Search results

Integrating identity theory and role theory, this study examines the re-expatriation inclinations of highly-skilled professional female self-initiated repatriates (SIRs) in an Asian rapidly emerging market (REM) and the reasons underlying these inclinations.

The authors conducted a survey on a sample of highly-skilled professional female SIRs in Vietnam (N = 248). Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the model.

The study found that female SIRs' career identity, family identity and social identity have a significant influence on their inclinations to re-expatriate. Attitude towards re-expatriation fully mediates the influence of family identity and career identity on re-expatriation inclinations.

This research was limited to female SIRs in one REM, namely Vietnam, and may lack generalisability in countries and contexts.

By delineating the identity-related factors that contribute to skilled female SIRs' inclinations to re-expatriate and recognising gender as a complex, multifaceted social construct, the authors broaden the way expatriation is conceptualised and isolate factors that can inform practices for recruitment and retention of this important sub-set of international talent.

The repatriation process often involves challenging and unexpected readjustment issues, leading to high turnover amongst repatriates. However, research has focussed on the re-entry decisions and experiences of company-assigned (CA) repatriates, whilst studies on self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) that repatriate back to their home countries (i.e. self-initiated repatriates (SIRs)) are limited, particularly in emerging transition economies. This study develops and tests a model to explain the factors influencing professional SIRs' turnover intentions and how repatriation readjustment affects their intentions in Vietnam.

The data was collected from 445 Vietnamese professional SIRs who worked and/or studied for extended periods overseas and subsequently returned to Vietnam. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data.

Results indicate that both work and life repatriation adjustment difficulties have significant positive effects on turnover intentions, whilst only repatriation life adjustment difficulties have an indirect effect via life dissatisfaction. Further, cultural distance positively influences repatriation adjustment difficulties and turnover intentions. SIRs' on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness negatively moderate the influence of repatriation work and life adjustment difficulties on turnover intentions, respectively.

The study develops a theoretical model explaining how repatriation difficulties impact the turnover intentions of SIRs, considering contextual factors including cultural distance and embeddedness. The research highlights the importance of job embeddedness as a form of social and organisational support for SIRs in managing psychological challenges related to repatriation, which can help reduce turnover and retain highly skilled talent. Additionally, the study extends repatriation research on an under-researched subgroup of SIEs, SIRs, in an under-researched emerging transition economy context.

The purpose of this study is to examine the determinants of career satisfaction of professional accounting returnees who have studied and/or worked abroad and then returned to work in different types of international workplaces in their home country.

A survey of professional accounting returnees in Vietnam was undertaken and multiple regression analysis was applied to test the proposed relationships.

This study finds that career satisfaction is affected by career fit, career sacrifice, types of international workplaces (domestically headquartered firms versus globally headquartered firms) and cross-cultural work readjustment. Further, cross-cultural work readjustment partially mediates the effect of career fit and career sacrifice on career satisfaction.

The research provides the basis for designing career-related employee experiences to support career satisfaction of professional accounting returnees.

This study integrates dimensions of career embeddedness with cross-cultural work readjustment and employee experiences, which are normally studied separately, in different types of international workplaces. It contributes to the limited research on contributors to well-being in the form of career satisfaction among professional returnees in an emerging economy.

This study presents and validates a theoretical model linking individual characteristics of the founding or lead innovative entrepreneur of a start-up venture – the entrepreneur's values, entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial self-efficacy – to the firm's entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and market orientation (MO) and, ultimately, to firm performance.

We conducted a survey on a stratified random sample of founders of early-stage South Australian micro- and small enterprises with a response rate of 24% (N = 204). Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the model.

The study found that there is a significant relationship between the individual lead entrepreneur and firm strategies developed in early-stage firms in explaining firm performance. It also found that internal values are positively related to entrepreneurial attitude. Entrepreneurial attitude is positively related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy and EO innovativeness. In turn, entrepreneurial self-efficacy is related to innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking. The proactiveness dimension of EO and entrepreneurial attitude is related to MO. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy, innovativeness and MO are related to firm performance.

This research was limited to entrepreneurial ventures in South Australia and may lack generalisability in other states and countries.

The research contributes to the understanding of the heterogeneity within self-employed individuals, in particular among innovative entrepreneurs, by expanding insights regarding antecedents and consequences of the entrepreneurial process. It develops insights into the links of individual-level constructs with firm-level constructs to develop a more meaningful understanding of new venture creation and performance. It enhances our knowledge of the heterogeneity within the group of self-employed by exploring the individual entrepreneurial antecedents of performance in early-stage firms.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the simultaneous effect of ethical leadership (EL) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) on employees’ turnover intention and examine the mediating mechanism in these relationships.

The authors conducted a field study of 851 employees across a variety of industries. This study applied partial least squares structural equation modelling for hypothesis testing.

The results show that employees’ perceptions of CSR as well as EL are both uniquely and negatively related to turnover intention. The authors also found that employees’ job satisfaction but not commitment, mediates these relationships.

This study answers the recent call (Schminke and Sheridan, 2017) for ethics researchers to put competing explanations to the test to determine their relative importance. Research limitations have been discussed in the paper.

Through providing empirical support for the positive impact of CSR and EL on employee-related outcomes and creating a decent and empowering work environment, this study provides further support for CSR and EL. As CSR and EL require accountability, responsible management and addressing societal well-being of stakeholders, this study can contribute to the United Nations sustainable development goals.

Previous research has found that both employees’ perceptions of supervisory EL and CSR are negatively related to employees’ turnover intentions. Yet, researchers know little about their relative importance because these relationships have not been adequately examined simultaneously.

This research focuses on the extent sharing economy transforms employability for women impacted by domestic and reproductive work. The authors explore the experience of mothers, of how digital peer-to-peer (P2P) platforms can affect their self-perceived employability and skills deterioration by unlocking human capital through technology acceptance.

This study adopted a pragmatism-based approach incorporating using a single-case study research design with the Gioia methodology. It utilised a semi-structured telephone survey to collect data to explore the decisions around usage of a newly developed mobile P2P app, aiming to support employability among mothers. Analysis was conducted inductively using thematic analysis and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

The study finds that mothers experience high rates of continued labour market attachment on a casual or part-time basis, difficulty in juggling family and work, and high levels of concern both about future employment/entrepreneurial opportunities and expected stress in balancing dual roles of carer and earner. While mothers are interested in using new sharing economy technologies to reduce skills deterioration and improve signalling, the authors find that there were both technology and non-technology related barriers. These included trust and security, life-stage mismatch, time poverty and limitation of service offerings.

This research was limited to mothers in one state in Australia and by the case study research design, the measurement model and the self-report nature of the data collection. Hence, the findings may lack generalisability in other contexts. It also limits the ability to make conclusions regarding causality.

This exploratory study contributes to research in the intersection between human resources (HR) and entrepreneurship by illustrating how sharing economy platforms can offer women a means to overcome the issues of signalling and skills deterioration in relation to aspects of human capital theory by developing new skills that may act as positive signals signal to potential employers or investors. Additionally, the social interactions between mothers, through technology adoption, can provide a basis for improving future self-employment or entrepreneurship and employability.

In a state capitalist country such as China, an important influence on company reporting is the government, which can influence company decision-making. The nature and impact of how the Chinese government uses its symbolic power to promote corporate environmental reporting (CER) have been under-studied, and therefore, this paper aims to address this gap in the literature by investigating the various strategies the Chinese government uses to influence CER and how political ideology plays a key role.

This study uses discourse analysis to examine the annual reports and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reports from seven Chinese companies between 2007 and 2011. And the data analysis presented is informed by Bourdieu's conceptualisation of symbolic power.

The Chinese government, through exercising the symbolic power, manages to build consensus, so that the Chinese government's political ideology becomes the habitus which is deeply embedded in the companies' perception of practices. In China, the government dominates the field and owns the economic capital. In order to accumulate symbolic capital, companies must adhere to political ideology, which helps them maintain and improve their social position and ultimately reward them with more economic capital. The findings show that the CER provided by Chinese companies is a symbolic product of this process.

The paper provides contributions around the themes of symbolic power wielded by the government that influence not only state-owned enterprises (SOEs) but also firms in the private sector. This paper also provides an important contribution to understanding, in the context of a strong ideologically based political system (such as China), how political ideology influences companies' decision-making in the field of CER.

Family businesses account for 70% of businesses in Australia, and employ half of Australia's workforce (ASBFEO, n.d). Although they form an integral part of Australian economy and society, the experience of COVID-19 has undoubtedly created both change and challenges for family businesses. Are Australian family businesses ready to manage this change and cope with these challenges? In this chapter we explore this question by discussing the “state-of-the-art” about family businesses in Australia, and present research directions to develop knowledge about the readiness of Australian family businesses to not only flourish but to be sustainable in the post COVID-19 world.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how and why small to medium enterprises (SMEs) access knowledge from external actors in general and from higher education institutions (HEIs) in particular and what is the extent to which these knowledge access pathways affect SME innovativeness.

The paper involved both quantitative and qualitative approaches: a survey of 1,226 SMEs and a mini case study to follow-up on issues arising from the survey analysis. Survey data were analysed using both non-parametric and multivariate Poisson regression analysis. The case study was based on a medium-sized manufacturing firm in South Australia.

While there are significant differences between the micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, the evidence suggests that SMEs generally use “generic” university–industry knowledge transfer pathways (e.g. published research results) rather than university–industry links with high “relational” involvement. More significantly, the results indicate that SMEs are more likely to rely on organisations other than universities and related R&D enterprises for knowledge acquisition like clients/customers or suppliers. While collaboration is most likely to occur within the same state/territory, or Australia, many SMEs also collaborate internationally, usually as part of normal supplier–customer relationships, reinforcing knowledge acquisition from organisationally proximate partners. These findings are also supported by the case study.

This research was limited to surveying SMEs in one geographic (metropolitan) region in Australia. It also does not account for the different patterns of HEI–SME interactions in different industry sectors. There is also only one case study.

First, the research adds to the few field studies that have investigated accessing knowledge for innovation among SMEs. Specifically, the research contributes to an understanding of the heterogeneous roles that different actors play in facilitating knowledge access for improving innovative SMEs outcomes. Second, the research does not treat all SMEs similarly in terms of size effects but instead accounts for differing SME sizes and how this affects their selection of knowledge access pathways. Third, the research contributes to a small number of studies that attempt to understand how HEIs and SMEs can work better together in the context of a regional innovation system, especially one that is relatively less competitive to the larger economy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons managers of non-Indigenous backgrounds move to, stay in, and leave their positions in Indigenous Art Centres in remote areas of Australia.

This qualitative study used structured in-depth interviews of 21 managers of Indigenous Art Centres to explore their reasons for staying in or leaving their positions.

The study finds that managers are not drawn to remote Art Centres for financial gain, or career advancement. In contrast, a broader range of pull factors beyond the job – in particular, the Indigenous community/environment and personal/family reasons – influence managers to stay or leave the job. However, the reasons for choosing to leave are qualitatively different from reasons given by managers who stay, pulling some managers to stay, whilst pushing other managers to leave. Significantly, shocks, in the form of threatening and frightening situations were also influential in explaining turnover.

This research was limited to Art Centre managers in remote Australia and may lack generalisability in other countries.

The study adds to the few field studies that have investigated issues related to recruitment and retention of managers in the creative arts sector in remote areas. It contributes to the literature by extending push-pull theory to aspects of the entrepreneurial career process, albeit among “accidental entrepreneurs”. In addition, the authors have also incorporated “shocks” as catalysts to understanding career deliberations, and that threatening and frightening situations were especially influential in explaining decisions to stay or go.