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1 – 10 of 37Andre Anugerah Pekerti, Quan Hoang Vuong and Nancy K. Napier
The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the double edges faced by individuals who have international and multicultural experiences. The implication is that these…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to bring to light the double edges faced by individuals who have international and multicultural experiences. The implication is that these individuals encounter acculturation challenges, and also gain from their multiculturality. The authors adopt Berry’s (2011) integration and multiculturalism framework to analyze the experiences and challenges that multi-culturals face. This paper suggests ways to glean the silver lining within organizations to help manage and master multicultural experiences in the workplace to benefit both individuals and organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used empirical materials from expatriates who have worked across multiple cultural contexts. Based on these the authors present three examples to illustrate how expatriates and multicultural individuals place themselves in situations where they experience contact and challenges associated with adopting multiple cultures. The authors then analyze these examples to show how the experiences involve psychological-level integration challenges for Multi- and n-culturals.
Findings
The three multicultural expatriate examples suggest that individuals with international and multicultural experiences who are successful at managing their experiences develop cognitive and behavioral complexity. However, these individuals also face continuous acculturation including cognitive and ethno-cultural identity conflicts such as, rejection from multiple cultural perspectives because they continually cross-multiple cultural microcosms. Suggestions are presented to help maintain one’s sense of self-worth and minimizing ethno-cultural conflicts.
Research limitations/implications
Notwithstanding the value of analyzing the examples of expatriate acculturation experiences, the limitation to the examples is that it is limited to the experience of three individuals. However, the examples were effective in raising points to discuss relevant challenges and/or the double-edged reality faced by boundary spanners, multi-, and n-culturals.
Practical implications
The paper presents possible ways multi- and n-culturals navigate through their multiculturalism, including suggestions to help individuals who struggle with their multiculturalism through mentoring.
Social implications
The paper highlights the challenges of acculturation and suggests ways that individuals can overcome these challenges. It further suggests how organizations can take advantage of such individuals by utilizing existing personnel within the organization.
Originality/value
The paper is one of the few that acknowledge multiculturalism is highly challenging even for successful multi-culturals and n-culturals. Currently the literature is scant concerning how individuals can manage and master multicultural experiences in the workplace. The paper suggests a number of useful strategies for individuals and organizations to manage the challenges.
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Gary Garrison, Michael Harvey and Nancy Napier
This paper examines the role of managerial curiosity as a critical factor in determining the future impact of disruptive information technologies in a global organization…
Abstract
This paper examines the role of managerial curiosity as a critical factor in determining the future impact of disruptive information technologies in a global organization. Specifically, this paper presents curiosity as a managerial characteristic that plays an important role in identifying disruptive information technologies and facilitating their early adoption. Further, it uses resource‐based theory as a theoretical lens to illustrate how managerial curiosity can be a source of sustained competitive advantage. Finally, it examines the individual decision styles that are best suited in assessing disruptive information technologies.
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Nancy Humphrey and Mark Hildrew
The authors are the Officer in Charge and one of the Care Officers of a local authority residential home for the elderly mentally infirm. Describes the staff′s experience in…
Abstract
The authors are the Officer in Charge and one of the Care Officers of a local authority residential home for the elderly mentally infirm. Describes the staff′s experience in designing and implementing a quality assurance system under ISO 9000. Looks at the way in which the project was tackled, and the resulting benefits to the residents, the staff team, and the overall atmosphere of the home.
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Quan Hoang Vuong and Nancy K. Napier
The purpose of this paper is to explore the “resource curse” problem as a counter-example of creative performance and innovation by examining reliance on capital and physical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the “resource curse” problem as a counter-example of creative performance and innovation by examining reliance on capital and physical resources, showing the gap between expectations and ex-post actual performance that became clearer under conditions of economic turmoil.
Design/methodology/approach
The analysis uses logistic regressions with dichotomous response and predictor variables on structured tables of count data, representing firm performance as an outcome of capital resources, physical resources and innovation where appropriate.
Findings
Key findings relevant to economic and business practice follow. First, a typical characteristic of successful Vietnamese firms in the transition period is their reliance on either capital resources or physical asset endowments. Second, poor performers exhibit evidence of over-reliance on both capital and physical assets. Third, firms that relied on both types of resources tended to downplay creative performance. Some evidence suggests that firms face more acute problem caused by the law of diminishing returns in troubled times. Fourth, the “innovation factor” has not been tapped as a source of economic growth.
Research limitations/implications
This study has some limitations. The size of the survey sample is approximately 150 firms, while the potential sample of > 300 should be possible in the future. When the size increases, the research could be expanded to include further variables that will help investigate more deeply into the related issues and business implications. With regard to the implications of the study, the absence of innovations has made the notion of “resource curse” identical to “destructive creation” implemented by ex-ante resource-rich firms, and worsened the problem of resource misallocation in transition turmoil. The Vietnamese corporate sector's addiction to resources may contribute to economic deterioration, through a downward spiral of lower efficiency leading to consumption of more resources.
Practical implications
Insights obtained from this study could save transition economies' resources which have almost always been considered sine qua non before any critical major policymaking, while this is not necessarily true, and in many cases, even counterproductive.
Originality/value
Original data set on Vietnam stock market are collected, processed, prepared and used by the authors. Original design by the authors for regression equations with dichotomous predictor variables: dependence on endowed physical assets, reliance on capital resources and significant signs of creative performance/innovations. Original idea of viewing “resource curse” as absence of innovation and due to uncreative “destructive creation” of poor-performing commercial operations by resource-rich firms is used in the paper. We have searched the literature in business research and found that the empirical results have not been previously reported.
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John A. Volkmar and Kate L. Westbrook
To assess changes over the past decade in the self‐reported levels of adjustment, job performance, and professional acceptance of western women professionals working in Japan.
Abstract
Purpose
To assess changes over the past decade in the self‐reported levels of adjustment, job performance, and professional acceptance of western women professionals working in Japan.
Design/methodology/approach
Napier and Taylor's benchmark 1995 study of western women working in Japan is replicated ten years later on a similar sample group of women in Japan. Questionnaire responses to questions about cultural adjustment, job performance, and professional acceptance are compared for the original and new samples.
Findings
Despite increased westernization of business practices in Japan and a greater representation of Japanese women in management positions, no statistically significant change is found in the scores for the three measures examined over the ten year period. The incidence of formal training, preparation, and support provided by employers was higher for the more recent sample.
Research limitations/implications
The sample size is relatively small and represents only women in the Tokyo area, which may limit the study's generalizability to women in less metropolitan areas of Japan.
Practical implications
Both for those women professionals who live and work in Japan and for HRM professionals responsible for expatriation and adjustment issues involving those women, provides evidence that adjustment challenges persist despite changes in Japan's sociocultural environment.
Originality/value
By carefully replicating the original study and sample characteristics as closely as possible, this paper provides a useful longitudinal perspective on the situation of foreign women professionals in Japan.
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Describes the development of a quality assurance system in a residential home for the elderly mentally infirm, and its registration under ISO 9000/BS 5750. The two prime…
Abstract
Describes the development of a quality assurance system in a residential home for the elderly mentally infirm, and its registration under ISO 9000/BS 5750. The two prime objectives of the project were to demonstrate the applicability of the ISO 9000 model to human care services, and to integrate the systematic approach of quality assurance with the human‐centred concepts of a total quality culture. The quality assurance system was developed primarily by the home′s own staff, beginning with their definition of residents′ requirements of the service. Discusses the methods of defining outcome measures, of designing the system, of developing it and of implementing it, together with the difficulties encountered, and the impact of the project on team spirit and on the quality of the service.
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The received wisdom on classical accounting thought is that its early stages were methodologically vacuous, while, in its “golden” age, it espoused the methods and philosophical…
Abstract
Purpose
The received wisdom on classical accounting thought is that its early stages were methodologically vacuous, while, in its “golden” age, it espoused the methods and philosophical commitments of received-view hypothetico-deductivism but actually remained methodologically incoherent. The purpose of this paper is to argue, to the contrary, that classical accounting thought possesses a coherent constitutional structure that qualifies as a methodology and unifies it as a body of argument.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on Cartwright’s metaphysical nomological pluralism, which holds that we should attend to the actual practices of successful inquiry and the methodologies and metaphysical presuppositions that support it.
Findings
The paper argues that accounting does achieve disciplinary success and that classical accounting thought, using the methodology of defeasible postulationism, provides the theoretical infrastructure that supports that success. The accounting domain is a world of “dappled realism”, in which theories are useful in the construction of reporting schemes and inform our understanding of the nature of the domain.
Research limitations/implications
Applying metaphysical nomological pluralism rescues classical accounting thought from the charge of methodological incoherence and metaphysical naivety.
Originality/value
The paper justifies a place for classical accounting theorising in the endeavours of modern accounting scholarship and moves the analysis of classical accounting thought within a philosophy of science framework towards an approach with a contemporary resonance.
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Andre Anugerah Pekerti and David Clinton Thomas
The purpose of this paper is to extend current conceptualizations of multicultural individuals by mapping the underlying elements of knowledge, identification, commitment and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to extend current conceptualizations of multicultural individuals by mapping the underlying elements of knowledge, identification, commitment and internalization as components of multicultural identity. It aims to extend discussions of how multicultural individuals manage their multiculturality.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws primarily on extant works on multicultural individuals and identity. The paper reviews a number of concepts relevant to multicultural identity to introduce the existence of a population called n-Culturals who represent a complex type that exists on one extreme of a continuum of multicultural identity. The paper derives a theory of n-Culturalism which represents a more nuanced theory of the multicultural identity.
Findings
n-Culturals recognizes that elements of multicultural identity exist within individuals to a greater or lesser extent and that their combination results in a comprehensive understanding of the entire range of multicultural identities. n-Culturalism extends current views that multicultural individuals maintain multiple saliences of their identities rather than switching modes to manage their multiculturality.
Research limitations/implications
The conceptual nature of the paper implies that there are no existing empirical data apart from anecdotal examples; at the same time this fact provides ample opportunities to test the theory.
Practical implications
First, the findings provides an understanding of multiple cultural influences on acculturative stress and on performance across a range of domains as well as measuring multicultural identity. Second, by understanding the way in which n-Culturals develop the authors may gain valuable insights in modeling this process.
Originality/value
The paper develops a new theory of approaching the challenges faced by multicultural individuals, that is, how to manage their multiculturality. The theory goes beyond current views of switching modes or suppression, and suggests maintaining and balancing multiple identities.
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