Yochanan Altman

University of Haifa | haifa · Center for the Study of Organizations and Human Resource Management

As self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) often struggle to communicate in the common corporate language and/or host country language, the aim of this study is to determine if host country language proficiency (HCLP) facilitates communication. As a corollary HCLP might reduce the negative impact of psychological contract (PC) breach on PC violation, and...

This qualitative research explores the psychological contract (PC) of a sample of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) working in the French hospitality sector, focusing on PC evaluation as well as reactions to PC breach and feelings of violation. The authors found evidence of a psychological contract type not discussed before in empirical studies. Th...

Prior research suggests that employees aware of their peers’ mistreatment by management and who themselves are target to such mistreatment help their peers more than employees who have been exposed only to peers’ mistreatment. However, no studies have tried to explain the way this process occurs. Suggesting that this help is performed compassionate...

Prior research suggests that employees aware of their peers’ mistreatment by management and who themselves are target to such mistreatment help their peers more than employees who have been exposed only to peers’ mistreatment. However, no studies have tried to explain the way this process occurs. Suggesting that this help is performed compassionate...

The purpose of this paper is to find out what do academics do when approaching retirement and why – as well as reflect on the process and consequences of reaching a retirement decision, for themselves, the university system, and the wider community. Our study concentrates on baby-boomers, as this large cohort starts to retire or be entitled for ret...

This paper responds to calls for editorial teams to provide clear guidance on ethical issues such as plagiarism. Our objective is to outline a policy suitable for an international journal that belongs to an international community, with members across different cultures, speaking different languages. After considering definitions of plagiarism and...

This qualitative study explores the psychological contracts of self-initiated expatriates regarding their perceived work context through recourse to Cultural Theory (Grid/Group analysis) and brings together a Social Exchange theory with a neo-Durkheimian theory, with the potentiality to enrich each other. Employing in-depth semi-structured intervie...

The purpose of this paper is to find out what do academics do when approaching retirement and why – as well as reflect on the process and consequences of reaching a retirement decision, for themselves, the university system, and the wider community. Our study concentrates on baby-boomers, as this large cohort starts to retire or be entitled for ret...

ABSTRACT With the increased attention to global mobility in the practitioner and academic literature, the rise of interest in self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) who engender their cross-border mobility and employment is particularly noted; however much still remains unknown on this segment of the labor market, which is growing in importance. The ps...

The surge of interest in expatriation and repatriation within the broader discourse on labor mobility of professionals and high-skilled labor, human capital development, and the theory and practice of people management serves as the backdrop to this paper. We propose that expatriation and repatriation be framed in the context of global careers and...

Purpose – On the background of China’s turn to a market economy and a consumer-driven society, the purpose of this paper is to recount the fortunes of the age-old religion of the Naxi people and their farmer-priests, the dongba . Design/methodology/approach – Detailed ethnography, including participant observation, the collection of life histories...

In this paper, we aim to broaden and deepen the current debate on expatriation in business and management discourse, and especially self-initiated expatriation. Following Bauman’s [Liquid Modernity (2000), Cambridge: Polity; Liquid Love, On the Frailty of Human Bonds (2003), Cambridge: Polity] critique of postmodern society and, employing an anthro...

Purpose This paper aims to identify the role of informal economic relations in the day-to-day working of organizations, thereby opening a way to theorizing and informed practice. We will present and discuss about the manifestation of informality in ‘everyday’ reality of Soviet and transformation economies. Informed by Cultural Theory and in particu...

Rousseau (1995) defines the psychological contract as “individual beliefs, shaped by the organization, regarding terms of an exchange agreement between individuals and their organization.” Employer fulfilment of the psychological contract has a positive relationship with organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (e.g. Coyle-...

The October 18, 2013, edition of the London Evening Standard reported under the headline, “Stress and the City: Has the banking world gone soft?” the following: “when it emerged on Tuesday night that top Barclay’s executive and former FSA boss Sir Hector Sants was taking three months off as a result of “exhaustion and stress” the financial world’s...

We present the life stories of Self-Initiated Expatriates (SIEs) in Crete as a means of broadening the discussion on expatriation and the family-work interface. While SIEs have been depicted in the literature as adjusting more readily and more effectively to local cultures and working environments than Assigned Expatriates (Vaiman V, Halsberger A (...

Whilst the extant literature on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) extols its positive features, we wish to raise awareness to the negative consequences of those behaviors for individuals and groups as well as organizations, through the prism of management practices, specifically by reference to performance appraisal, compensation, and train...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on the development of an Arabic language scale for measuring cross‐cultural adjustment in the Arab world, predominately the Middle East. It also comments on aspects of psychometric tools and their appropriateness for use in cross‐cultural management research. Design/methodology/approach Black and Step...

Contemporary global work comprises a wide and growing array of different modes of international work configurations. In this article, we offer a multidimensional framework for conceptual (theoretical and practical) underpinning of these different modes. Building on the extant literature and the Delphi approach, seven dimensions emerged: (i) time of...

Purpose This paper aims to examine the challenges experienced by Russian research and development (R&D) organisations in international technology collaboration in the global innovation arena. Design/methodology/approach A total of 33 Russian R&D organisations were selected from a sample of 138 potential participating organisations from the Central...

This chapter is a brief essay on two possible views of the future of the field of spirituality in the workplace and workplace spirituality.

An important aspect of globalization as a social/economic/political reality that began to unfold in the second half of the 20th century and is intensifying in the early decades of the 21st century is the growing flow — of people, capital, information, ideas, services, products — transcending national borders. With transnational corporations increas...

Purpose Within the current discourse on contemporary careers and the context of international assignments, this paper seeks to conduct a study of a large European MNC, with the aim of theory development on expatriation/repatriation. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative study, based on semi‐structured interviews in a major financial institutio...

This article consists of eight “mini-articles,” which describe how each author or authors employ cultural metaphors and/or cross-cultural paradoxes in their classrooms (see also the article “Cultural metaphors and cross-cultural paradoxes” in unit 7.1).

Despite a significant and increasing volume of literature on women's expatriate corporate careers, our understanding of this field is patchy. We know that women expatriates adjust and perform well, despite the challenges that they face in selection and deployment, during the assignment and on repatriation. We also know that, despite their success,...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide an interview with Lynne Sedgmore, CBE, Executive Director of 157 Group UK. Design/methodology/approach This briefing is prepared by an independent interviewer. Findings Lynne Sedgmore, CBE, is executive director of the 157 Group UK and was formerly chief executive of the UK Centre for Excellence in...

This paper examines a hitherto neglected detail of organizational life – the lunch break, a daily event, which bears important implications for organizations and their people. We propose a theoretical framework for understanding differences in lunch break practice based on an anthropological theory of comparative cultures, and contextualize it in c...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which Confucian moral standards may serve as a moral root of employees' organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in the People's Republic of China (PRC). Design/methodology/approach – The approach is conceptual, based on research within the field. Findings – This paper suggests that...

The rapid growth of research on organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) in the People's Republic of China (PRC) is continuing a trend that started in the West (i.e., North America and West Europe) 25 years ago and provides us with an opportunity for a critical examination of conceptualisations, methodologies, findings and implications. This pape...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to highlight the drawbacks of viewing an organization's employees as simply “resources”, rather than as individual human beings with their own rights, needs and aspirations. Design/methodology/approach The paper presents the author's personal viewpoint. Findings The paper urges organizations to acknowledge and...

abstractThis study examines the role of human resources in strategy formulation processes in China's emerging market. Employing a qualitative data driven thematic analysis, we present evidence collected from six comparative case sites of Spanish firms in China. Our findings suggest that high performing firms use a dynamic adaptive logic while lower...

With the rapid and decisive impact electronic communication has had on our lives in general, and the work place in particular, notably e-mail as the preferred communication medium, this literature review paper examines the available evidence of its potential negative effects. Even though the benefits of e-mail communication for individuals and orga...

Women's progress into management and, more specifically, into the world of expatriates, is the subject of this review. Despite advances in equal opportunities legislation, women failed to embark on expatriate missions in significant numbers during the 1980s. In the 1990s, more women were offered international assignment opportunities but they remai...

Despite the growing number of studies on the topic of guanxi in a work context, there is a paucity of research on supervisor–subordinate guanxi in the field of organisation and management. This article critically reviews the extant literature on guanxi in human resource management and organisational behaviour and applies an inductive approach to ex...

Purpose This paper aims to explore Hong Kong firms' training needs in the Pearl River Delta, a booming region in the fast growing People Republic of China economy, by resorting to a human capital approach. Also, to identify the training policies selected by those firms in order to cater for those needs. Design/methodology/approach A survey based m...

This historical reflection of an important period of the 20th century – the vagaries of the Soviet-type command economy, accords us the opportunity to discuss the practice and art of management as an ongoing negotiation between different agencies, interest groups, constraints and opportunities. We detail the case of Soviet Georgia's hidden economy,...

We explored what authors allegedly do and why, when invited to revise and resubmit manuscripts to refereed journals. Based on responses from 249 business and management scholars from the UK and USA, we found that authors preferred to resubmit to the original journal, whether the required revision was minor or major, and that under certain circumsta...

Purpose – Mayrhofer and Iellatchitch's discussion of rites of passage in the context of contemporary careers raises some concerns as to the usefulness of the concept as well as to its transferability across disciplines. This rejoinder maintains that, while the employment of rites of passage should be welcomed, its use in career discourse should be...

Against the background of an earlier UK study, this paper presents the findings of a Canadian based survey of career benefits from the MBA. Results indicate firstly that gender and age interact to influence perceptions of career outcomes (young men gain most in terms of extrinsic benefits of career change and pay), and secondly that both men and wo...

This article explores the career progress of female MBA graduates in Canada and the UK and the nature of career barriers experienced in each context. Results suggest that while Canadian women have similar career profiles to men, women in the UK lag behind their male counterparts after graduation from the course. At the same time, UK women encounter...

This research note sets out to explain the main features of the French university academic career—the “coconut tree,” as it is colloquially known, setting it firmly within a social and cultural context; outlining the logic and functions of career stages, explaining its rituals and conventions, its rewards and pitfalls. These are narrated by two cha...

Issue 2 of volume 1 of the Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion presents an exciting collection (well, we are somewhat biased) of theoretical, empirical and reflexive articles I on spiritual and religious themes related to management.

This article reports the findings of a study of Canadian MBA graduates that explores the skills, knowledge and capabilities which they gained from the programme within the context of a career-competency framework. It concludes that the development of knowing-why career competencies (relating to career values, meanings and motivations) were the most...

The challenge of the management of expatriates and repatriates has never been more timely nor urgent: globalization has forced expatriation into the corporate agenda, confronting us with an array of questions on HRM strategy and practice. We propose that a wide range of current thinking and practice may be conveniently grouped into a taxonomy of fi...

In this article we chart the rise of the female expatriate manager over the past generation, as a prelude to positing the question as to why the number of women on international assignments is even lower, proportionally, than their numbers in management overall. We argue that exploring the metaphor of the alien in the context of international assig...

This article presents evidence on the career success of young women managers and suggests an interaction between age and seniority as young women managers outpace their male counterparts in career progression. Hence the glass ceiling may be seen as “time bounded”. Three alternative explanations are presented: a sea change in women’s careers; that y...

The article looks at changes in perceptions of careers that have occurred over the past 40 years. It discusses the concept of employability. The impact of the virtual workplace is explored. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Within the context of the ongoing debate on the understanding of organizational culture, this paper presents a cultural theory of organizations (grid/group analysis) originating in anthropology. It is a generic model which proposes a conceptual framework for comparing organizations, organizing and change. The model identifies particular configurati...

Organisational learning and learning organisations have become topics of great interest to HRM in the 1990s, but the conceptual basis for understanding corporate learning is fragmented and the empirical basis of many influential models limited. In particular, the roles of leadership and team-work in transforming shared mental models, facilitating l...

Examines the discourse on high-flyers in business (management) in academic and practitioner literature (journals and books), published in English in Anglo-Saxon countries in the past 20 years, with a stress on the last decade (1986-1995). Ideas, examples and experiences reported are (in descending order of emphasis) from the USA, the UK and Canada;...

Problems at Disneyland Paris have attracted a lot of publicity. This paper examines the cultural ingredients of Disneyland Paris and suggests that they are fundamental to an understanding of the business problem. Taking a consumer perspective and making comparisons with other major French leisure 'institutions', the analysis demonstrates the import...

Proposes a typology of work relations in the context of Europe, in an attempt to delineate key characteristics, which will help to “collapse” the diversity of cultures and traditions existent in Europe, into four major types of work orientations ( Weltanschauungs) which cross geopolitical borders. The typology proposes that the most prevalent types...

This book provides practical advice and guidance on the human aspects of relocation. It examines relocation from the perspective of both the transferring employee and those responsible for managing company relocation policy. Based on empirical data, it discusses the emotional, financial and cultural problems faced by employees and employers. "Job...

This is a first attempt to {/resent a typology of work values and work organisation in Europe. The typology identifies four core cultures: traditional capitalist countries, southern Europe, the Scandinavian countries and the former communist regimes. Examples are drawn from three areas: a social-historical context (societal) and two group related p...

Critical issues facing management in a rapidly expanding, yet under-researched, phenomenon, are outlined, namely the management of company relocation. After surveying the strong evidence for the growing tendency to relocate, some of the central processes involved are analysed, in particular: the decision-making process (to relocate), the HR policie...

The last decade saw a major shift in the management of the mentally handicapped and their place in society. The dual influences of the movements for human rights, emphasising the rights of minority groups; matched by an increasing tendency to replace institutionalisation with community based care (often under the banner of economy), have had an imp...

Thesis (Ph. D.).