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This paper proposes a methodology for governing expatriate assignments in the context of corporate‐level objectives.

The approach taken is to envisage expatriate managerial assignments within the theoretical framework of agency theory and the knowledge‐based view of the firm. The paper begins with the view that knowledge acquisition and integration is a primary goal for most expatriate assignments. The relationship between expatriate managers and multinational corporation (MNC) headquarters from an agency perspective are considered and the notion of a “knowledge contract” as a means of governing that relationship is discussed. Four corporate‐level international strategies available to MNCs (global, international, transnational, and multidomestic) are then examined and the extent of agency problems under each strategy is discussed.

The paper makes specific predictions about the type of knowledge contract that is most likely to address agency problems for each corporate strategy.

This research extends agency theory by introducing the knowledge contract as a means of managing agency concerns. This offers a broader range of contract alternatives, moving researchers beyond traditional agency theoretic prescriptions. The research also contributes to the literature on expatriate management by integrating assignment success with research on corporate‐level international strategy. Few authors have recognized organizational strategy as an important unit of study in international human resource management. Doing so, however, has yielded a unique set of contingency relationships that would otherwise be obscured.

This study aims to examine how foreign and domestic firms react to policy uncertainty in an emerging economy. In addition, the study investigates if older foreign firms better adapt to policy uncertainty than newer entrants.

The study uses pharmaceutical sales data on India’s cardiovascular segment for January 2011–May 2016. The authors use fixed fixed-effects panel data regression to measure the market reactions of foreign and domestic firms faced with policy uncertainty.

While domestic and foreign firms react similarly to anticipated policy changes, foreign firms react more adversely to policy uncertainty. Among foreign firms, early entrants respond less adversely than new entrants.

Foreign firms are able to cope with anticipated policy changes in similar vein as the domestic firms by way of a priori reading of the host country’s regulatory landscape. The foreign firms’ response to policy uncertainty is significantly different from domestic firms. The difference between the market response of foreign and domestic firms decreases over time.

The authors' findings demonstrate that adaptability is the key for new foreign firms to face policy uncertainty. Foreign firms can respond to policy changes, especially the unanticipated ones by imbibing local practices.

The authors' findings suggest that enhanced policy uncertainty hurts foreign firms more adversely than domestic firms, and newer foreign firms are more hurt with policy uncertainty than the existing ones. Such uncertainty could also have unintended consequences for consumer welfare.

The authors' study uses two natural experiments in the same industry within short periods of time. The comparison offers key insights on the differences in domestic and foreign firm responses to the two types of policy uncertainty.

Nearly 20% of the issues the US Supreme Court is expecting to decide this year involve labor‐management issues such as discrimination, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, and employee testing. Many of these issues will have direct impact on human resource managers in how they administer their personnel policies. The purpose here is to provide information on the most current legal decisions affecting employee‐employer relationships so that sound, intelligent decisions can be made regarding these issues.

This study aims to examine the relative effects of three organizational brand types (product, employment and corporate social responsibility brands) on organizational attractiveness. The potential differences in the impacts exerted by each brand on organizational attractiveness between the US and Chinese job seekers are also examined.

A policy-capturing design was used among both US and Chinese participants to test the hypothesized relationships using multilevel modeling.

Results suggest that each brand type independently contributes to the prediction of attractiveness, with the employment brand a significantly stronger predictor than the other two. Besides, the strength of relationships between brands and organizational attractiveness varies among job seekers from different national contexts.

The findings contribute to the limited understanding of how different types of brands together influence organizational attractiveness among job seekers, and the role national context plays in it.

Corporate spin-offs have become more popular as a restructuring technique in recent decades. The market performance of these spun-off subsidiaries has been considered critical, as positive market signals are vital to the success of these newly independent firms. Drawing on both the stewardship and resource dependence theories, this study aims to examine how two critical governance characteristics (namely, CEO duality and board size) affect the change in the market valuation of spun-off subsidiaries. This study proposes that both board size and CEO duality of spun-off subsidiaries should positively influence the change in market valuation.

This study used the SDC Platinum database to identify completed corporate US spin-offs between 2000 and 2014. To ensure consistency across spin-off events, this study included only those in which 100 percent of outstanding shares of spun-off subsidiaries were distributed. The study confirmed the SDC Platinum listings using online resources such as The Wall Street Journal and Lexis/Nexis. The study used weighted least square (WLS) regression to test all the proposed models.

This empirical analysis of 134 US-based spin-offs supported both main hypotheses. Furthermore, the analysis also finds that firm size has significant moderating effects on the link between governance structure and market performance.

These findings contribute to the governance literature on corporate spin-offs by advancing our understanding of the role of CEO and board characteristics in improving these subsidiaries' market valuation, as well as the moderating effect of the firm size.

How do university compliance administrators implement the rules prohibiting campus sexual misconduct? Title IX Coordinators’ authority is legal–rational and derives from the power to enforce Title IX and university rules. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

Analyzing narratives collected from administrators at 22 large institutions of higher education, this paper distinguishes rules from relationship-oriented Coordinators and develops an understanding of how and why Title IX Coordinators utilize relational authority as they implement Title IX.

The key finding is that relational administrators exhibit less institutional authority than their rules-based counterparts and focus on their relationships with complainants and respondents over university leaders and administrators.

While other researchers have focused on rules, this research demonstrates how Title IX Coordinators draw heavily on relational strategies.

Jenny Wheeler has recently joined PRTM Ltd, an international operations management consultancy company offering implementation orientated support to high technology industry. PRTM Ltd has considerable experience in streamlining the manufacturing, distribution and services process. Jenny has joined to strengthen their rapidly expanding service in the area of Product Development/Time‐to‐Market, where they have currently helped clients achieve reductions in product development cycle times by more than 50%.

Courses which make use of the great outdoors are fashionable and there are quite a few to choose from, but there is a danger that they will be used inappropriately and that the real value will be missed. This article describes how outdoor activities can be used as part of a management training programme to meet some specific company needs.

It is hard to find good news stories about disasters. Disasters seriously damage an organisation’s health. Of businesses that experience a disaster, 40 per cent never reopen and 30 per cent close within 2 years. Perhaps because of this, over 80 per cent of UK facility managers in a recent survey now report that they maintain a Business Continuity Plan which most of them review at least once a year. An increasing number, however, now find themselves responsible for a portfolio of international facilities spanning continents and time zones. This paper looks at some real life implications of global business recovery planning. In the wake of September 11th, one can hardly do less. This paper provides strategies and justifications for international emergency planning procedures and processes. Practitioners will gain valuable information from actual events and case studies to validate the concepts offered as a model. It may seem that some of the information and processes which are outlined in this paper are obvious; but that is the point. The obvious can be overlooked, and excuses can be made for the lack of implementation of emergency plans. But those excuses will not stand in the light of real disasters and cataclysmic events.

The goal of this study is to examine the association between managers' sexually-oriented behavior in publicly traded firms and subsequent stock market reactions. Both sexual harassment and nonharassing sexually-oriented behavior (i.e. workplace romance) are associated with negative shareholder reactions. The authors also examine factors that may alter the stock market reaction and those that may reduce the risk of lawsuit in sexual harassment cases.

Information about incidents of sexually-oriented behavior was collected from media reports and content coded. An event study with a stock market reaction was used to measure the impact of disclosed sexually-oriented behaviors. Logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between incident characteristics and sexual harassment lawsuits.

Disclosure of managers' sexually-oriented behavior is associated with a negative stock market reaction. Interestingly, the reaction was not more severe for sexual harassment disclosures compared to nonharassing behavior (i.e. workplace romance). Results also suggest that terminating a manager prior to disclosure of an event is negatively related to a harassment lawsuit.

The authors report this as the first study to focus on the stock market reaction of sexually-oriented harassing and nonharassing behavior of managers. This work complements research that documents the negative impact of sexual harassment on individuals by demonstrating these behaviors are associated with loss and risk at an organizational level.