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The purpose of this paper is to encourage scholars to look at commonly considered phenomena in international business and cross-cultural research in new ways and to theorize and explore how cultural diversity, distance, and foreignness create value for global organizations. These considerations should result in a more balanced treatment of culture in cross-cultural management (CCM) research.

The idea that there are negative consequences associated with cultural differences is pervasive in hypotheses formulation and empirical testing in international business and CCM literature, as reflected in widely used constructs such as “cultural distance,” “cultural misfit,” “foreignness,” and related concepts. Consistent with a Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) perspective on culture and cultural differences, the authors emphasize the positive role of distance and diversity across national, cultural, institutional, and organizational dimensions. In addition, they provide an overview of the contributions to the special issue.

Examining the positive side of culture is not only beneficial theoretically in terms of filling the existing gaps in the literature, but is also crucial for the practice of international and global business. Accordingly, the contributions to the special issue highlight how explicitly considering positive phenomena can help better understand when and how cultural diversity, distance, and foreignness can enhance organizational effectiveness and performance at multiple levels. They include five research papers, a Distinguished Scholar Essay by Kim Cameron, the Founder of the POS movement, and an interview piece with Richard Nisbett, a Pioneer Researcher in culture and cognition.

The overemphasis on adverse outcomes associated with cultural differences in existing research has hindered the understanding of the processes and conditions that help organizations leverage the benefits of cultural differences in a wide range of contexts. This introductory paper together with the contributions included in the special issue showcases the positive dynamics and outcomes associated with cultural differences, distance, and diversity in a wide range of international business contexts.

With the steady increase in the number of female expatriates and multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) pressing need for global female talent, understanding the factors that attract and retain female expatriates is urgent. Drawing from the literatures on gender differences in (domestic) labor turnover and gender differences in social networks, the purpose of this paper is to investigate gender differences in expatriates’ turnover intentions.

The authors collected data via a questionnaire survey from an international sample of female (n=164) and male (n=1,509) expatriates who were on a company-sponsored international assignment at the time of completing the survey.

The findings show that female expatriates’ turnover intentions are mainly explained by satisfaction with company support. In contrast, male expatriates’ turnover intentions are explained by repatriation concerns and perceived gap between within- and outside-company career-advancement opportunities, in addition to satisfaction with company support. The authors did not find any gender differences in the levels of turnover intention per se.

Since males dominate the expatriate cadre of most companies, existing expatriate retention strategies are likely to be geared toward males. Companies that value and want to retain their female talent need to gain a better understanding of what matters to female expatriates in their decisions to stay or leave the company, and adjust their expatriation and repatriation management strategies accordingly.

The study is one of the first to empirically test the gender differences in expatriate turnover intentions. The authors propose two underlying mechanisms that explain gender differences in expatriate turnover intentions: social integration and career advancement. The findings point to an important new research frontier that focuses on gender differences in the underlying mechanisms of turnover intentions rather than in the level of turnover intentions.

Highly publicized scandals and increased stakeholder activism for sustainable development have resulted in calls for more responsible global leadership. At the same time, emerging economies characterized by weak institutions, political instability, and a shaky rule of law have gained in importance for global business. Under the lens of responsible global leadership, we highlight the challenges that global leaders face in addressing the needs of diverse, cross-boundary stakeholders, with a particular focus on Western multinational enterprises (MNEs) doing business in emerging markets. We identify three prototypical approaches that MNEs and their leaders take in responding to calls for responsible global leadership, focusing on the tensions and possible trade-offs between globally integrated and locally adapted approaches. We discuss the implications in view of managerial decision making and behavior and offer recommendations for how organizations may promote responsible global leadership.

As the world struggled to come to grips with the Covid-19 pandemic, over twenty scholars, practitioners, and global leaders wrote brief essays for this curated chapter on the role of global leadership in this extreme example of a global crisis. Their thoughts span helpful theoretical breakthroughs to essential, pragmatic adaptations by companies.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its related economic meltdown and social unrest severely challenged most countries, their societies, economies, organizations, and individual citizens. Focusing on both more and less successful country-specific initiatives to fight the pandemic and its multitude of related consequences, this chapter explores implications for leadership and effective action at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. As international management scholars and consultants, the authors document actions taken and their wide-ranging consequences in a diverse set of countries, including countries that have been more or less successful in fighting the pandemic, are geographically larger and smaller, are located in each region of the world, are economically advanced and economically developing, and that chose unique strategies versus strategies more similar to those of their neighbors. Cultural influences on leadership, strategy, and outcomes are described for 19 countries. Informed by a cross-cultural lens, the authors explore such urgent questions as: What is most important for leaders, scholars, and organizations to learn from critical, life-threatening, society-encompassing crises and grand challenges? How do leaders build and maintain trust? What types of communication are most effective at various stages of a crisis? How can we accelerate learning processes globally? How does cultural resilience emerge within rapidly changing environments of fear, shifting cultural norms, and profound challenges to core identity and meaning? This chapter invites readers and authors alike to learn from each other and to begin to discover novel and more successful approaches to tackling grand challenges. It is not definitive; we are all still learning.