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The purpose of this study is to investigate the cross-cultural training (CCT) provided to European expatriate executives in New Zealand, and consequently add to the knowledge for human resource management in the Australasian region.

The present qualitative research study is based on open-ended and in-depth interviews with 30 European expatriate executives who had been residing in New Zealand for the past year or more.

The results indicate that at least some CCT was provided to all interviewees; however, the training content seemed to be strongly centered around professional work, with little focus on the culture of the host country. Moreover, there was no follow-up to the pre-departure CCT and very few expatriates in the sample received any training in New Zealand. Similarly, the family is considered a fundamental factor for the success of expatriates; however, in the sample, neither spouses nor children received any training before or after their arrival in New Zealand.

The research is limited by the sample small size. The study’s inconclusive highlights the need for further research to explore the influences of local residents, colleagues and neighbors on expatriates’ adjustment. Similarly, further studies are also required to ascertain the effectiveness of CCT in helping support expatriates’ performance and adjustment in New Zealand.

The present study suggests that opportunities do exist for multinational companies (MNCs) to better prepare their expatriates for assignments by integrating more effectively issues related to cultural awareness into their CCT. Specifically, experimental CCT methods that emphasize the host country’s culture are most valuable. The CCT technique should be tailored to the cultural distance between the host nation and expatriates’ country of origin and to the nature of their assignment.

Given the existence of many MNCs in New Zealand, it is surprising that the issue of CCT in this context has received little research attention. The current study endeavors to address this gap. This paper hopes that the findings may also be useful for consultants and human resource managers in MNCs who are involved in preparing expatriates for foreign assignments in Australasia, especially New Zealand.

This study aims to empirically explore how mentoring can help Western expatriates before, during and after the overseas assignment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This qualitative study is built on 20 in-depth interviews with Western expatriates currently working and living in the UAE.

This study demonstrates that expatriate mentoring is an important area largely unexplored in the literature. The results establish that host-country mentors are fundamentally responsible for helping expatriates to develop common problem-focused coping tactics, whereas home-country mentors predominantly address emotionally focused coping tactics during the pre-departure and repatriation phase of the expatriation process.

Over 30 years’ worth of research literature was searched within the following major databases: ABI/INFORM, ERIC and PsycINFO. These databases contained articles, mainly in English, of limited scope, i.e. more academic than practical. This may have led to the omission of some expatriate mentoring approaches applied in practice by human resources managers, especially in countries where English is not the first language.

Mentors in both the host and home countries are crucial in assisting and supporting expatriates in developing constructive coping strategies that enhance the likelihood of a successful expatriation experience.

There is insufficient research in expatriate mentoring, which this study aims to address by focusing on Western expatriates in the UAE, a vibrant Arab, Muslim country whose local business environment is very different from that of China, Europe and the USA, which have been the main focus of prior research.

Utilizing boundary theory as a guiding framework, this study aims to explore facets of work–life balance (WLB) that women entrepreneurs experience in the context of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It sheds light on strategies women entrepreneurs use to manage and shape boundaries between their personal and professional lives.

In this qualitative study, we conducted in-depth interviews with 50 women entrepreneurs to gain a deeper understanding of their WLB challenges.

Integration is a boundary management approach used by most women in our sample, facilitated by the thin work–life boundary inferable from their entrepreneurial careers. Integration has all the hallmarks of being imposed on women entrepreneurs because of family role challenges and societal expectations, on top of their entrepreneurial obligations. Women are reactors; they shoulder societal, family and entrepreneurial roles while having little control over events and circumstances.

Boundary theory suggests two roles must be interconnected to coexist successfully. Women entrepreneurs can benefit from the synergy between their personal and professional lives. As their roles tend to be more complex, it is essential to consider the consolidation of both spheres as an ongoing process to maximize their benefits.

Today’s independent forms of working are contingent on flexible work arrangements, work intensification and wireless communication. Understanding how women entrepreneurs find balance amid boundarylessness adds to our limited knowledge of people in comparable environments.

The present study, drawing on boundary theory, attempts to investigate entrepreneurs’ work–life balance (WLB) in terms of how they manage and construct the borders between their non-work and work lives.

The current qualitative study is grounded on in-depth interviews with 30 entrepreneurs currently living and working in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). When selecting the interviewees, the authors used purposeful sampling to ensure a diverse sample of interviewees with respect to nationality, age, gender and the nature of their business.

The findings suggest that most interviewees believe an entrepreneurial career can contribute positively to their lives. However, some individuals question whether it is possible to have some level of WLB while managing entrepreneurial businesses in the UAE’s competitive environment. Further, some entrepreneurs prioritize “work” over “family life,” indicating a love for their work and a lack of desire for any boundaries. Working long hours and managing a successful business over a longer period of time is also found to be negatively related to WLB.

Entrepreneurship has become a desirable career option, thus stimulating much research attention. However, little is known about entrepreneurs’ WLB challenges, especially regarding whether entrepreneurship improves individuals’ WLB. The present study uses boundary theory to understand how subjective insights regarding WLB and effective boundary management might address this gap.

The purpose of this study is to validate Ozdemir and Cizel’s (2007) model of expatriate management. The researchers tested the framework developed initially by Ozdemir and Cizel (2007) by relating the four stages of the expatriation process with the performance and commitment of expatriate managers.

The research population consists of expatriate managers from five Anglo-Saxon countries. A total of 110 surveys were collected. However, due to missing data and internal inconsistencies (i.e. random answering), six surveys (5.5%) were deleted resulting in a sample size of 104.

Ozdemir and Cizel’s four-stage process model (2007) has been established as a valid, useful model for creating an expatriation management system. Few expats interviewed indicated their selection was systematized or that they received training in advance of the assignment. Families of these expats received even less consideration despite the fact that many expat failures result from family failure to adapt to the new culture. Very few companies managed the repatriation process at all. Given the substantial correlations between components of Ozdemir and Cizel’s model and performance and commitment, these finding are no less than troubling.

As companies are becoming increasingly international, the number of expatriates working around the world is growing. While the management of expatriates has been studied extensively in North America and Europe, research into the expatriate process in the UAE is still in its infancy. The present study endeavors to begin to fill this research gap.

This qualitative study is grounded on in-depth interviews with 30 Western women self-initiated expatriate (SIEs) currently living and working in the UAE. When selecting the interviewees, the author used purposeful sampling to ensure a diverse sample of interviewees with respect to nationality, age, gender and occupation.

The present study, drawing on boundary theory, aims to investigate the work–life balance (WLB) of Western women SIEs regarding how these women construct and manage the borders between the non-work and work lives in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The results demonstrate that women SIEs experience conflicts and enrichment during overseas employment. Both directions – the impact flowing from working life to personal life and vice versa – were significant. Different career and life phases appeared to be crucial to these experiences. The study also found that some women SIEs in the UAE experience high pressure in the WLB approaches, which are primarily impacted by the specific work–life environment in the UAE. Mostly, work–life boundaries are culturally and socially induced. Hence, many women SIEs encounter disparities between the robust work–life separations in the home country compared to the host country; women SIEs, therefore, need to relax the boundaries to adapt to the competitive work–life environment in the UAE.

The present study contributes to research on work–life boundary management approaches in local settings, such as UAE, by analyzing cross-cultural and individual dimensions. Moreover, although women are still a minority among SIEs, the number of women is increasing. As prior studies have mainly focused on male SIEs, more research is required focusing specifically on women with overseas jobs. The present study endeavors to fill this research gap.

Expatriate management is a popular theme in the field of international human resource management in light of the fact that expatriates play a crucial role in a MNC’s global operations. The purpose of this paper is to explore how MNCs select, train, deploy and support expatriate managers during and after their international assignment in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This qualitative study is based on in-depth interviews with 22 Western expatriate managers who are presently based in the UAE. However, in order the ensure a diverse sample among the participants with regards to their age, professional experience, gender and nationality, purposeful sampling was utilized while selecting the participants.

The results of the present study cast light on many shortcomings of the overall expatriation process as they are implemented by MNCs in the UAE. Accordingly, there is a pressing need for MNCs in the UAE to develop strategic expatriation processes, involving the following critical factors: the selection of the right person for the right job; specific and relevant pre-departure and post-arrival cross-cultural training (CCT); practical support for the expatriate employees and their trailing spouses in the host country; and lastly, a clear repatriation strategy to mark a successful conclusion of foreign assignments in the UAE.

It is acknowledged that the results of this purely qualitative study, based on a relatively small sample size, cannot claim to represent the management theories, practices and realities of all the Western MNCs in the UAE. Moreover, these findings narrate the views and perceptions of this particular cohort of expatriate executives with relation to their selection, pre-departure CCT, adjustment in the UAE and the support and repatriation policies utilized by their companies for doing business in the UAE.

This study points to the fact that technical skills are mostly considered to be the predominant selection criteria for the expatriate selections in the MNCs. Other abilities, such as language skills and relational and perceptual adjustability are considered to be less important and do not feature overtly in the selection criteria for expatriate positions. The results demonstrate that distinctive features of adjustability, which include expatriates’ willingness to communicate, their social orientation, dynamic anxiety resistance and openness ability are all critical to the adjustment in the host country and should be given more emphasis.

Regardless of the presence of numerous MNCs in the UAE, it is indeed surprising to see that the topic of the expatriation management process in MNCs in the UAE has received little research attention. The objective of this study is to address this deficiency. Additionally, it is hoped that these findings may also be valuable to MNCs and consultants who are preparing expatriates for international assignments, especially in the Middle East and in particular in the UAE.

This study aims to understand how religion impacts the everyday activities of Muslim entrepreneurs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This qualitative research is grounded on in-depth interviews with 50 entrepreneurs presently living and working in the UAE. When selecting the interviewees, the authors used purposeful sampling to ensure a diverse sample of interviewees with respect to nationality, age, gender and the nature of their business.

It was found that religion for these Muslim entrepreneurs is highly individualized, leading to our initial impressions that work and religion have no relationship. Nevertheless, following deeper investigation, it was found that religion does shape the everyday entrepreneurial activities of these entrepreneurs. More precisely, the entrepreneurial activities of these Muslim entrepreneurs are impacted by a desire to re-explain their work in religious terms, leading to conflicts between work and religion.

In todays’ competitive environment in the UAE, the workplace is increasingly consuming a considerable amount of individuals’ time, becoming more fundamental to their identity, and incorporating more life factors. However, the aspects impacting work have not been extensively researched, particularly the impact of religion on entrepreneurial endeavors, which represents a different type of work. The current study endeavors to fill this crucial research gap, and by doing so, we bring empirical attention to the relationship proposed yet largely ignored in prior studies.

To empirically investigate how the location‐specific variables and strategic motives influence the ownership strategies of Finnish manufacturing firms in ten South and Southeast Asian countries from 1980 to 2000.

Because of the nature of the dependent and independent variables, the binomial logit model is used in the analysis. The regression coefficient estimates the impact of independent variables on the probability that the wholly owned subsidiary (WOS) is market, efficiency and/or a risk‐reduction seeking type of foreign direct investment (FDI). A positive sign for the coefficient means that the variable increases the probability of choosing WOS and undertaking a certain type of investment.

The research results indicate that the low cultural distance, large market size, and high levels of economic welfare in the target country increases the probability of choosing WOS in order to undertake market‐seeking and efficiency‐seeking FDIs. Similarly the low level of risks in the target country increases the probability to choose WOS in order to undertake risk‐reduction seeking FDIs.

Due to the lack of information about the absolute and relative size of FDIs and competition related data could not be included in this study. Adding those variables would also be interesting for future research.

This study may also help the different governments to understand the strategic motives of different multinational firms and fine‐tune existing investment policies or criteria to better satisfy some of their motives.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study trying to analyze how the location‐specific variables and strategic motives have influenced the ownership strategies of Finnish manufacturing FDIs in Asian countries.

This study, empirically investigates how the ownership‐specific variables, location‐specific variables and strategic motives have influenced the ownership structure choices of Finnish manufacturing firms in ten South and south‐east Asian countries from 1980 to 2000. Very few studies in FDIs have been undertaken so far to empirically analyze the ownership‐specific and location‐specific variables together with the strategic motives in order to understand the ownership structure choices of the investing firms. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study trying to analyze how the ownership‐specific variables, location‐specific variables, and strategic motives have influenced the ownership structure choices of Finnish manufacturing FDIs in Asian countries. The research results indicate that large international experience, low cultural distance, large market size, and high levels of economic welfare in the target country increases the probability of choosing wholly owned subsidiary (WOS) in order to undertake market‐seeking and efficiency‐seeking FDIs. Similarly, it has also been found that low levels of risks in the target country increases the probability to choose WOS in order to undertake risk‐reduction seeking FDIs.