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Communicating CSR through corporate websites is one of the most effective ways for organizations to inform and engage stakeholders, earn legitimacy and reap the intangible and tangible benefits of practicing CSR. However, in emerging economies in the Middle East, online CSR disclosure remains limited while corporate websites are not used effectively as strategic tools. This study explores online CSR communication (CSRC) by banks in the dynamic, emerging economy of the United Arab Emirates.

The study uses an adaptation of the analytical framework used by Chaudhri and Wang (2007) to examine the prominence and extent of the CSR information on the corporate websites of domestic and global banks in the UAE. It further compares domestic and global banks' CSRC patterns as well as domestic/government-owned versus private banks and conventional versus Islamic banks.

About 70% of the domestic banks in the UAE provide information about their CSR activities. CSR information is moderately to highly prominent for the majority of the domestic banks, but the extent of the information presented is minimal (1–2 pages). Domestic/government-owned and conventional banks communicate their CSR more prominently and extensively than private and Islamic banks. Domestic/government-owned banks tend to follow the CSRC patterns observed in global banks.

Despite the increasingly important role of the United Arab Emirates within the Middle East as well as on the global business arena, very little is known about whether and how companies in the country approach CSR. This is the first study focusing on CSRC within the entirety of a single business sector within the United Arab Emirates.

This paper aims to present two objectives. The first objective is to identify the academic knowledge interests (managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical) prevalent in research on global careers. The second objective is to consider and critique the discourse constructed and perpetuated in academic texts on global careers concerning globalization, global careers and the global careerist.

Using a critical discourse analysis, the paper analyzes 66 articles and book chapters and one book on the subject of a global career. The authors positioned the texts into one of the four academic knowledge interests – managerial, agentic, curatorial and critical. The texts were also analyzed with respect to the discourse manifested in relation to globalization, global careers and the global careerist.

The authors found that the texts were driven by primarily managerial academic knowledge interests, followed by agentic and curatorial interests. Very few reflected critical knowledge interests. In addition, texts on global careers accept the globalization of business as natural and unproblematic and, consequently, construct a discourse about the global career and the global careerist which fits the idea that global business expansion in its current form is inevitable and inescapable.

This paper is the first to analyze the academic knowledge production and discourse on “global careers” and the “global careerist” as it is emerging among career scholars. It is also one of the very few articles offering a more critical perspective on global careers specifically and careers more generally.

This paper aims to explore the online corporate social responsibility (CSR) communication by domestic and global banks operating in the United Arab Emirates.

Through a qualitative content analysis, the study examines the strategies banks use to market their CSR initiatives on their corporate websites. CSR marketing strategies are classified with reference to Kotler and Lee’s (2005) categorization.

The analysis indicates that overall, all CSR marketing strategies, as proposed by Kotler and Lee (2005), are used by the domestic UAE banks with the most frequently used being cause-promotion, philanthropy and socially responsible business practices. Government owned and conventional banks display patterns congruent to the communications observed in the global sample. Islamic banks have a less diversified approach relying mostly on philanthropy with only one Islamic bank using four of the six strategies.

The present study provides insight into how CSR is communicated within one of the largest industries in the fast-growing economy of the UAE. The observations reported here could help corporate communication practitioners and managers in domestic corporations that contribute to the Islamic economy to understand how to benchmark better and to communicate more effectively about their CSR.

The purpose of this exploratory, empirical study is to gain insight into repatriation experiences and repatriate turnover intention of employees from India and The Netherlands who either were or had been on international assignments in the respective countries.

Interviews were conducted with 25 Dutch and 30 Indian international assignees (IAs) and repatriates in both India and The Netherlands. Thematic analysis resulted in four themes: met and unmet expectations of career advancement opportunities; knowledge transfer and labour marketability; economic growth versus economic recession and alternative employment opportunities; and boundaryless careers: adventure and entrepreneurship.

Repatriate expectations about the use of knowledge, skills and abilities gained in the host country moderate the relationship between the macro-economic situation of the home country and repatriate attrition/retention, such that met expectations of Indian respondents decreased their intention to leave the organisation, even in a conducive macro-economic context with ample alternative employment opportunities. Unmet expectations of Dutch respondents increased their intention to leave the organisation, even in an unfavourable macro-economic context with few alternative employment opportunities.

The sample of Indian and Dutch IAs and repatriates may limit generalisation of the findings to samples from other countries with distinct cultural contexts and macro-economic conditions.

Global organisations that set realistic expectations about re-entry career opportunities for repatriates, facilitate knowledge transfer after repatriation, and adequately respond to boundaryless career ambitions of repatriates, can reduce repatriate turnover intention and attrition.

This study shows that repatriate attrition versus retention is embedded in the macro-economic context of the home country, leading to three types of career mobility upon completion of an international assignment: intra-organisational mobility; organisational boundary-crossing; and geographical boundary crossing.

The focus of this special issue of the International Journal of Commerce and Management is the globalization of the retailing industry. This is a topic which has received relatively little attention by most retailers and researchers until recently (Akehurst & Alexander, 1996). Instead, based on the belief that the heterogeneity of consumers across regions and nations was too great a hurdle to overcome, retailing has been traditionally viewed as primarily local or national in scope. Events in the retailing industry over the past several decades, however, has proven this belief to be incorrect. In fact, retailers have been among the forefront of the globalization process presently occurring in the business environment.

This paper aims to conduct a longitudinal analysis of the patterns of internationalisation of multinational corporations and provide a measure of their degree of globalisation at the firm-level. There is much debate in the literature on the regional nature of the globalisation of multinational corporations (Rugman and Oh, 2013).

The authors use firm-level sales data to analyse the location of sales and patterns of globalisation of 1,276 companies across ten countries and ten industries from 1998-2012.

The results show that while international sales are rising and the proportion of home region-oriented firms is falling, the majority of sales of the companies in our data set continues to be in the Triad, with little growth in non-Triad regions. The authors find one common theme for the majority of countries, an increase in sales to Asia yet concentrated in just four industries, financials, basic materials, oil and gas and technology. Despite an increase in the percentage of host-region, bi-regional and global companies, 62.6 per cent of the firms have not changed multinational classification over the 15-year period, 43.1 per cent have not expanded out of their home region and 16.4 per cent have not expanded out of their home market. The authors find some evidence of liabilities of interregional foreignness at the industry and country level. The authors show regional sales are moving towards matching global economic activity for the 50 most globalised firms in our study but less so for the other firms in our sample. Overall, the results show that the majority of the growth in internationalisation comes from a small minority of firms.

The authors make several advances across the literature on internationalisation, including a more in-depth longitudinal analysis of firm-level multinationality than exists to date and a novel method of measuring firm-level globalisation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse three drivers of the Islamic economy: global Muslim demography; operational sectors and demand; and faith-based consumerism.

This paper follows a constructivist approach to the Islamic economy, undertaken through an exploratory study of global Muslim population, the growth in opportunities in the Islamic economy and plurality of religious thought across the diaspora.

The research finds four trends (t) positively impacting the growth of the Islamic economy: (t1) above-nominal increase in global Muslim population, with greater intra-religious interactions of varying Muslim cultures; (t2) an increasing demand for a diversity of Shari’ah-compliant and halal products and services; (t3) improving socio-economic status of Muslims in developed and emerging countries; and (t4) a widening perspective of faith understanding and rising interest in religious literacy.

This research serves to inform global businesses of opportunities in Islamic economy sectors, highlighting global demographic change and informing how business is impacted through the plurality of Muslim faith interpretation.

Based on this research, businesses can better align their services with the socio-economic environment and faith sensibilities of Muslim consumers.

The paper provides a first look at the activity across Islamic economic sectors and disaggregates their activity and potential for growth across Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority markets. In particular, three areas were examined – demography, emergent Muslim lifestyles and religiosity.

Studies addressing rural residents’ understanding of global warming and their willingness to pay higher prices to mitigate it are very limited. The purpose of this study is to examine the general understanding and attitudes of rural residents in China regarding global warming and their willingness to pay higher prices to mitigate it.

This study surveyed 1,185 rural residents in three counties of coastal, middle and western China. Multivariate regression analysis was conducted to reveal the relationships between the willingness to pay higher prices to mitigate global warming and influencing factors.

The majority of respondents had heard of global warming; however, their knowledge of the phenomenon and its causes was very limited. Most respondents admitted the likelihood of risks from global warming. Although most respondents thought they had an obligation to mitigate global warming, only a small percentage of them were willing to pay higher prices to address the problem; the unwillingness of respondents to pay higher prices to mitigate global warming may have been associated with their low income and perceived inability to handle the cost, externalisation of responsibility and causes and lack of knowledge of how to affect it.

This study examines the general understanding and attitudes of rural residents in China regarding global warming and their willingness to pay higher prices to mitigate it. The research is conducive to climate change communications and the implementation of climate policies in China’s rural areas.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the views of black and ethnic minority school leaders about the Investing in Diversity program, a black‐led program developed in 2004 to address the underrepresentation of black leaders in the London schools. Major themes are identified from interviews with black and South Asian women graduates of the program and recommendations made for leadership development strategies to help aspiring and current black and global majority headteachers “bring who they are” to their leadership.

Qualitative case study data about the Investing in Diversity program include document analysis of curriculum modules and participant observation of the weekend residential, survey satisfaction data from several cohorts, and face‐to‐face interviews with a purposive sample of seven headteachers from African Caribbean, African, and South Asian backgrounds who completed the Investing in Diversity program six‐seven years ago. These semi‐structured individual interviews were conducted in the spring of 2012 during an all‐day visit to their schools and focused on barriers and supports in their career path, approach to leadership, and their views on their leadership preparation.

Participants identified black and ethnic minority headteachers as role models, the importance of mentoring and informal networks, and opportunities to lead as supports to their career path to headship. Many of their long‐term informal networks were established with other BME colleagues who attended Investing in Diversity. Barriers included subtle (and not so subtle) discrimination from parents, teachers, and administrators for some of the participants.

Observational studies and interview studies, which included a bigger sample of black and ethnic minority headteachers, would extend this research.

This study provides suggestions for schools and local authorities about leadership preparation strategies that make a difference for aspiring BME leaders.

There is a paucity of research on the views of British BME headteachers. This study adds to the research base on BME leadership development in Britain and contributes to international research on self‐defined black leadership perspectives.

The literature on climate change knowledge and attitudes has focused on primary and secondary school children. The limited research on college students is dated or narrowly focused. This study aims to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of views about climate change across a wide range of current college students.

The authors surveyed college students in a sample of lower- and upper-division courses in three content areas: knowledge and attitudes about climate change, intentions to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions, and student satisfaction with the amount of current teaching at the university about climate change and suggestions for improvement.

A strong majority of respondents believe that climate change is real and largely human-induced; a majority express concern about climate change. Yet, students in the sample hold misconceptions about the basic causes and consequences of climate change.

Further research is warranted to understand the college population, so educators can improve and target their educational efforts to the students most in need.

Higher education needs to expand its educational efforts to ensure that all university graduates understand scientific consensus about climate change and are actively engaged as part of the solution in their public and private roles.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing a broad portrayal of college student knowledge and engagement with climate change issues, at least for students on one campus. The study is the first to observe noteworthy differences in climate change understanding and concern between college women and men and across academic majors. It is the only study that asks college students how they would like to learn about global warming.