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This paper aims to highlight dysfunctional multi-stakeholder relations and negative business outcomes, evidenced in lose/lose results, exacerbated by failure to acknowledge strategic business focus as a means to redress problematic business thinking and practice amongst key leadership teams associated with achieving balance between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility.

The reframed strategic business focus has been developed using Eastern philosophy and Western organization theory and refers to four case examples of dysfunctional business thinking and practice.

Strategic business focus results from an interdependent and complementary positive mediating relationship between competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility, which is moderated by organization culture (organization core values, including shared value) and strategic human resource management (talent and mindset).

Strategic business focus as proposed has not been empirically tested but seeks to address a conceptualization that competing business and stakeholder agendas are interdependent and complementary.

Strategic business focus seeks to redress traditional win/lose and lose/lose business outcomes, by supporting win/win results, represented by shared value amongst multi-stakeholders.

Strategic business focus seeks to provide a means whereby corporate social responsibility, particularly the social contract, plays a key role in the decisions and practices of key leadership teams and the behaviour of corporate staff in host environments when seeking competitive advantage.

Eastern thinking and behaviour are usually undervalued in the western business literature, particularly in western business practice. Joint attention, however, may improve competitive advantage and corporate social responsibility agendas in support of diverse management practices, including shared value.

With ongoing globalisation, organisations are increasingly confronted with worldwide competition. In order to build and sustain their competitive advantage, the knowledge and expertise of an organisation’s staff needs to be seen as a critical strategic resource. This paper presents a general overview of knowledge management and discusses the transfer of knowledge and expertise throughout organisations operating on a global scale. A particular emphasis is placed on the importance of global assignments in transferring knowledge and furthermore on the implications for HRM practices to ensure the successful and effective retention of expertise. Practical examples are presented from Robert Bosch AG, a German multinational organisation and its Australian subsidiary. In this paper, the term “expatriate” is used, however the importance of host country nationals as well as third country nationals should not be ignored in the effective transfer of knowledge and the retention of expertise.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/13620439610732003. When citing the article, please cite: Alan Fish, (1996), “What motivates Australian business managers to undertake expatriate appointments in East Asia?”, Career Development International, Vol. 1 Iss: 7, pp. 34 - 43.

There is little doubt that the face of business has changed. Examples of changed international and global business arrangements are evidenced in the form of new licensing arrangements, a variety of joint ventures and new types of business consortium, and industry and international trade blocks. The proposed formation of the Asia‐Pacific Economic Community (APEC) in the Asia‐Pacific region, Asian/American Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), the reformation of the European Community as well as new alliances between the public and private sectors, new approaches to attracting capital, the integration of different arms of business as well as the satisfaction of individual career needs as a consequence of these changes all point to circumstances that demand attention to effective cross‐cultural management practice. In each of these the importance of cross‐cultural management as a significant area for research attention and practical application is evidenced.

Cross border managers are an important feature of the global economy. Despite this, research evidence suggests that the primary selection criteria for cross border managers are technical expertise and domestic business knowledge. This has resulted in insufficient numbers of high calibre candidates to meet the demands of today's global business context. This paper aims to argue that an understanding of an individual's value orientations is important for selecting cross border managers and predicting subsequent performance.

The paper reports the testing of a multidimensional value orientated taxonomy on a sample of 658 managers employed by three multinational organisations. The model was tested via SEM. OLS multiple regression was carried out to identify whether the dimensions of the taxonomy predict the performance of managers in cross border roles.

Results yielded sound factor structure of the taxonomy with a single factor solution identified on each of the two individual value dimensions. SEM confirmed significant relationships and a sound goodness‐of‐fit of the model. OLS regression results indicated that the model accurately predicted the performance of managers during cross border assignments.

Surveys were administered at one point in time and do not account for any change in value orientations.

The model and results provide guidance to HRM professionals for selecting candidates for cross border business roles.

The study addresses a limitation of earlier work by testing the efficacy of the multi‐dimensional taxonomy with a larger and more diverse sample. The paper evaluates the strength of the taxonomy in predicting performance.

First in a series of three articles, addressing the literature and current practice on career management. The series begins by questioning the traditional perspective of careers and centres largely on intraorganizational issues and continuous upward movement. Suggests that interorganizational, interindustry and international career mobility are not only viable career options but becoming increasingly important. Given the changing nature of the global business community and apparent increasing practice of manager transfer as well as the increasing need to address more creative career options for managers, the importance of an examination of manager mobility and associated career practices would seem appropriate.

The increasing literature on international human resource management has produced findings which are largely repetitive and anecdotal and as such are contributing to a reemerging problem for Australian business enterprises wishing to increase their international business activity. The problem concerns the factors which organizations need to consider in most effectively developing and managing international management career programmes. What has traditionally been missing is a strategic framework that links appropriate international human resource management practices with an enterprise′s international business agenda. Develops an argument around this central theme which provides an overview of the need to address what is an emerging problem for Australian business enterprises – how international management careers are best developed and managed in the context of a firm′s human resource management strategy and its strategic international business activity.

The purpose of this paper is to report on research which addressed two purposes. First, to test the fit between, the theoretical model, and the empirical findings from an earlier reported study. Secondly, to test the extrapolative and interrelated nature of a two sets of cultural adjustment constructs designed to enhance the personal wellbeing and intra‐cultural interaction of cross‐border managers when on foreign assignments.

Data were collected from 244 cross‐border managers working for Australian private sector businesses in South‐East Asia in two broad industry groups: manufacturing/industrial, and financial/services. Respondents were asked to complete a questionnaire based on two separate dimensions associated with an individual's adjustment to cross‐border circumstances vis., personal wellbeing and intra‐cultural interaction. This paper evaluates the measurement fit between the identified constructs, by first examining any significant relationship though a structural equation model using LISREL 8; and then through employing path analysis.

Results from the structural equation modeling were significant; and suggest a sound fit between the theoretical model and the empirical findings. The path analysis further supports the multidimensional model. The results provide direction for organisations in addressing cultural adjustment issues to support the personal wellbeing; and the intra‐cultural interaction; of cross‐border managers.

Future research will need to consider the potential for measurement invariance associated with the framework identified in this paper.

The overall results provide useful insights for organisations as to important interventions to assist cross‐managers in becoming more attuned to their new job, business and cultural surroundings and circumstances. In this respect, cross‐border organisations need to include such interventions amongst the “adjustment experiences” for their cross‐border managers in developing personal wellbeing skills and intra‐cultural interaction strategies.

Issues, which have negatively impacted a diversity of business stakeholders, suggest that business thinking and leadership behaviors surrounding a desired strategic business focus appear increasingly inadequate. For example, that integration strategies and differentiation strategies are mutually exclusive. Three issues appear to contribute to such circumstances.

First, Western strategic business frameworks are largely based on quantitative foci, and remain largely unchallenged. Second, balance between key leadership team agendas and external stakeholder expectations is usually absent. Third, there is minimal connection between what organizational cultures reward, and how human resource management prescriptions provide support.

To address such concerns and implant a renewed strategic business focus, Porter and Kramer (2006, 2011) have identified the notion of shared value, which seems an appealing means to redress business problems represented by negative multistakeholder relations; moreover, an absence of any contemporary acknowledgment of the social contract. Nevertheless, a number of elements appear to be missing from the how shared value is portrayed by Porter and Kramer (2006, 2011).

Based on Maslow’s notion of Eupsychia, and employing an Ideation approach, a renewed strategic business focus supporting the notion of shared value is presented. The renewed focus seeks to enhance Porter and Kramer’s (2011) framework, by including key features to enhance shared value, including elements of Eastern and Western philosophy, and Western organization theory.

Problematic examples, identifying the absence of shared value, and including research propositions are identified.

As organisations respond to changes in cross‐border business activity career practices more attuned to differences in business and cultural practices are required if organisations are to become more effective in their cross‐ border business activities. Missing from the career management practices of many cross‐border organisations are two complementary challenges. First is the selection, development and retention of a “diverse” cross‐section of skilled managers, representative of the various locations of the business entity, reflecting an organisational culture that values the “know‐how” possessed by skilled managers from disparate cultural backgrounds. Second is the existence of a corporate culture that values a “mindset” reflective of the cultural diversity of the organisation, as well as the disparate values, attitudes and behaviours that potentially exist across the firm’s foreign business operations. The literature on these themes is reviewed and some recommendations for the development and management of cross‐border careers and propositions for future research are outlined.