Purpose – This paper introduces this special issue. Design/methodology/approach – The paper examines some of the key themes in global human resource management. Findings – By reviewing, briefly, the existing literature in these areas, the paper outlines a limited but crucial research...

Purpose – International assignments, which are used as an integral part of global management development, are challenging in terms of one's managerial competencies and self‐concept. However, not much is known about how managers develop during international assignments, or about the process...

Purpose – The paper examines what are the effects of the different types of cross‐cultural training (CCT) on expatriates' adjustment and whether prior international experience (IE) and cultural distance (CD) have a moderator effect on the effectiveness of CCT. Design/methodology/approach –...

Purpose – Joint ventures remain the largest group of foreign‐invested enterprises in China. Given the high level of potential conflict, this paper examines whether Western expatriates in joint ventures benefit from cross‐cultural training. Design/methodology/approach – A mail...

Purpose – The management literature on cross‐cultural adaptation has used a conceptualisation and measurement approach developed by Black and Stephens. Their work has led to significant development in the field. Now it is time to move beyond and use a more refined tool. This paper proposes...

Purpose – The present study aims to provide an empirical evaluation of job satisfaction among expatriates, repatriates, and domestic employees with no international experience. Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted on a large sample of employees from a Spanish multinational...

Purpose – When critically reviewing the empirical research on the relationships between personal characteristics and successful foreign assignments it is revealed that the extant empirical research suffers from several limitations. The aim of this article is to shed additional light into the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discover the preferences for management development methods used in the development of senior managers, and to discover the perceived effectiveness, as well as strengths and weaknesses, of different methods. Design/methodology/approach – The study...

Despite an expanding research interest in the topic of expatriation, there is still a significant gap in our understanding of the expatriation process. This article presents recently collected research data on the experiences of Finnish expatriates adjusting to living and working in other...

Expatriate management practices, such as selection, preparation, liaison with home country representatives, performance evaluation, repatriation, and career planning, are often found to fall short of the wishes of the expatriates themselves. Reports the results of a recent survey among Finnish...