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PurposeThe 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/approachThe authors report on a qualitative, inductive and elaborative study, drawing on sensemaking theories and career transitions literature and nine semi-structured reflective interviews with highly skilled Canadian immigrants.FindingsThe authors identified four career change narratives: mourning the past, accepting the present, recreating the past and starting fresh. These narratives are made sense of in a transnational context: participants contended with tensions between past, present and future careers and between relevant home and host country factors affecting their career decisions. Participants who were mourning the past or recreating the past identified more strongly with their home country professions and struggled to find resources in Canada. In accepting the present and starting fresh, participants leveraged host country networks to find career opportunities and establish themselves and their families in the new environment.Originality/valueA transnational ontology emphasizes that immigrants' lives are multifaceted and span multiple national contexts. The authors highlight how the tensions between the home and host country career contexts shape immigrants' sensemaking narratives of their international career change. The authors encourage scholars and practitioners to take a transnational contextual approach (spatial and temporal) to guide immigrants' career transitions and integration into the new social environment.

PurposeVarious 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 future research.Design/methodology/approachThe authors conducted a narrative literature review drawing on 38 academic journal articles published between 2005 and 2020.FindingsThe authors’ review suggests that macro- and meso-level factors contribute to the precarious employment conditions of migrant workers. However, there is a limited articulation of successful practices and potential solutions to reduce migrant work precarity and exclusion. The literature on migrant workers' precarious employment experience is primarily focused on low-skilled sector (e.g. agriculture, hospitality, domestic care) jobs. In addition, few studies have explored the role of worker characteristics, such as gender, class, ethnicity, race and migration status, in shaping the experience of migrant workers in precarious employment.Practical implicationsThe results of this research highlight the importance of engaging multilevel actors in addressing migrant employment precarity, including policymakers, employers and employment agencies.Originality/valueThis research contributes to a growing conversation of migrant employment precarity by highlighting the heterogeneity of migrant groups and calling for the use of intersectional lenses to understand migrant workers' experiences of precarious employment.

The overwhelming number of refugees in the world today constitutes a major socioeconomic and political challenge. With more than 50 years of scholarship on global mobility, international business (...

PurposeDespite 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. Skilled immigrant women face additional gendered disadvantages, including a disproportionate domestic burden, interrupted careers and gender segmentation in occupations and organizations. This study explores how the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic impacted skilled newcomer women's labour market outcomes and work experiences.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw on 50 in-depth questionnaires with skilled women to elaborate on their work experiences during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.FindingsThe pandemic pushed skilled immigrant women towards unemployment, lower-skilled or less stable employment. Most study participants had their career trajectory delayed, interrupted or reversed due to layoffs, decreased job opportunities and increased domestic burden. The pandemic's gendered nature and the reliance on work-from-home arrangements and online job search heightened immigrant women's challenges due to limited social support and increased family responsibilities.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the conversation of increased integration challenges under pandemic conditions by contextualizing the pre-pandemic literature on immigrant work integration to the pandemic environment. Also, this paper contributes a better understanding of the gender dynamics informing the COVID-19 socio-economic climate.

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 that are well integrated professionally and the reality of facing career related barriers. Among those whose success stories align with the master narrative of professional attainment there was little questioning of this expectation, thereby allowing it to remain invisible. Among those who had not (yet) achieved work related success in the receiving country, they tended to engage alternative narratives elaborating on the antecedents, outcomes, and barriers to labor market participation. Despite the countering nature of these alternative narratives, they strengthen the societal expectation of professional success as a key pathway to inclusion, thereby reinforcing the rigidity of this narrative. We contribute to literature on the social construction of national identity by examining the process of becoming national and the role of labor market participation in immigrants’ perceptions of inclusion in their new society. Our study highlights the importance of including immigrants’ voices in the construction of a more inclusive society, which may aid in breaking down exclusionary narratives of national identity.

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 on refugee workforce integration by shedding light on the dynamic process of employment support in which NSOs engage in sensegiving practices and influence refugees’ understanding of career options, assessment of opportunities, and their professional identity responses. We found that NSOs attempted to manage refugees’ expectations of career opportunities while fostering hope for the future and that refugees reacted to NSOs’ sensegiving practices by resisting expectation management messages, recrafting a new identity, or bracketing the present as transitory. We highlight the role of external agents in sensemaking and identity work by exploring work role transitions caused by forced migration. Furthermore, we uncover the dynamics of power and contextual constraints that influence sensegiving interactions. From a practical point of view, we argue that in the absence of quality employment opportunities, the reliance on refugees’ resilience and their motivation for long-term professional integration may further marginalize them.

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 communication and discuss the important role of intercultural communication and intercultural competence in sensemaking and integration. We discuss some key players in QIs’ work integration—immigrant support organizations, mentors, coaches, and professional networks—and their key role in immigrant work integration.

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 multiculturalism and professional attainment as prevailing master narratives that inform QIs’ and local citizens’ sensemaking of immigration and the influence on immigrants’ work integration. We conclude with a reflection on the relationship between immigration and settler colonialism.

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 these practices on QIs’ sensemaking of their work options, experiences, and trajectories. To do this, we identify and examine different organizations involved in QIs’ work integration, the influence of organizational goals, structures, and scripts, and the ways in which organizations can rethink how they facilitate QIs’ successful work integration.

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 and outcomes. We integrate narratives from QIs to explore identity processes involved in sensemaking and argue that identity work is a social process that is continuously in flux; it is dependent on context and imbued with power discrepancies.

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 by extracted cues, and driven by plausibility) and levels of sensemaking (individual, interactional, organizational, and institutional) as it relates to the work integration of QIs. This chapter sets the foundation for the deeper exploration of sensemaking processes described in later chapters by providing a brief introduction to the processes and challenges present in each of the levels of sensemaking and their implications for QI work integration.

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 studying this wicked problem. We begin with some key definitions, provide specific examples from Canada (the primary site of our ongoing fieldwork), and sketch the structure of this book.

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.

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 relevant solutions. In this paper, we endeavour to address this challenge by reviewing and synthesizing multidisciplinary literature on refugee employment and workforce integration. Using a relational framework, we organize our findings around three levels of analysis – institutional, organizational and individual – to outline the complexity of factors affecting refugees’ employment outcomes. Based on our analysis, we introduce and elaborate on the phenomenon of the canvas ceiling ‒ a systemic, multilevel barrier to refugee workforce integration and professional advancement. The primary contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we map and integrate the multidisciplinary findings on the challenges of refugee workforce integration. Second, we provide management scholarship with a future research agenda to address the knowledge gap identified in this review and advance practical developments in this domain.

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 border closures and stringent restrictions on all forms of travel. International students are regarded as the archetypal trans‐migrants with frequent mobility and often multiple attachments to place. We interrogate these assumptions of mobility by drawing on interview data from 13 international students in Ontario from April to June of 2020. We found that international students experienced the pandemic transnationally and faced increased challenges, which heightened their reliance on support from transnational families, and generated anxieties about their future career and mobilities. We bring transnational theories into conversation with ISM literature to better understand international students’ lived experiences in Canada during a pandemic.

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 challenges of global teams. These challenges span levels of analysis, time and space. Next we debate global teams as a strategic response to the dual pressures of global integration and local adaptation. We consider what HRM is needed for global teams to successfully resolve this dilemma, challenging practitioners to move beyond the ‘best practices’ and ‘alignment’ dichotomy. Lastly we look to the future to consider implications for research. We propose a rich research agenda focused on the complexities of the global team context.

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 intercultural learning by supporting the argument that blogs are a promising site for intercultural studies. We also extend this discussion by demonstrating that sensemaking in and through blogging is an important phenomenon deserving study as a research subject and showing that (1) newcomers use blogs to make sense of discrepancies triggered by experiences, observation of patterns and temporal milestones, (2) newcomers make sense through self-debating, making comparisons to the home country, sequencing, and reflecting on information-gathering, and (3) bloggers focus introspection during sensemaking on their thoughts and emotions.

This study amplifies understanding of the occupational marginalization of skilled migrants by elaborating 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 their mobility frames. We identified three cognitive mobility frames: migrant, migrant professional, and mobile professional. We found that migrants accessed local interpretations of contextual barriers through interactions in the situational context and that migrants’ mobility frames focused their attention on particular individual resources and characteristics of context, suggesting potential career options.

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 intersection of culture and communication in the context of global work interactions reveals the dominant research trends that guided IB scholarship to date in this domain. We propose eight shifts in perspective to advance the field’s theorizing and create avenues for further research.

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 the classroom have emerged: transfer of cultural knowledge, cultural experiences, and reflection on experience. Each of these approaches has a role to play at different stages of intercultural development. Three stages of intercultural development are proposed: (1) Monocultural stage, referring to a stage in which individuals are unaware of cultural differences; (2) Cross-cultural stage, in which individuals recognize and understand cultural differences but lack behavioral skills to deal with them; and (3) Intercultural stage, in which individuals can draw on a repertoire of behaviors to influence and shape intercultural interactions in ways that facilitate understanding and create opportunities for cooperation. Reflection on experience is proposed to be particularly useful to support the development of intercultural competence. Reflection is a thinking process focusing on examining a thought, event, or situation to make it more comprehensible and to learn from it. A four-step reflection process is proposed: (1) Describe experience; (2) Reflect on experience; (3) Learn from experience; and (4) Apply learning. Suggestions on using reflection in the classroom are proposed.

Management Challenge IBM strategic planner Michael Cannon-Brooks observes, “You get very different thinking if you sit in Shanghai or Sao Paulo or Dubai than if you sit in New York.” If managers in different regions of the world think differently, what does this mean for negotiating and building successful partnerships, building global teams, or motivating employees from different cultures? As companies face an increasingly complex global business environment, a logical question arises: can organizations today be managed in the same way they were in the past? In other words, does a changed environment – one characterized by multiple economic and political systems, divergent social norms and values, and highly diverse educational and skill levels – require us to reassess both the managerial role in general and management practices in particular? Indeed, is the very definition of management changing? Moreover, how should today's managers best prepare themselves for greater involvement in global assignments in this new world? Key to success here will be their ability to understand changes in the managerial role as played out across cultures. CHAPTER OUTLINE • Traditional management models page 19 • Context of global management 21 • Rethinking management models 25 • Diversity in global assignments 30 • MANAGER's NOTEBOOK: A model for global managers 38 • Key terms 41 • Discussion questions 41 • Case: Two expatriates 42 APPLICATIONS 2.1 What is a supervisor? page 24 2.2 Dermot Boden, expatriate 33 2.3 Jan Chipchase, frequent flyer 36 2.4 Adhira Iyengar, virtual manager 37 Despite widespread recognition that we live and work in an increasingly interconnected global economy, it is curious how little many people understand about other countries and cultures. When we travel on holiday, we often seek out collective experiences where we can travel with people from our own cultures, eat food that is familiar, and then get back on our tour bus. When we go abroad on business, we often sequester ourselves in meeting rooms in five-star hotels with air conditioning and BBC World News . Then we return home saying that we have been to Thailand or Costa Rica or France. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between having been somewhere and having learned something about where we have been.

Cross-cultural interactions do not happen in a vacuum; they happen within an organizational context, with specific actors involved and in a particular physical setting. This chapter draws on a perspective of situated cognition to examine how various layers of context can influence cognitions and behaviours in cross-cultural situations. It proposes that action results from the interaction of cognitive schemas, including cultural values and assumptions, and contextual variables. Context is conceptualized as a multilayered construct including institutional, organizational and situational layers which influences what individuals notice, how they interpret information, and the actions they take. Further, it is argued that the context of global management is malleable and changes as a product of the actions of multiple players. Implications of a focus on context for the theory and practice of cross-cultural management are discussed.

A record high of forced displacement is occurring worldwide with 25.4 million refugees forcibly displaced from their home countries at the end of 2017 (UNHCR, 2019). While obtaining employment in t...

This study examines the cultural roots of ethical 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 bases, of ethical conflicts are discussed as they relate to business practices, including conflicts over tastes and preferences, the relative importance of moral imperatives compared to legal requirements, and people’s level of tolerance for different values among others. It is then argued that an understanding of ethical conflicts can be facilitated through different levels of understanding, including the meaning of universal values, the relationship between values and practices, and the existence of multiple levels of conflict within the same organizations or industries. These specific and interrelated ingredients in cross-cultural ethical conflicts form the basis for a broader discussion of the meaning of truth as it relates to such conflicts. The paper concludes with the need for more research that is cross-cultural and multidisciplinary in order to improve theory building and managerial practice.

This first Australasian edition of the popular text Management across Cultures explores 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, the text encourages students to acquire skills in multicultural competence that will be highly valued by their future employers. As more and more managers find themselves becoming global managers, and in a world where practices and expectations can differ significantly across national and regional boundaries, this has never been more important. Rich in cases and examples, Management across Cultures integrates research from across the social sciences with contemporary management practices for a comprehensive overview of cross-cultural management.

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 important topic. To achieve this, we include 14 articles from authors representing 13 countries. The methodologies used here include meta-analyses, case studies, and interview studies, although the majority represents conceptual model building based on critical analyses of existing theories and research. Management implications are discussed.

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 are manifested in local environments as they relate to leadership. With this in mind, this paper examines the role of culture and cognitive processes in leader behaviour, and works to explain why such differences exist across regions. The example of China is used to illustrate the validity of this approach. Implications for research, theory development, and management practice are discussed.

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 i...

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 configuration or success; rather, social and cultural practices, expectations, and relationships influence the development of technologies just as technologies influence these factors. We argue that culture provides actors with logic principles with which to construct action, influencing the trajectory of technological systems by reinforcing a process of path dependent development. We analyze the case of ethanol adoption in Brazil. Brazil's adoption of an ethanol-fueled transportation system derives from a pattern of adaptation in response to salient issues. We argue that a unique characteristic of Brazilian culture, jeitinho, influenced the development of the Brazil's ethanol-fueled transportation system.