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The purpose of this paper is to report on trends in the deployment of minority expatriates, review organisational interventions to increase expatriate diversity and to consider the challenges facing employers in widening expatriate diversity through a review of practitioner publications published by relocation management companies/consultancies.

A review of 109 practitioner publications on organisational international assignment policy and practice was conducted to identify trends across three decades in minority expatriation and employer interventions to widen expatriate diversity.

Practitioner publications record percentage female expatriate participation and expatriate age profiles. While expatriate diversity challenges are reported, employer interventions focus on supporting women and LGBTQ+ assignees but with little detail on their outcomes. There is little emphasis on ethnicity/race, religion, disability, pregnancy/maternity, intersectionality of diversity characteristics and inclusion.

Practitioner publications consulted were primarily Western-focused, with access to a “complete” publications record precluded. Academic research that compares employer policy on diversity interventions with how it is implemented is needed.

A stronger focus on supporting the full range of expatriate diversity attributes and intersectionality is required, explaining how challenges have been addressed and inclusion achieved.

Analysis of employer interventions could assist organisations to widen expatriate diversity and inclusion, and minorities to access international careers.

This review of practitioner data reveals trends in the deployment of minority expatriates, interventions taken by employers and challenges they perceive in widening expatriate diversity, providing a unique perspective and enriching our understanding of academic expatriate diversity research. Path-dependent organisational action may hinder employers' future focus on diversity, inclusion and intersectionality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how and why individuals involved in executive remuneration (top pay) decision-making consider quantum as being appropriate rather than excessive, theorised under the rubric of accountability.

In-depth interviews were conducted with non-executive directors (NEDs) serving on remuneration committees (Remcos), institutional investors, their external advisers and internal HR reward experts. Transcripts were analysed using NVivo and the Gioia qualitative methodology.

Defining, measuring and applying performance conditionality in the determination of top pay quantum such that it aligns with company strategy/culture and values, as well as individual recipient motivations, is difficult. While creative approaches to setting top pay so as to attract, retain and motivate key personnel are welcomed, these risk Remco members' personal/organisational reputations. Members recognise disconnection between top pay quantum and general pay levels and how the media highlights social inequality leading to public distrust. They believe they can contribute to more socially acceptable quantum by applying their own values in top pay decision-making.

Sanctions-based, trust-based and selection/peer networks/felt-based accountability theory is used to explain decision-makers’ actions when determining top pay quantum. This paper extends felt accountability theory to encompass public/societal accountability in the context of the appropriateness of top pay quantum decisions.

Drawing on institutional theory, this study aims to analyse the regulation of executive remuneration as espoused in the United Kingdom (UK) codified corporate governance principles, focussing on sources of advice to decision-makers, the nature of the advice sought and given, and interaction of those involved in the process.

A qualitative research design was used. Data were assembled from interviewing non-executive board/remuneration committee members; institutional investors; external remuneration consultants and internal human resources (HR)/reward specialists. Results were analysed in accordance with the Gioia technique.

Tensions inherent in the interpretation of corporate governance codes are illustrated. Emphasis on independent advice combined with constraints on decision-makers' capacity to navigate the nuances of a complex field and reputational concerns risks standardised instead of bespoke remuneration approaches aligned with corporate contexts.

There is a role for internal HR advisors to add value through their potential to reduce the gap within remuneration committees between institutional contexts and independent decision-making, facilitating more strategic human resource management inspired executive remuneration.

Application of institutional theory indicates the relevance of balancing external with internal sources to secure advice that is horizontally and vertically aligned within an organisation to meet the letter and spirit of corporate governance norms. Extending the explanatory power of institutional theory, care is needed though not to overlook the normative underpinnings of professional advisors' own value sets.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social construction of executive pay in the UK via an examination of narratives drawn from the social actors on the front-line of Key Management Personnel (KMP) pay determination.

The authors' qualitative research draws upon in-depth interviews with non-executive directors (NEDs) serving on remuneration committees, institutional investors, and independent pay consultants.

Regulation, market pricing and risk mitigation together with the social processes inherent within discharging corporate governance responsibilities create a status-quo-preserving isomorphic effect, restricting context-sensitive approaches to KMP pay determination.

The paper informs action by company directors, investors and policy makers to address KMP pay controversies, building shared accountability amongst decision-makers focussed on more strategic context-aligned processes and outcomes.

The authors' analysis illustrates how institutional isomorphism can be applied to analyse social actors' interpretations within KMP pay decision-making. The authors show that normative, coercive and mimetic isomorphic forces must be applied in dynamic interaction to extend the explanatory power of institutional isomorphism through the creation of a “No-Come-In” effect in respect of contemporary KMP pay determination settings.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how individuals involved in top pay determination view their role and accountabilities, and capability development needs, theorised under the rubric of professionalisation.

A qualitative research approach draws upon in-depth interviews with non-executive directors serving on remuneration committees (Remcos), institutional investors, their external advisors, and HR reward experts.

Regulation has addressed remuneration committee resourcing implications but has yet to consider the ramifications for implied professionalisation requirements for the independent actors involved. Non-executives' and institutional investors' professional engagement is potentially hindered by the capability and capacity required for the activities involved and, for NEDs, the reward attached.

Further research is needed to evaluate professionalisation initiatives by top pay regulators and assess their impact on executive remuneration in practice.

Thorough induction, tailored training, and continuous professional development are crucial to quality executive remuneration decision-taking; organisational and regulatory attention to these issues is required along with widening NED selection and recognition criteria.

This paper provides new knowledge on how top pay decision-takers view their role, the competencies required, and necessary professional development needed to achieve organisational competitive advantage. It reveals a potential dark side to top pay decision-taker professionalisation if individuals repurpose themselves as occupants of part-time executive roles undermining corporate executives.

The purpose of this paper is to surface and discuss issues associated with employee performance appraisal as a multi-staged social interaction reportedly the butt of managerial dissatisfaction, especially when used to inform decisions around pay and other rewards.

To substantiate the territory, existing management-based evidence from the published literature is curated and discussed to frame issues for investigation under the rubric of performance appraisal as an activity that may be understood as combining interaction between forms of administrative, social and psychologically oriented control. Primary evidence, drawn from recent research sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which combines data sets informed by a survey of HR specialists and a follow-on focus group, is then used to illustrate views on relevant themes across a sample of UK-based private, public and third sector organizations (n=715).

A significant number of organizations apply performance appraisal approaches, somewhat mediated by sector and size, and in turn use the results to inform various forms of HRM decision making – in particular reward management. While claims have been circulating in popular media suggesting the widespread abandonment of traditional performance appraisal, and while the study finds dissatisfaction regarding the utility of existing bureaucratic elements of appraisal mechanisms, the position is more nuanced.

Corporate management attention is drawn to choices of the extent to which they are investing in building line management capabilities to address the consequences of policy decisions to amplify the importance of informal alongside formal performance management processes, and potential reward decision making, mindful of the indeterminate character of the employment relationship and its dynamic, socially constructed character.

Performance appraisal may benefit from re-interpreting the balance between emphasis on administrative, social and self-control, given changing expectations among workforce members and those who evaluate organizational effectiveness in contemporary society, and the ongoing contested nature of organizational control.

Employee performance appraisal as an institutional process central to organizational control systems is a topic of interest to both organizational effectiveness academics and the managerial practitioners they study. Using data that broadly represent recent developments in managerial practice across “UK plc”, the paper informs reflection on theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of organisational performance and development review policy and practice on women’s access to international careers via long-term expatriate assignments in the oil and gas industry, with a specific focus on women’s perceptions of procedural justice.

A qualitative cross-sectional case study research design is used to analyse performance and development review, and international assignment policies in two firms, together with in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 14 Human Resource policy custodians and 21 female long-term current assignees.

Women assignees do not see performance and development reviews as effective mechanisms to access expatriate roles. Nonetheless, women use these procedures while also operating within senior male networks to signal their desire to expatriate.

This study identifies differences between organisational policy objectives and policy implementation, and female assignees’ experiences and expectations of accessing expatriate roles. Women’s perceptions of organisational justice are not harmed because women place more emphasis on process and conversations than on policy. Research propositions are suggested extending organisational justice theory.

Clear articulation of performance and development review processes aids organisational succession planning. Formalised, transparent expatriate career management supports women’s access to expatriation. The roles of key personnel in determining access to expatriate career paths require clarification.

This paper extends our knowledge of women’s organisationally assigned expatriate careers and perceptions of procedural justice. Women use performance and development reviews to access expatriate opportunities. Employer action aligned to policy intent could help increase female expatriate participation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how female expatriates interpret the effectiveness of practical implementation of equality/diversity policies, trusting this to support their expatriate careers.

A cross-sectional, qualitative research approach draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with 14 human resources equality/diversity policy implementers and 26 current female expatriates in two oil and gas firms.

Early-career stage female expatriates believe that equality/diversity policy implementation will support their international careers. At the most senior levels, women expatriates highlight unequal treatment breaching their trust in delivery of equality/diversity principles to support their expatriate career progression.

Longitudinal research is needed to assess how early-career women expatriates' willingness to trust in organisational equality/diversity principles alters as their careers progress, and the effects of any changing trust relations on their contributions to organisational strategic objectives. Larger senior female expatriate samples are needed to research links between trust relations and turnover.

Organisations must weigh up benefits from using transparent expatriate selection processes versus less formal mechanisms, if informal processes are not to undermine espoused equality interventions. Unconscious bias training should form part of wide-ranging programmes to tackle discrimination. Senior managerial action with embedded accountability is needed.

Exploring the rhetoric and reality of equality/diversity policy implementation on women comprising a minority expatriate group, this research demonstrates women expatriates' early-career trust in gender equality falls away as they first recognise and then accept diminishing female expatriate senior grade representation and the implications for their expatriate careers. Should turnover result, this could detrimentally affect organisational expatriate gender diversity objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect theoretically on a quarter-century of attempts to codify “best practice” standards related to oversight of and reporting on executive remuneration. Issues around the regulation of UK executive remuneration are analysed focussing on decision making by elite actors, informed by corporate governance codification artefacts and theoretical considerations inspired by notions of the social construction of reality.

Using documentary materials to trace evolution of executive remuneration regulation in the UK, consideration is given to the social antecedents of processes governing corporate board remuneration committee practices. The paper reconstructs the social construction of the UK Corporate Governance Code and draws on relevant theoretically inclined literature to help make sense of processes involved.

Shaping the problems, to be addressed as “legitimate problems”, is core to efforts intended to create “persuasive narratives” around how UK executive remuneration should be regulated.

The paper sketches an agenda for subsequent empirical “field” investigation to assess the social antecedents of UK executive remuneration outcomes.

Offering an alternative way of thinking about executive reward and on-going controversy as to how it may be legitimately regulated, informed by contextual considerations.

A novel look at executive remuneration from a social construction of reality perspective. Adding value to public debate on organisational effectiveness at a time of warnings from luminaries such as the Bank of England governor about the adverse social impact of “stateless companies” and calls for action against unfairness in income distribution.

The purpose of this article is to enhance understanding of influences on interaction between corporate personnel and development specialists and line functions associated with expatriating managers. Line managers are expected to accept greater responsibility for people management and development. But line managers' strategies for managing risks inherent in supervising expatriate managers may cause to surface incompatibilities with specialists' corporate “policy conscience” role. A pluralistically inclined perspective on “managerial interest streams” offers insights into inter‐group perceptions and behaviour.

Focusing on organisational actors' interpretations, a non‐standardised survey by e‐mail, covering a small sample of expatriate managers (n=20) employed in various countries by a large UK‐headquartered healthcare retail group, was complemented by semi‐structured interviews with personnel and development specialists in a further seven large multinational companies.

Potential tensions around the application of corporate expatriation policy may be attributed to factors “educating” line and specialist orientations to expatriate managers.

The value of the paper is in the development of an original model sketching pluralistically located interaction around expatriation management. While limited to an exploratory empirical investigation, the practical implications derive from specification of opportunities and threats to partnership building between those involved in expatriating managers.