of Culture, Organizations, and Work - edited by Rabi S. Bhagat

Complex technologies develop within technological systems that include, in addition to discrete technologies, organizations (e.g., manufacturing firms, investment banks), scientific elements (e.g., teaching and research programs), and legislative elements (e.g., regulations). The tangible aspects of technologies do not alone determine their end con...

Developing successful relationships with people from different cultures is challenging by definition. Several reasons account for this, including people's tendencies to have preconceived notions about how the world works (or should work), how individuals behave (or should behave), and which behaviors are acceptable (or unacceptable). These ideas ar...

This paper builds on prior cross-cultural research to explore the role of national culture in providing mechanisms to cope with uncertainty. The concept of uncertainty is critical to organization and management theories, and has been central in explaining the relationship between organizations and their environment. The cross-cultural literature su...

Research on cultural differences in management has been facilitated and hindered by the existence of multiple models of national culture. In this paper we briefly review the most popular models of national culture, identify the convergences and divergences among them. We suggest that a clear need exists to seek convergence across the various models...

Recent technological advancements have pushed both the pace and complexity of globalization to new heights, making it possible to collaborate—or compete—globally from anywhere in the world, regardless of one’s country of origin or cultural background. This presents important challenges to managers which must deal effectively with a wide variety of...