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In this chapter, we explore whether various true, endogenous social cycle theories share common patterns and characteristics.

We examine a number of prominent social theories describing cyclical patterns, and attempt to abstract an ideal type common to all of them, based on the idea of two populations disrupting each other and adjusting to the other’s disruptions.

At the core of such theories we typically find a variation of a two-population model. In these theories, cycles emerge when one of the populations seems to disrupt the other population’s plans, leading to recurring adjustments and disruptions that constitute the cycle.

Finding such commonalities in the world of theories can be useful for several reasons. For one thing, noticing that two theories share certain traits may help us understand each of them better. Furthermore, we show that agent-based modelers using modern object-oriented programming techniques can benefit from finding common patterns in theories.

The level of inventories, particularly the finished‐goods inventories, is a good gauge of adjustment in inputs and outputs of the firms in a market economy and plays an important role in business fluctuations (see, e.g., Abramovitz, 1950, and Stanback, 1962).

On the basis of labor economics theories, this study examines how adjustment in human capital accounts for labor cost stickiness.

This study makes use of employee education level as a measure of the quality of human capital and relies on data from Chinese public firms to conduct the empirical test. This study focuses on two important components of labor cost changes: one corresponding to the adjustment in the number of employees (capacity adjustment) and another corresponding to the adjustment in the mix of employee education levels (quality adjustment).

This study reveals that labor cost changes driven by the adjustment of employee education level are sticky. This stickiness cannot be explained by the standard adjustment cost theory. This further shows that firms that actively adjust their employee quality during downturns experience improved future performance. The findings are robust to alternative measures and specifications.

This study provides new evidence for and insights into the cost behavior literature. Previous studies treat input resources in a homogenous way and focus on the effect of capacity adjustment. This study considers the heterogeneity of resources and examines three dimensions of salary cost adjustment: capacity, structure, and unit cost. In line with the economic theory of sticky costs proposed by Banker et al. (2013a), the study’s evidence sheds light on the additional underlying economic mechanisms driving cost stickiness behavior. Specifically, managers asymmetrically adjust both employee structure and average salaries, in addition to employee number. This study also adds to the existing knowledge of the consequences of managers' actions regarding cost behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that might contribute to the ease with which marketing executives in UK charities who have been promoted to senior general management positions adjust to the occupancy of these roles.

In total, 37 individuals with functional marketing backgrounds currently holding top general management positions in large fundraising charities were interviewed using a frame-worked occupational autobiographic narrative approach. The research was informed by aspects of newcomer adjustment theory, notably uncertainty reduction theory.

Social and personal considerations were much more important determinants of the ease of assimilation into top management positions in charities than were technical job-related matters. Role ambiguity constituted the main barrier to smooth adjustment. Mentoring, planned induction programmes, the nature of a person’s past work experience and the individual’s social status critically affected how readily a marketer fitted into a top management role. Disparate sets of factors influenced different elements of managerial newcomer adjustment (role clarity, self-efficacy, and social acceptance).

As the participants in the study needed to satisfy certain narrowly defined criteria and to work in a single sector (large fundraising charities) the sample was necessarily small. It was not possible to explore the effects on operational performance of varying degrees of ease of newcomer adjustment.

Individuals promoted to top management posts in charities should try psychologically to break with the past and should not be afraid of projecting a strong functional professional identity to their new peers. These recommendations can be expected to apply to organisations in general which, like large charities, need senior management mentoring and induction programmes to assist recently promoted individuals from function-specific backgrounds; job descriptions for top management posts that are clear and embody realistic expectations; and “shadowing” and training activities for newly appointed senior managers with function-specific backgrounds.

The study is the first to apply newcomer adjustment theory to the assimilation of functional managers into more senior general management. It examines a broader range of potential variables affecting managerial newcomer adjustment than has previously been considered. Relevant issues are examined in the context of an important sector: fundraising charities.

In this chapter, the authors examined expatriates that self-initiate their international work for personal reasons and the factors that affect their departure from an organization. The authors conducted a systematic review of self-initiated expatriation (SIE) and its definitions in order to propose an integrated definition of SIE and model its nomological network. In addition, the authors construct a roadmap for future research directions in the SIE domain. Finally, using a qualitative research design, the authors studied the organizational practices designed to reduce SIE turnover in an exemplary multinational organization. Overall, our contributions are enhanced clarity of the SIE construct and the theorized practice of SIE retention.

This paper aims to propose an expatriate psychological adjustment model that postulates expatriate mental health as an antecedent to psychological adjustment. It presents novel predeparture and post-arrival international human resource management (IHRM) expatriate management mental health supportive interventions.

This paper critically reviews theoretical frameworks in the IHRM domain around expatriate psychological adjustments such as the U-Curve Adjustment Theory (Lysgaard, 1995), the Framework of International Adjustment (Black et al., 1991), the Dimensions of Expatriate Adjustment (Haslberger et al., 2013) and the Stress Outcome Model (Bader and Berg, 2014), in a quest to develop a new conceptual framework. This study presents a new conceptual framework along with propositions to take into consideration the relationship between mental health and expatriates' psychological adjustment.

The findings suggest that mental health is an antecedent paramount to psychological adjustment. The paper proposes mental health-supportive IHRM expatriate management interventions to address the potential failure of expatriates' psychological adjustment. The authors elaborate on the IHRM expatriate management policies and practices at the home and host country to ensure the mental health of company-assigned expatriates sent on international assignments.

The novel conceptual framework underpins mental health as the antecedent paramount to expatriate adjustment, taking into consid eration the elevated stress of situational events such as COVID-19, which had previously not received substantive formal consideration by research scholars in the IHRM domain. The conceptual framework encourages the inclusion of mental health as an antecedent in future research.

To introduce the presumed cultural similarity paradox as a possible explanation for the findings that adjusting to a culturally similar country is just as difficult as adjusting to a culturally dissimilar country. We provide a conceptual framework, enabling further understanding and research into this phenomenon.

Expatriates moving to a country that shares common characteristics may presume more cultural similarity and easier adjustment than is actually the case. During their stay abroad, expatriates may find that these expectations are not met. While the smaller cultural distance may facilitate adjustment, the undermet expectations inhibit adjustment and performance.

A first preliminary test compared Dutch expatriates in Belgium (culturally similar) and in China (culturally dissimilar). The expectations of cultural similarity and adjustment difficulty of the expatriates in Belgium were significantly more undermet than those of the expatriates in China and this had a negative influence on affective adjustment. The larger cultural distance of China was negatively related to intercultural adjustment. Better adjustment, both affective and intercultural, led to better job performance.

Future research should try to replicate and extend our findings to other cultural contexts.

Expatriates and their employers must consider and prepare for the increased chance of undermet expectations and the negative consequences this can have on adjustment and job performance, when moving to a culturally similar country.

Expatriates and their employers must consider and prepare for the increased chance of undermet expectations and the negative consequences this can have on adjustment and job performance, when moving to a culturally similar country.

This paper conceptualizes and provide a theoretical framework that should allow future research to empirically test the psychological process that occurs in this paradox, accommodate the contrasting effects of cultural distance and met expectations of cultural similarity and investigate which characteristics of countries lead expatriates to presume more cultural similarity than is the case.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of institutional, macroeconomic, industry, and firm characteristics on the adjustment speed of corporate capital structure within the context of developing countries.

The authors considers a sample of 986 firms drawn from nine developing countries in Africa over a period of ten years (1999-2008). The study develops dynamic partial adjustment models that link capital structure adjustment speed and institutional, macroeconomic, and firm characteristics. The analysis is carried out using system Generalized Method of Moments procedure which is robust to data heterogeneity and endogeneity problems.

The paper finds that firms in developing countries do temporarily deviate from (and partially adjust to) their target capital structures. Our results also indicate that: more profitable firms tend to rapidly adjust their capital structures than less profitable firms; the effects of firm size, growth opportunities, and the gap between observed and target leverage ratios on adjustment speed are functions of how one measures capital structure; and adjustment speed tends to be faster for firms in industries that have relatively higher risk and countries with common law tradition, less developed stock markets, lower income, and weaker creditor rights protection.

Future research should focus on examination of the adjustment speed of debt maturity structure. Identification of industry-specific characteristics that affect the pace with which firms adjust their capital structure to the optimum is another possible avenue for future research.

Our findings have practical implications for corporate managers, governments, legislators, and policymakers.

The study focuses on firms in developing countries for which the literature on adjustment speed of capital structure is virtually non-existent. Furthermore, unlike previous works on capital structure, it explicitly models industry variable as one of the determinants of adjustment speed. Therefore, it contributes to the literature on capital structure and adjustment speed in general and to the literature on developing countries in particular.