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Purpose This paper aims to present affective computing or Emotion AI in the context of work and how organizational leaders such as managers and human resource (HR) professionals can implement this technology to foster an emotionally healthy workplace. Design/methodology/approach The authors provide a current overview of affective computing technology through definitions, examples and general use cases. This is in light of the current scrutiny on artificial intelligence (AI) use broadly across society. The authors address this from a research perspective and show how this advanced AI tool can be implemented in organizations for the benefit of employees. Findings Affective computing or Emotion AI is still relatively unknown, and yet, it is already part of our daily lives. Emotion AI platforms have the potential to be an essential part of HR tools. It is crucial, however, to use this technology in an ethical and responsible manner. Originality/value There is little awareness and understanding of use cases of affective computing tools in organizations, particularly for the well-being of the workforce. This paper provides HR leaders, managers and researchers with an overview of the origins of the field and major considerations for responsibly implementing Emotion AI to support employee mental health.

This study addresses how today’s global managers navigate their work and family transitions through employing various boundary work tactics in a global context. Interviews with 25 global travelers or international business travelers in dual-career families uncovered how they handle global workflows and protect family time when working domestically or abroad. Patterns emerged across a typology of temporal, communicative, behavioral and physical boundary work tactics. A key contribution is that workplace flexibility in addition to technology allows global managers to maintain connectivity beyond spatial or temporal boundaries. Moreover, technology was perceived as an integral tool by global managers, with few cases of tensions reported from a blurring of boundaries. The research contributes to the nascent literature on work-life balance among global managers. It also provides evidence of how mobile and telepresence technologies are being used in performing global work. Companies are encouraged to fo...

Il n’y a pas si longtemps, le worldsourcing, c’est-a-dire la recherche ininterrompue des meilleurs materiaux et des meilleurs processus d’innovation, de logistique ou de production a travers tous les fuseaux horaires, a fait son entree dans les multinationales. Pres de dix ans plus tard, l’explosion de l’utilisation des technologies dans les pratiques de gestion fait briller le potentiel de reperage de talents de la meme facon.

The extant work on talent management has largely promoted neoliberal agendas concerned with ranking, rating, and recording employees’ talent, or indeed lack of talent. While there are emerging insi...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to understand how global managers from the generation born 1965 to 1980 (“Generation X”) manage demands of international business travel with desires for family involvement. A portrait evolves of how travel within a global career might be optimized for both business and family life. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative methodology was used as little research has focussed on alternative forms of global work or work-family issues in a global context. The author conducted in-depth interviews with 25 Gen X global managers in dual-career families (“Global Gen Xers”) pursuing global careers from the USA and Canada. Findings – The author uncovered how Global Gen Xers experienced “work-life balance” through executing personal discretion over travel and substituting in technology. The construct of travel discretion reveals these approaches. Mutual flexibility on the part of global managers and organizations tamed the demanding nature of work spanning divergent locations and time zones. Research limitations/implications – The findings represent experiences from a self-select group of global Gen X managers interviewed at one point in their careers. The author did not obtain reflections from their families on work-family functioning. Practical implications – The findings encourage companies to foster flexibility among their global managers around travel decisions. The author can consider how and when international travel can be replaced through technology in order to control costs and sustain global workforces. Originality/value – This study provides one of the first examinations of work-life balance among younger global managers. It also highlights experiences of those not on expatriate assignments, but performing global work through international travel and technology.

While the Arab Middle East reflects a diversity of business contexts, many countries in the region still fall short in women's workforce participation. The Gulf countries in particular rank well in educational achievements, but these achievements are not yet transferring to the workplace. With the increasing need to cultivate talent worldwide, it is imperative to understand the challenges related to retaining women in the workforce in emerging market countries such as the UAE. Based on qualitative data gathered from focus groups, the present study examines how local Emirati women navigate workforce participation. We identify four main challenges to remain in the workforce, and uncover four key strategies used to address these challenges. Findings are emblematic of what women have experienced universally, albeit cloaked in a gendered subtext which reveals the uniquely Emirati experience. Our findings contribute to the elaboration of an emerging AME HR model by examining external realities relevant for work...

Though women remain under-represented among expatriate managers due to a range of organisational and cultural barriers in selection and individual relocation concerns, they have begun to pursue alternative routes towards a global career such as frequent travel and undertaking domestic positions with international development and community development responsibilities. In this paper, we explore the perceptions that Middle Eastern and North American women have of traditional and new trajectories in global work and careers and conclude that increased flexibility allows women to pursue global development opportunities differently throughout their lifetime careers, permitting them to adapt to work–life circumstances. Thus, our research provides new insights into the nature and dynamic of the nature of women's global work and careers.

Increased interest in reduced-load (part-time) work among professionals who want to have a life beyond work has led to new challenges for managers who must sustain productivity while also supporting employees. However, to date, little attention has been focused on exactly how managers facilitate effective implementation of these alternative work arrangements. This study presents findings from an interview study of 83 cases of reduced-load professionals in 43 organizations in the United States and Canada. Analysis of the interviews with both professionals and their managers surfaced recurrent themes that led to identification of five clusters of behaviors and five clusters of dispositions that capture the nature of managerial support in implementing reduced-load work. The ten categories of behaviors and dispositions expand on existing notions of supervisory support and provide new insight into the role of managers in fostering inclusiveness. Additional quantitative analyses found significant relationships between the success of the reduced-load arrangements and specific managerial behaviors and dispositions. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine career‐life issues of successful women in the Americas.Design/methodology/approachA total of 30 interviews were conducted with successful women in Canada, Argentina and Mexico. Themes were pulled from the interview transcripts for each country, analyzed and then compared across countries, looking at universalities and differences of experiences.FindingsThe women in all three countries conveyed more subjective measures of career success, such as contributing to society and learning in their work, with Canada and Mexico particularly emphasizing receiving recognition as a hallmark of career success.Practical implicationsThis research provides insight into the experiences of successful women in the Americas, which can inform the career development of women in business.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature on women's careers, highlighting successful women's experiences across cultures and in an under‐researched area: Latin America.

Employment practices that support work–life balance and wellbeing in workplace experiences are critical pathways to long-term workforce effectiveness, or cultivating a “sustainable workforce.” In this chapter, we discuss the notion of a sustainable workforce and examine how it relates to work–life balance and wellbeing. We then identify three organizational strategies that can be employed by researchers and practitioners to improve these linkages: promoting sustainable careers, increasing workplace social support, and safeguarding against work intensification. Finally, we present a research agenda which centers on developing sustainable workforces in organizations and fostering long-term social benefits.

This chapter explores individual intercultural competence as an enacted capability developed through social interaction and experience with dominant local cultures and minority cultures. The authors employ a knowing-as-practice perspective, following Nicolini et al. (2003), and notions of tacit knowledge within particular domains (Sternberg et al., 1995), to suggest that the study of intercultural experts has potential to inform this area of knowledge. From this perspective, examining practice repertoires used by expert actors can provide a useful complement to cultural intelligence frameworks (Thomas & Inkson, 2004, Earley, 2002) for understanding individual intercultural competence. Drawing on emerging literature on biculturalism, this chapter introduces an approach to researching intercultural knowing-in-practice through a focus on one type of experts, in this case, a group of young, bicultural Canadians. The authors found emotion- and behavioral-based themes that informed these experts’ responses to intercultural scenarios, their responses to proposed in-situ practice. From the findings, the chapter suggests that management can learn about intercultural competence from such experts’ approaches to navigating intercultural conflicts.

Over recent decades, the professional workforce and family structures have dramatically changed. For example, the dual-earner family is now the modal American family (Barnett, 2001). Only 17 per cent of families comprise a male breadwinner and a stay-at-home wife (US Department of Labor, 2004). According to the most recent National Survey of the Changing Workforce (NSCW) (Bond et al., 2002), the demographic occupational profile of the professional and managerial workforce in the US has also dramatically changed. In 2002 women held 39 per cent of professional and managerial jobs, compared with 24 per cent in 1977. Work hours and demands are rising on the job and there is less time to devote to family or other personal life commitments. Over the 25 years between 1977 and 2002, the total work hours of all dual-earner couples with children under 18 years at home increased by an average of ten hours per week – from 81 to 91 hours (Bond et al., 2002). A recent national survey on overwork in America indicates that nearly half (44 per cent) of the US workforce experienced being overworked in their jobs in the past month (Galinsky et al., 2005). Another recent report based on the NSCW survey found that two-thirds (67 per cent) of employed parents believe they do not have enough time with their children (Galinsky et al., 2004). Over half of all employees participating in the NSCW survey said they do not have enough time for their spouses (63 per cent) or themselves (55 per cent). Although these trends are important for all employee groups, professionals are a key labor market group that faces unique challenges in managing work and personal life demands. Many professionals encounter growing organizational pressures to increase workload and work hours

This chapter explores individual intercultural competence as an enacted capability developed through social interaction and experience with dominant local cultures and minority cultures. The authors employ a knowing-as-practice perspective, following Nicolini et al. (2003), and notions of tacit knowledge within particular domains (Sternberg et al., 1995), to suggest that the study of intercultural experts has potential to inform this area of knowledge. From this perspective, examining practice repertoires used by expert actors can provide a useful complement to cultural intelligence frameworks (Thomas & Inkson, 2004, Earley, 2002) for understanding individual intercultural competence. Drawing on emerging literature on biculturalism, this chapter introduces an approach to researching intercultural knowing-in-practice through a focus on one type of experts, in this case, a group of young, bicultural Canadians. The authors found emotion- and behavioral-based themes that informed these experts’ responses to intercultural scenarios, their responses to proposed in-situ practice. From the findings, the chapter suggests that management can learn about intercultural competence from such experts’ approaches to navigating intercultural conflicts.