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Purpose –– The People's Republic of China has introduced policies to encourage Chinese who have worked or studied abroad to return and bring back the knowledge and skills they have gained. This chapter reports on the experiences of these returners as agents of organisational learning.

Methodology –– The exploratory qualitative study is based on a written questionnaire and telephone interviews with 24 returners in diverse organisations and industries in China.

Findings –– The study identifies a type of returner not yet addressed in the literature, ‘experienced self-internationalisers’, which we expect will grow significantly. We find that despite expecting returners to contribute to organisational learning, management does not organise the process. It depends on the individuals themselves, who develop various strategies for sharing their knowledge with local colleagues. Organisational learning is a cross-cultural process and requires bridging a gap between the kinds of knowledge the local employees are interested in gaining and what the returners feel the organisation needs. We note that organisational learning is more likely when the returners recognise their own need to learn rather than just to teach.

Research limitations –– The sample is relatively small; we describe how to take the research forward to more organisations and additional kinds of respondents.

Practical implications –– We formulate recommendations for policymakers, returners and human resource managers seeking to stimulate organisational learning more effectively.

Value –– The chapter generates new insights into organisational learning in China, and it shows how to addresses a phenomenon at the crossroads between the fields of organisational learning, intercultural communication and international human resource management.

In Chapter 1, Susan Shortland (2011) examined theories and models that could be used to explain female expatriate participation with a view to identifying the most promising theoretical lenses for future research. Her study took as its basis, issues, evidence and explanations from both the ‘women in management’ and ‘women expatriates’ literature to identify four main theoretical domains: family issues, assignee characteristics, host and home country norms, and institutional factors. Findings revealed that the most promising explanations of women's low expatriate participation were identified as being linked to occupational gender stereotyping and sex roles in employment, women's reduced social capital and patriarchal attitudes towards their identity and homemaker roles. These were reinforced by institutional isomorphic behaviour through which organisations mimic each other's human resource practices.

The purpose of this paper is to add a process perspective to the literature on repatriate knowledge transfer (RKT) and to understand how the knowledge transfer process unfolds in the repatriation context. Thus, this qualitative study uses existing knowledge transfer process models to assess their applicability to the context of repatriation and explain the micro-processes during RKT.

To provide a rich understanding of these processes from the repatriate perspective, critical incidents reported by 29 German and US American repatriates were content-analyzed.

The findings are summarized in a proposed RKT process model, which describes the roles and knowledge transfer-related activities of repatriates, recipients and supervisors as well as their interaction during four transfer phases: assessment, initiation, execution and evaluation.

The experiences of repatriates from different geographic areas as well as the perspectives of knowledge recipients and supervisors were not studied but should be included in future research. In addition, future research could test the applicability of the identified micro-processes to different knowledge transfer contexts.

Managers can use the findings to facilitate the RKT process more effectively because the type of organizational support offered can be aligned with the changing needs of repatriates, recipients and supervisors during the four identified phases.

This is the first study that takes a process perspective to understand RKT. The integration of the current findings with the existing literature can enable a more nuanced view on RKT.

Relatively few studies about retirement transition examine economies, where a public pension system is absent. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature.

The present study draws on the stratification and risk society approach, as well as results from unstructured interviews with 12 Chinese in Hong Kong.

The analyses show that the retirement transition involves moving between different forms of wage work and non-work status. These moves were undertaken because of not only financial needs but also a strong desire to be a financially self-reliant and intrinsic commitment to employment. The authors argue that the desire and commitment to employment are shaped by the underdeveloped pension system, practical orientation towards traditional Chinese filial piety norms and personal work history.

The current research covers only a very small sample and uses retrospective interviewing instead of a larger and/or representative sample using prospective panel interview. Nevertheless, the research carries theoretical and policy implications of the study on retirement transition and protection.

Few local studies track retirement transitions in the way similar to the current studies. Existing studies are mostly about advanced Anglo-Saxon economies with a long history of public pension, albeit reformed in recent year, in place. The current study adds to the general literature on retirement studies.

In the preceding article “Consumer research in the restaurant environment, Part 2”, the operationalisation of the theoretical model of dining satisfaction and return patronage (IJCHM, Vol. 11 No. 6), was developed and described. This was preceded by Part 1 (IJCHM, Vol. 11 No. 5), in which a model of dining satisfaction and return patronage was proposed and conceptualised. Based on an extensive review of the relevant consumer behaviour literature, proposed model (Part 1), the development of the research instrument, sampling frame and procedures (Part 2), and the analytical analysis used in the study, this paper is the final contribution to the three‐part series and it reports on the findings of the study. Overall, the encouraging results of this study can be summarised as having provided: a clearer understanding of customers’ dining satisfaction perceptions; a clearer understanding of restaurants attribute performance that determine satisfaction as a consequence of dining experience; and a robust prediction of return as a result of dining satisfaction.

Current global business challenges and circumstances are responsible for the need for global talent management (GTM) within multinational corporations (MNCs). Social media and networks are becoming key channels for global communication and collaboration. For GTM in MNCs, an effective usage of social media can potentially result in a competitive edge and create value. The purpose of this study is to answer the question of how.

By means of the Delphi method, three groups of experts were interviewed with questionnaires in two rounds: HR managers, HR researchers, and students following a Master of Science program in Business Administration.

The findings show that all groups assessed the necessity of GTM in MNCs. The HR managers and HR researchers agreed on the areas of focus and instruments that are essential for a successful GTM system. But concerning the application of social networks, the groups have different views. The graduate students are especially open-minded about social networks, and therefore they advocate the use of this tool. The HR managers, however, are skeptical toward this new media and even now have not integrated social networks into GTM to a great extent.

This study presents a GTM model for MNCs based on the combined findings from the literature review and the Delphi study. To our knowledge, this is a new approach. The model helps researchers and practitioners to align GTM in MNCs with the support of social media.

A Lack of Evaluation: Do employers' training efforts operate in isolation from mainstream business activities? One would like to think that they don't, but there is plenty of evidence to prove that they do. Take, for instance, a survey by IRS on training evaluation in the UK. It found that only a quater of employers always set overall targets for their training; even fewer take as their strating‐point the training implications of the organization's business plan; just over a fifth begin by conducting a training needs analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Accenture's commitment to diversity is reaping benefits for the business and its people on a global and a local level.

The article explores global initiatives and leadership behaviors that demonstrate this commitment, as well as the experiences of individuals who benefit from them, in order to combine global and individual perspectives.

These perspectives show that a deep commitment to diversity can reap the benefits of retaining experienced employees, maintaining employee satisfaction and attracting new talent.

The ultimate outcome is a better service to customers through consistency of quality service and high levels of innovation, in addition to mirroring the diversity of communities in which an organization lives and works.

This paper includes regional, behavioral and biological issues of men that lead them to high mortality rate in Pakistan. The study was design to factories the major cause of gender inequality of infection. This study focused on regional, behavioral and biological issues of men that lead to high mortality rate.

The statistical datum was collected from the official fact finding documents of Government of Pakistan to analyze the gender-based infection rate and mortality count. It was found that among the population of men in Pakistan, the mortality rate is very high.

The epidemiological studies are more threatening because mostly the population which is under real panic comprises older men.

The author declares that all the data was collected from the most authentic source and applied according to their background and biological, behavioral and logical knowledge.