Editorial

Journal of Global Mobility

ISSN: 2049-8799

Article publication date: 29 November 2013

164

Citation

Selmer, J. (2013), "Editorial", Journal of Global Mobility, Vol. 1 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-09-2013-0057

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Global Mobility, Volume 1, Issue 3.

What is the use of an army? Historically, armies pillaged and ravaged conquered lands and terrorized the inhabitants. Modern armies have done much the same. But when the sound of combat dies down and the victory on the battlefield is won, another war begins – a war for the heart and minds of those who were defeated. And, to their great surprise, again and again, victors of modern military conflicts learn that they may have won some battles, but not the war itself.

What has this to do with global mobility and expatriate management? A great deal, I think. But few scholars have yet made this explicit connection. Expatriates and other globally mobile professionals who move to a host country to work for a subsidiary or another organization are dependent on the conditions of the host country. By learning about and adjusting to a different culture and society, global employees successfully integrate into the foreign context. As a result, they and their organizations may become important parts of the host country and appreciated by the population. In other words, successful expatriates may win the hearts and minds of the locals. There is a wealth of research on how global employees can win the war, not only the battles.

The other side of the coin is, of course, the symmetry of the above parable with the trials and tribulations of launching a new academic research journal. Despite winning uphill battles, the challenge is to win the hearts and minds of a dedicated readership and attract reputable scholars making them preferring JGM as their outlet over those of our competitors. This is the war we must win to make JGM the great, high-quality research journal to which the editorial team aspires.

We do this by trying harder than our competitors. JGM provides a better service than many established academic journals, offering a prompt and professional revise and resubmit process. We have established our one-month turnaround policy for the first submission and we also have the best reviewers within the field of global mobility, ensuring high-quality, developmental feedback. We have learned how to compete in a tough market for academic journals and JGM has become better known to our target market of scholars and other interested parties. In other words, the editorial team of the journal has become better equipped to win the war and to take JGM to newer heights of interesting topics and scholarly quality.

In the meantime, it is worth reminding readers what JGM stands for and what we publish. JGM is the only academic journal to consistently and exclusively focus on global mobility issues. That means all authors’ papers will be read by like-minded scholars and practitioners. The coverage of JGM ranges from traditional business expatriates to new emerging themes, such as NGO expatriates and diplomats. The main focus is on white-collar or skilled workers or professionals and their immediate context at work and outside work. JGM welcomes all kinds of rigorous research methods, but prefers empirical contributions, with quantitative or qualitative methodology or a mixed-methods approach. We are also very interested in thorough theoretical developments and focussed literature reviews. JGM would like to publish research at various levels of analysis – individual, team, and organizational. We also encourage research from a variety of domains, such as psychology, sociology, strategic management, political science (among others), as well as interdisciplinary studies.

The JGM LinkedIn Group is used to keep in touch with an audience interested in global mobility issues and research. We use the group for journal updates/news, hot topics, and sharing current research projects with peers as well as seeking new collaborations. The group is ever expanding and currently has several hundred members from both industry and academic institutions.

In this issue

The third issue of JGM features five papers, again indicating the depth and the breadth as well as the high quality of the new journal. The first paper, authored by Anthony Fee, Susan McGrath-Champ, and Helena Liu focusses on a very important, yet novel, issue in global mobility research; the emergency evacuation of expatriates and their dependents. The topic has only recently been addressed in the academic global mobility literature and this conceptual paper extends ideas of crisis management to the specific employment relationship of expatriation. The second paper, written by Sharon L. O’Sullivan, provides a clear and unique contribution to theory and practice related to repatriation management, in particular providing a strong theoretical foundation to the importance of social media utilization by repatriates. It provides a new, interesting, and useful perspective to better understand the repatriation challenge. The third contribution, co-authored by Pernilla Gripenberg, Charlotta Niemistö, and Carla Alapeteri, brings to light findings on the next generation of expatriates: both men and women. A strong point of the paper is the inter-temporal comparison of data which renders interesting insights into trends. The findings confirm the immobility trend and bring some interesting focus on gender differences. Frithjof Arp, Kate Hutchings, and Wendy A. Smith have co-authored the fourth paper in this issue. This contribution illustrates the situation of foreign executives in local organizations in Malaysia and compares it with that of other expatriate groups. Since it deals with a little researched population of foreign professionals, the paper contributes to the literature providing a better understanding of this specific group of expatriates. The fifth paper, authored by Phyllis Tharenou, provides a conceptual analysis of the choice of self-initiated expatriates relative to company assigned expatriates and MNC local employees, as there are different advantages and costs associated with the use of these employment groups. The paper adds new insights in assessing whether self-initiated expatriates provide an alternative to company assigned expatriates.

The war for the hearts and minds of a dedicated readership and reputable scholars preferring JGM as their outlet over competitor journals is not yet won. But the editorial team and a group of the best reviewers in the area of global mobility is investing substantial effort and time to successfully bring this war to an end. And, honestly, I have no doubt whatsoever that JGM one day will become one of the most reputable research journals within the field of international business research, completely dominating the domain of global mobility and expatriate management.

Jan Selmer

Related articles