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The purpose of this paper is to present an evocative story “Resisting the Ban” which illustrates the ethical and pragmatic issues that nurses face when contending with smoking ban policies in inpatient psychiatric settings.

The creative story “Resisting the Ban” was developed based on an organisational auto-ethnographic approach. The story was crafted through employing creative writing techniques and through framing and critiquing memories via several theoretical frames.

The story illustrates how smoking ban policies have created pragmatic and ethical issues on wards. The work practices of nurses have changed as have their relationships with patients. The liberties of involuntary patients have also been infringed.

This approach can illuminate links between acts of resistance and issues associated with public policies.

The effects of smoking bans need to be considered more carefully particularly in relation to their effects on workers and patients. The social meaning of the smoking bans needs closer investigation. Policy needs to be recrafted so that it better addresses the liberties of involuntary patients. Also ward nurses need to be able to carry out their roles in a manner which is consistent with their values.

Public policies, such as smoking bans, can produce negative consequences maligning relationships, practices and cultures. Critical auto-ethnography provides a means of understanding issues that have resulted from problematic policies.

Scholarly work conducted on the relationship between everyday resistance in workplaces and public policies is rare. This study offers new “insider” insights into the negative effects of a smoking ban policy in psychiatric inpatient settings.

The purpose of this paper is to document and analyze the case of a public sector organization in the Gulf region, in which Arab‐expatriate relations worked well and sustained a positive and high‐performing organizational climate.

The research employed an embedded ethnographic approach to produce a case analysis of expatriate‐local work relations.

The study found that although there may be multiple sources of difference and potential conflict between Arab locals and expatriates in the workplace, there are circumstances where the effects of such divisions are neutralized, and a positive work environment is sustained. The paper identifies the key sources of division, and social cohesion, and shows how – in this case – these factors interacted so that the negative impact of cultural difference was neutralized, and good working relations were achieved.

The paper is new in two respects. It is the first ethnographic study of Arab‐expatriate work relations in a public sector organization in Oman. It is also the first paper to identify, and distinguish between, the factors emphasizing alterity between Arab and expatriate workers, and those encouraging social cohesion.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderator role of hierarchical distance (HD) in the relationship between human resources management (HRM) practices and organizational performance (OP, perceived/financial). To date there is no empirical evidence that demonstrates whether HD affects this relationship.

These relationships are examined through an empirical study of 102 small- and medium-sized enterprises from Europe (Spain). Partial least squares structural equation modeling is used to test the moderator effect of HD.

The results show that HD is a cultural dimension which moderates the relationship between HRM practices and OP. Furthermore, when OP is studied in relation to HRM practices, the use of perceived measures are considered more appropriate as these indicate the opinion of employees and managers regarding about OP.

The non-cross-sectional character of the paper.

Organizations should consider HD when deciding the structure and application of their HR practices, since a lesser HD has positive effects on business results.

Little attention has been paid to non-linear models, with particular reference to the inclusion of cultural dimensions – such organizational culture (i.e. HD) – in HRM models.

This study is an empirical investigation of receptivity to expatriate assignment in culturally similar and dissimilar environments. The theoretical underpinnings of the study emerge from a model of the expatriate adjustment process which views the determinants as anticipatory adjustment variables antecedent to actual adjustment. Vertical individualism, career distance and corporate career policy along with role clarity and economic development as moderators were found to significantly explain willingness to relocate to culturally similar environments. Economic development, corporate family policy and career distance were significant predictors of mobility to culturally dissimilar environments. The proposed model for culturally similar environments substantially improves explanatory power over an existing model. Implications of the study in conjunction with predictors from the domestic mobility and international adjustment literature are discussed.

The purpose of the paper is to introduce the special issue that brings together six papers exploring aspects of person‐organization fit.

This overarching paper contextualizes the theme and introduces the selected papers.

The findings in this paper vary according to the core theme of each of the six contributions.

Combined the papers explore new avenues of enquiry in the person‐organization (P‐O) fit domain and showcase international theoretical and empirical work on the P‐O fit construct.

At the November 2002 National Communication Association Convention, The Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction Affiliate sponsored a spotlight panel honoring the contributions of Laurel Richardson to symbolic interaction and communication. These sessions feature distinguished symbolic interactionists who have contributed to the study of communication and promoted interdisciplinary discussion between communication and symbolic interaction scholars. Under the leadership of Shing-Ling (Sarina) Chen, these annual sessions have become highlights of NCA meetings for ethnographers, symbolic interactionists, performance and cultural studies scholars. Following such esteemed honorees as David Maines (1999), Norman Denzin (2000), and Peter Hall (2001), the spotlight on Laurel Richardson produced another exciting program.

Western business expatriates, mostly from the USA, France, the UK and Sweden, responded to a mail survey exploring career issues and their degree of international adjustment. Unexpectedly, it was found that meeting career goals within the corporation does not significantly affect work adjustment, but it does have a positive impact on the other two dimensions of sociocultural adjustment, general and interaction adjustment. As predicted, it does also have a positive affect on psychological adjustment, as measured by subjective well‐being. Surprisingly, none of the other variables depicting career issues for expatriates, career development fit, wrong/ useful career move, and supportive corporate attitude to expatriation, had any significant effect on either sociocultural or psychological adjustment. These unexpected findings are discussed in detail and approaches for further research in this area are recommended.

The purpose of this paper is to review relevant literatures on career success and develop a theoretical framework and testable propositions concerning how human capital, person‐environment fit and organizational support relate to career success. Whilst acknowledging the substantial literature that has accumulated regarding the various antecedents and operationalizations involved in employees' career success, there is little research as how person‐environment fit and career success are related.

Literature outlining approaches to career success is summarized and research at the intersection of person‐environment fit and organizational support/career success are reviewed. This is followed by a set of propositions based upon the antecedents of career success.

It is suggested that person‐environment fit and organizational support are important antecedents of career success. Knowledge of career changes and these antecedents help individuals and organizations manage career success.

Future research should examine empirically the linkages suggested by the paper along with other relationships asserted or implied by person‐environment fit and career success literature as mentioned in the paper.

Both employers and employees may benefit from integrating different types of fit into the psychological contract because each fit will impact aspects of career success. Therefore, organizations need to select and develop employees that can easily adjust and fit into careers that are compatible with their work environments.

This paper contributes to the literature by being one of the first to examine the effects of different types of person‐environment fit on career success.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors influencing work readjustment of Vietnamese returnees who used to study and/or work in a developed country and are currently working in different positions in their home country.

Data for this study were collected through a survey of 433 returnees using both paper-based and online surveys. Multiple regression was used to test the relationships in the model.

The findings show that while the length of time spent overseas, work expectations and subjective norm significantly affect work readjustment, the influences of age, gender and length of time since return on work readjustment are not supported.

The findings provide useful insights for home country government and managers of returnees developing repatriation programs that help returnees deal with the issue of poor work readjustment.

Empirical studies on cross-cultural re-entry adjustment of both self-initiated repatriates and international students are scarcely investigated. Most prior studies focused on individual factors (such as gender, age, duration in overseas and since return), research on the effect of work expectation on work readjustment is still scant. Most prior studies focused on examining the relationship between work expectation and work readjustment of company repatriates, however, this relationship in the context of returnees, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, has not been investigated. Furthermore, this study is the first to examine the influence of subjective norm on work readjustment of returnees.

Most of the fast‐growing literature on business expatriates has focused on organizational expatriates (OEs) who have been assigned by their parent companies to the foreign location. However, there is much less research on self‐initiated expatriates (SIE), who themselves have decided to expatriate to work abroad. The purpose of this paper is to provide knowledge on this under‐researched group of expatriates.

A questionnaire was directed electronically towards SIE academics in universities in the Nordic countries and in The Netherlands.

The current study examines marital status, gender and work outcomes of SIEs, and specifically whether there is a moderating effect of gender. Results showed, as expected, a positive association between being married and work effectiveness as well as with work performance but, surprisingly, there was no moderating effect of gender on these positive relationships.

Results indicate that organizations recruiting SIEs in the host country location may want to prefer married expatriates over their unmarried counterparts in the anticipation for them to achieve better work outcomes. However, there should be no distinguishing between men or women in the recruitment process.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the similarities and differences between OEs and SIEs.