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The purpose of this paper is to explore the transformation of the Global Mobility (GM) function within global organisations from a tactical/transactional into a strategic function to add value to the business and international assignees.

The method of research is an exploratory, qualitative study using an interpretivist paradigm. In total, 37 GM specialists working and living across Europe, America and Australasia were interviewed.

Administrative burden, organisational culture and structure, lack of alignment with the business and talent management and the lack of capabilities of the GM function and GM specialists inhibit the transformation from a tactical/transactional GM function into a Strategic GM (SGM) function.

Although this study included a variety of stakeholders of the GM function, it did not include line managers and senior executives. Therefore, future research should capture the views on the GM function of middle and top management of global organisations to provide a more comprehensive view on SGM.

The designed “Global Mobility Specialists Competencies” model presents the competencies GM specialists and functions need to develop to be able to fulfil the role of a business partner and to create a GM function that is agile, flexible and responsive to create sustainable value for the organisation.

This paper identified the characteristics of the roles of the GM function and GM specialists unravelling how these influence the transformation of the GM function into a strategic function.

Based on the tasks and responsibilities of global leaders, the benefits of a holistic view in global leadership talent acquisition are identified. The main areas of this integrating process, such as succession planning, attracting, and mobilizing talents, selection, training and development, and retaining global leadership talents, are described. The success factors and principles of a global talent acquisition process are presented and explained. Furthermore, this chapter shows that a proactive step for global organizations is to build an in-house global leadership talent pool to ensure having the right global leaders in the right places at the right time.

This paper aims to represent an exploration of drivers of workforce agility under the lens of dynamic capabilities to advance the existing workforce literature on agility and strategic human resource management.

In-depth qualitative interviews with senior information technology professionals, managers, directors and leadership were conducted. Data coding and analysis followed the Gioia methodology to develop a theoretical framework.

The theoretical paradigm of workforce agility is seeing revisions. In the past it was solely connected to resource-based view theory, current literature superficially speaks of the link with dynamic capability but lacks comprehensive and strategic understanding. The research brings in the evolutionary change by viewing workforce agility directly under the lens of dynamic capability theory and recognizes workforce agility as a high-level strategy. Based on the analysis of the qualitative interviews this study has developed a conceptual heuristic of workforce agility drivers, interlinked with dynamic capabilities micro-foundations – “sensing”, “seizing”, and “continual renewal”. This paper conceptualizes workforce agility as a response to high pressures for the dynamic capability of the company, which requires reconfiguration and redeployment of external and internal human resources and an inherent need to bring some stability to the internal resources of the company.

There is a growing body of literature linking organizational agility with dynamic capabilities, which overlooks workforce agility. This study is theory-based research on workforce agility, which guides practitioners in making human resource processes more agile.

There has been tremendous interest in the field of cultural adjustment in the past decades. The work of Black and his colleagues has inspired many researchers. However, critics have pointed out that their original conceptualization has limitations; most of the insights building on their model have probably been harvested. Therefore, it is appropriate to investigate alternative ways at understanding the challenges in international assignments. The purpose of this paper is to outline a model rooted in person-environment fit theory. The authors follow Dawis and Lofquist’s Theory of Work Adjustment, which has had only a small influence on expatriate research to date.

The paper develops a correspondence model of cross-cultural adjustment and explores the diverse factors and their interactions in-depth. The satisfaction of individual needs and corresponding environmental supplies (macro, micro, and organizational factors) as well as the satisfactoriness of individual abilities and corresponding environmental requirements (macro, micro, and organizational) is outlined.

Based on the literature and the model a large number of hypotheses in relation to cross-cultural adjustment are proposed which allow new avenues in adjustment research.

The contribution of this paper is to propose a model that addresses the main criticisms to the adjustment conceptualization of Black and his colleagues.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

Based on the 5th wave/tomorrow age theory, we are living in the world that is in necessity to change. Rapid urbanization causes global challenges such as economic problems and recessions, environmental challenges, climate change, social instability, health diseases, biological attached, and crisis caused by technological dominations. These challenges threaten the world, humanity, and human beings. Therefore, it is vital to tackle and struggle with them in order to maintain the world and improve quality of livability and quality of life to achieve sustainability. Generally, modern Blue-Green urban areas and smart cities with high quality of livability and life are proposed to deal with urbanization challenges to maintain the world and improve quality of human life. Based on Prof. Doost's 5th wave theory, related theories, concepts and models like Doost Risk Mitigation Method (DRMM), and also his experience on sustainability as best practice such as cooperating with Danish Sustainable Platforms Company, working as an academic leader at IoE/EQ EU Erasmus Plus project in Germany during 2017–2020, cooperating with former mayor of Copenhagen, consulting the German MV State Minister of Energy, Digitalization, and Infrastructure to cooperate with Iran in 2016, more than 15 years holding lecture and research internationally about risk and risk management on mobility in different universities like (TU Berlin) Technical University of Berlin (EUREF Campus, Sustainable Mobility Management and Sustainability Building) and also achieving a honorary doctorate in sustainable development management, a practical model concerned on risk management in mobility to provide comprehensive global Blue-Green clean sustainable urban mobility risk mitigation strategic plan is given. Therefore, in this chapter, impact of risk management on mobility to provide sustainable global urban mobility plan in order to create modern Blue-Green sustainable urban area and future smart cities through the 5th wave theory are explored. Fundamentally, the main goal of the research is to have an applied study about mobility risk mitigation and utilize it as a key to create comprehensive global urban mobility risk mitigation plan toward Blue-Green sustainable clean mobility technologies to create modern sustainable smart cities through the tomorrow age theory in order to create livable urban area with high quality of livability and life. In addition, the risks in mobility through the DRMM are measured to analyze the risk and to do risk mitigation and mobility project improvement to move to sustainable mobility and high sustainability in future smart cities.

This chapter considers internationalisation strategies to promote international student recruitment and mobility as the central tools of contemporary universities operating in a global and competitive context. It presents an overview of these strategies in the public university context in Italy, which serves as a case study to highlight how universities increasingly give relevance to the internationalisation of education in their strategic plans to attract overseas students and encourage incoming and outgoing student mobility. The document-based analysis of the Italian case reveals a prominent commitment from public universities to promoting internationalisation through different strategic performance objectives that contribute to the internationalisation of students and fuel their mobility and recruitment on a global scale. This research provides empirical evidence of the saliency of the internationalisation of education within the strategic missions of universities. It also addresses the connection between the internationalisation of university education and performance-based funding.

Little is known about the attraction, development, and attrition factors that impact on expatriates’ decision making in relation to international assignment opportunities, nor is there clear understanding as to how global mobility outcomes impact on global talent management (GTM). The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the attraction, development, and attrition of expatriates as a process that is focussed on two core elements of expatriate ROI (eROI) – corporate ROI (cROI) and individual ROI (iROI). Further, the authors adopt an innovative approach by conceptualizing how global mobility is linked to GTM.

Applying psychological contract theory, the authors draw on empirical data from two large studies to compare the perspectives of mobility managers (the cROI inputs) with those of long-term assignees (expatriates; the iROI inputs) to identify how global mobility outcomes can impact on GTM.

By comparing and contrasting corporate and individual perspectives, the findings show a more complete picture of expatriation in practice than has been offered in prior research. Doing so highlights synergies and conflicts in the desired support provided for, and outcomes expected from, global mobility and GTM programs.

The research adds to the literature by demonstrating how cROI and iROI combine to influence overall global mobility outcomes for multinational corporations, and how these, in turn, impact on GTM initiatives and overall GTM success. It extends previous research to specifically link global mobility to GTM, and adds to the limited empirical literature on eROI. The research also advances understanding of the employment relationship during expatriation by identifying new factors and consequences pertaining to psychological contract fulfillment. Implications for future research are presented.

This chapter argues that intra-firm geographic mobility is an understudied mechanism that can help mitigate coordination failures in a geographically distributed organization. The chapter presents an organizing framework on how intra-firm geographic mobility creates value for firms and discusses how intra-firm geographic mobility can create value for individual workers. The chapter concludes by presenting a future research agenda for intra-firm geographic mobility in light of emerging phenomena such as global collaborative patenting by multinationals, temporary colocation of knowledge workers, and nonstandard work.