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This study aims to explore the intercultural training needs for US business expatriates on assignment in Taiwan. The study assesses Taiwan culture‐specific training needs of US expatriates from the perspectives of both US expatriates and their Taiwanese colleagues and compares the perceived importance of these intercultural training needs between these two groups.

This study used the survey method to assess the opinions of US business expatriates as well as their Taiwanese colleagues. A questionnaire was developed for the study. A total of 26 items were identified as knowledge and skills needed for US business expatriates in Taiwan. The items all fall within six categories: knowledge of the nation, relationship building, interpersonal communication, business protocol, legal issues, and living in Taiwan.

Data collected from 78 US respondents and 78 Taiwanese respondents were analyzed using matched pairs t‐tests. Between‐group differences for the overall 26 items and each category were examined. Results indicate that there was a significant difference between the US and Taiwanese respondents in the perceived importance of the overall items.

Although there has been an abundance of literature on intercultural training, rarely has research been done on Taiwan cultural‐specific training. A study in this area can help human resource practitioners in developing expatriate training programs. Research results can contribute to the knowledge base of expatriate training and development, as well as the development of theories in this area.

The second in this series on international and expatriate career activity argues for increased attention to developing a strategic link between international business activity and the HRM and career management functions that purport to support such business activity. Looks towards addressing some of the problems potentially experienced by firms in the international marketplace and their expatriates. This is achieved by: (1) overviewing research that is currently under way with respect to the expatriate career management practices of selected Australian organizations; and (2) identifying some of the more important concerns that existing empirical and case study research on expatriate career management has shown in terms of the types of career initiatives to which organizations need to pay attention, prior to an overseas move by their staff, during an overseas appointment, and finally when repatriating staff.

The purpose of this paper is to explore coping strategies of female business expatriates and to examine how these strategies are associated with the women's international adjustment.

Data were collected through mail surveys to western female business expatriates in Hong Kong regarding their coping strategies and adjustment.

As predicted, the results showed that the female expatriates more often used problem focused than symptom focused coping strategies. Surprisingly, there was no association between problem focused coping strategies and socio‐cultural adjustment. However, as expected, symptom focused coping strategies were negatively related to adjusting in socio‐cultural terms. As presumed, there was no relationship between any of the coping strategies and psychological adjustment.

The special contextual circumstances in Hong Kong could have contributed to the unanticipated findings that there was no association between problem focused coping strategies and any type of adjustment studied. Through cross‐cultural training, female business expatriates could benefit from being informed that applying symptom focused coping strategies may make them less well adjusted to a host location.

Women still represent a relatively untapped source for expatriation and the research on female business expatriates is still inadequate in many respects. An important issue examined by this study is how women cope with the stress of international assignments and how that may affect their international adjustment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine empirically the views and experience of cross‐cultural training (CCT) of experienced Western business expatriates (“China Hands”) assigned to China.

Data for this study were extracted from a mail questionnaire that targeted business expatriates assigned by Western firms to China. A net‐targeted sample of 651 respondents produced 165 usable questionnaires, following the extraction of questionnaires from respondents who were no longer in China or who were not engaged in business.

Findings of this study further highlight the need for more CCT for business expatriates destined for China. A clear majority of respondents preferred pre‐departure training a few weeks before departing for China and only a few of them claimed that CCT would not have been useful at any time. Most of the China Hands thought that CCT improved core managerial activities and therefore could have helped them to become better managers in China.

The views of experienced China Hands will be of use to a wide variety of management practitioners, given the competitive nature of the Chinese business environment.

The paper offers the view of experienced management practitioners concerning the Chinese business environment. The findings will be of value to both Western business people in China as well as business people considering an expatriate positing to China.

This monograph reports and compares “desirable” leadership traits, and leadership traits actual exhibited by managers and supervisors as defined by responses on the original English and a Chinese language translation of the Ohio State University leadership behaviour description questionnaire XII (LBDQ XII). From anecdotal evidence and personal experience, the researcher found considerable difficulty in transferring research results from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore to useful practice in the interior of China and performed this study in an attempt to gain understanding for management training courses. Data was collected for 220 managers and supervisors in two hotels in the interior of China. Both expatriate and indigenous Chinese managers were included. All supervisors were Chinese. A significant (p < 0.05) difference between Chinese and non‐Chinese expatriates was observed for factor: Tolerance of Freedom, interestingly, with the Chinese managers indicating more tolerance of freedom than the expatriate managers. Nonetheless, Chinese supervisors believed the ideal manager should be even more tolerant of freedom than their managers (p < 0.01).

Managerial discourses tend to portray work-related mobility practices in a positive light, presenting mobility assignments as a place of stimulus and differentiation. A conception of mobility as an opportunity, may contrast, in specific economies and business settings, with lived personal experiences. This article reports the results of a three-year study, aimed to question how multinational companies (MNCs) located in a small and developing European economy (Portugal) are building talent pools for expatriate assignments. Interaction effects, as proposed by the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, are considered as lens to understand the interplay of company expatriate policies, willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates. By using a Portuguese sample, the study examines whether prior findings in mature economies and consolidated MNCs can be generalized to less developed international business settings.

A three-year study, encompassing 24 expatriate cases observed in five multinational firms born or located in Portugal. Two techniques of empirical data collection were used: statistical sources and documental analysis and in-depth interviews. A total of 37 interviews were conducted, both in-person and remotely, of which 13 were with company managers and representatives, and 24 with expatriates (as defined and referred like this by the companies under study).

Heterogeneous company policies, ranging from juvenile, functionalist to more dynamic and flow-based approaches, are presented as qualifying resources of willingness levels and psychological contracts of expatriates. Observed interaction effects between policies, willingness and psychological contracts, empirically mirrored in three profiles (conformist, protean and disrupted expatriates) suggest that incentive effects (emanating from company policies) and job demand-resource balance, factored as terms of social and economic trade, are non-linear and asymmetric, influencing firm propensity to succeed while using international work to support company expansion goals. As job resources, expatriate policies are presented as operating as pull or push factors: functionalist HR approaches seem to act as push factors generating more conformist or compelled willingness profiles.

Generalization of study's outcomes has limitations. Future studies are encouraged to use comparative and longitudinal research designs. Furthermore, future research should include business expatriates with entry-level positions, and increase the number of interviewees, as results can also be considered as limited by sample size.

It is suggested that further strategic work is needed to present expatriation development value, formally screen and consider willingness level as selection criteria, and enlarge the pool (from internal to external) of candidates, in peripheral economic settings such as Portugal. A shift to more dynamic and job resource-dense policies are suggested as beneficial, as pathway to optimize social and economic value from expatriation assignments and work experiences.

By putting the interplay between macro and micro-level processes into perspective, the study provides empirical evidence on how company expatriate policies have come to promote unforeseen differentiation of employee willingness and psychological contracts at the heart of MNCs. This is particularly relevant in developing economies such as Portugal, challenging the need to build talent pools for international work assignments. Empirical data illustrating company policies interactive effects with different willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates is provided.

The literature on business expatriates has been increasing rapidly, but research on expatriate academics has remained scant, despite the apparent increasing globalisation of the academic world. Therefore, more research is needed on the latter group of expatriates. This paper aims to fill some of the gaps.

A questionnaire was directed electronically towards expatriate academics occupying regular positions in science faculty departments in universities in northern Europe.

Results showed that job clarity was the dominating job factor with strong relationships with all of the five investigated work outcome variables, work adjustment, work performance, work effectiveness, job satisfaction, and time to proficiency. Job conflict and job freedom had an association with some of the work outcome variables but not with all of them. Neither workload nor job novelty had a relationship with any of the work outcome variables of the expatriate academics.

The paper shows that the findings are only partly consistent with previous research results concerning business expatriates, suggesting that the work situation for expatriate academics could have both similarities and discrepancies as compared to that of business expatriates.

The purpose of this conceptual literature review is to investigate how language factors have been studied in the expatriate literature, and how cross-fertilisation with the broader language-sensitive international business and management field may facilitate integrated research of language in global work.

This paper is based on a thematic review of expatriate research and international business and management literature. The findings are structured through Reiche et al.'s (2019) three-dimensional conceptualisation of global work, after which two frameworks are developed to conceptualise how language connects the three dimensions – actors, structures and processes.

The literature review demonstrates that language-related topics are yet to gain status in the expatriate tradition, and the majority of studies, which do consider linguistic factors appear largely dissociated from the growing community of language research in the broader international management and international business fields. However, once consolidated, the literature reveals that language is present in all dimensions of global work. A processual view of corporate language management highlights the central role of human resource management (HRM), while a dynamic multi-level perspective indicates that language may form bidirectional relationships between the three dimensions of global work.

Due to the segmentation between language-sensitive research in the expatriate and international business/management traditions, few studies have considered the HRM implications of global mobility and the multifaceted nature of language at work. This conceptual literature review brings both perspectives together for a more contextualised and holistic view of language in international workforces.

Few studies have delved into career management issues of women on foreign assignments, especially compared to male expatriates. Therefore, a large‐scale mail survey was directed towards Western female and male business expatriates in the same host location. Controlling for the effects of differences in the demographic background of the gender groups, we found that female business expatriates could less often meet their career goals within their corporation than their male counterparts. There was also a tentative indication that women may regard their expatriation as a less useful career move than men. Implications of these findings for globalizing firms, female executives and future research are discussed.

Joint ventures remain the largest group of foreign‐invested enterprises in China. Given the high level of potential conflict, this paper examines whether Western expatriates in joint ventures benefit from cross‐cultural training.

A mail questionnaire targeted business expatriates assigned by Western firms to joint ventures and other types of organisations in China.

Results show that training had a weak positive association with work adjustment for expatriates in joint ventures, but no relationship with work adjustment for Western managers in other types of operations.

Data were collected through a self‐report questionnaire and a cross‐sectional approach was applied. However, the scale measuring sociocultural adjustment may have some potential problems.

This paper emphasises the work context in China when training expatriate candidates. Alternatively, individuals should be selected with recent positive experiences of the host country and work task at hand. Such experience could be regarded as a perfect substitute for cross‐cultural training

The distinction between different organisational contexts in assessing the effect of cross‐cultural training constitutes a novel approach. The study contributes to the literature on the effectiveness of cross‐cultural training of business expatriates in general and the impact of their organisational setting in particular. It is important to notice that the improved adjustment covers the very reason for the foreign assignment, the work duties of the expatriate manager.