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The purpose of this article is to advance the understanding of expatriates' psychological attachment toward both their parent company and its foreign subsidiary by highlighting how workplace friendships enhance the process of adjustment for expatriates and how these effects on adjustment subsequently translate into expatriates' dual commitment.

Hypotheses were tested using a sample of 187 expatriates, working in managerial positions, in subsidiaries of multinational corporations, all of whom were assigned expatriates. Serial multiple indirect effects were tested.

The results indicated that the relationship between workplace friendships and interaction adjustment was supported, but the relationship between workplace friendships and work adjustment was not supported. The serial indirect effects of international adjustment and work adjustment on the relationship between interaction adjustment and expatriates' dual commitment were supported.

This study seeks to fill a gap in the research literature on expatriates by focusing on the issue of workplace friendships and expatriates' dual commitment. The findings help bolster the literature on relational schemas in that expatriates' workplace friendships establish scripts for expatriates' expected outlines of adjustment in work domains. This study also provides insights relevant to the literature on social interaction and adjustment, as the findings support our theory that expatriate commitment is not directly contingent on workplace friendships but rather on the mediating roles of both interaction adjustment and work adjustment.

The purpose of this study is to identify how young South Korean self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) have adjusted to their work and to verify the role of workplace learning activities as work adjustment processes in the relationship between work adjustment resources and outcomes.

The study adopted a mixed-method approach, beginning with a qualitative study, followed by a quantitative study.

The main findings of the qualitative study indicated two types of SIE personal characteristics (ability to embrace cultural differences and entrepreneurship), their participation in training programs and that a supportive work environment which facilitates their work adjustment. Workplace learning, which led to role clarification within their organizations, is also critical for adjustment. Based on these findings, the quantitative research study examined the effects of personal and contextual factors on workplace learning and adjustment (n = 120). The quantitative part of the study found cultural intelligence (CQ), entrepreneurship, training programs and supportive environments were positively related to sociocultural adjustment through the work adjustment process.

As work adjustment is an important predictor of increased sociocultural adjustment among SIEs, organizations should build learning-supportive climates to promote workplace learning and seek people with appropriate characteristics for expatriation. Further studies should expand participant sample sizes to represent a wider population of SIEs.

Extant literature on SIEs mainly explored their performance and management. This study explores their adjustment processes through the perspective of workplace learning.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a human resource management perspective of the workforce adjustment strategies implemented at workplaces in Britain in response to the Great Recession.

The analysis uses an ordered probit and a series of binomial probits to examine a micro data set from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study.

Not all workplaces were affected equally by the recession. Not all workplaces chose to implement workforce adjustment strategies consequential of the recession, although the probability of a workplace taking no action decreased the greater the adverse effect of the recession on the workplace. Most workplaces used a combination of workforce adjustment strategies. Workplaces implemented strategies more compatible with labour hoarding than labour shedding, i.e., cutting/freezing wages and halting recruitment to fill vacant posts rather than making employees redundant.

What was examined was the incidence of the workforce adjustment strategies, not the number of employees affected by the implementation of a strategy. Further, what was examined were outcomes. What is not known are the processes by which these outcomes were arrived at.

This paper concurs with the findings of previous economic studies that workplaces hoarded labour, cut hours and lowered pay. In so doing, however, it provides a more detailed and more informed human resource management perspective of these adjustment strategies.

Despite the increase of recent immigrant newcomers (RINs) into the workforce over the past few years, many employers still face the challenge of successfully integrating RINs into the workplace. To this end, the purpose of this paper is to propose customized socialization tactics for RINs and highlight the role of RINs’ adjustment strategies in order to facilitate their workplace adjustment.

Drawing on immigrants, socialization, and diversity literatures, the paper develops a conceptual model of the socialization process for RINs and advances propositions to be empirically tested.

The paper proposes that customized socialization tactics by organizations and adjustment strategies by RINs would facilitate RINs’ socialization process by increasing their social integration and role performance, the factors which would ultimately help in their workplace adjustment.

The proposed customized socialization tactics add to the extant socialization literature by highlighting the crucial role firms can play in RINs’ socialization process. Additionally, the paper highlights an important role of RINs in their own socialization process.

Organizations need to employ new, different socialization tactics to help integrate RINs in the workplace. RINs may find the research outcomes useful in acknowledging their own role for successful workplace integration.

This paper presents a new way of looking at organizational socialization tactics for RINs while highlighting a role of RINs themselves, and concludes by discussing theoretical, practical, and societal implications for organizations employing RINs.

Organizations have been challenged to identify antecedents to improved employee adjustment to the work environment changes that arose in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic. This study aims to explore the effect of multilingualism on employee ability to adjust to workplace changes based on the concept that multilinguals have been found to switch between tasks more efficiently as compared to monolinguals.

Applying a sequential explanatory mixed methods research approach, quantitative performance evaluation data on 207 credit union employees is analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling to predict employee performance, and thematic analysis of qualitative data representing the adjustment narratives of six monolingual and six multilingual employees within the sample is conducted, corresponding to the period during which employees were adjusting to broad workplace changes after the onset of the global pandemic.

The results suggest greater predicted improvement in the performance of multilingual employees. Reliance on the task-switching ability associated with multilingualism is found to be the primary self-evaluative factor for successful change adjustment among multilingual employees.

In light of work performance benefits identified in this study, organizations may consider multilingualism as a characteristic preceding better adjustment to organizational change, and not simply as a skill applicable to tasks requiring language proficiency, suggesting practical implications for human resource and organizational management.

This is the first sequential explanatory study focusing on the task-switching ability of multilinguals as an antecedent to change adjustment evidenced by improved work performance within an organizational context.

This paper explores how deservingness features in how line managers and employees with cancer negotiate post-diagnosis support in the workplace.

It draws on narrative interview data from people with cancer in the UK who were employed when diagnosed and line managers with experience of managing an employee with cancer. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with members of occupational health and human resources staff and staff from a UK cancer support charity.

It shows that post-diagnosis support for employees with cancer was negotiated in subjective, individualised ways, drawing on pre-diagnosis workplace contribution as well as the perceived deservingness of cancer as an illness. Managerial support for employees with cancer was also influenced by post-diagnosis employee behaviours, particularly those that implied a readiness to return to work.

The sample size and methods limit the generalisability of the results. However, sampling choices were instrumental in reaching a rich set of data, which enabled deeper understanding of individual workplace negotiations.

Pervasive and unhelpful notions of deservingness in the context of ill-health and disability have distinct and worrying implications for ageing workforces, particularly across the Global North. This has been exacerbated by the ongoing uncertainty and insecurity triggered by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. As a result insight into the management of ill-health at work has never been more relevant, and can be used to inform policy and practice.

This exploratory paper extends debates usually reserved for social welfare and health provision to a new domain by exploring how deservingness features in line manager–employee interactions in the context of an employee diagnosis of cancer.

The purpose of this study is to develop the self-initiated work adjustment for learning (SIWAL) scale that measures the adjustments that employees make in their work to enhance learning, based on theories and research on workplace learning, work adjustment and work design.

The SIWAL scale was validated in two independent studies. Study 1 (n = 208) focused on the internal consistency and factor structure of the SIWAL scale. Study 2 (n = 178) re-examined the factorial structure using confirmatory factor analysis and investigated scale validity.

In both studies, the SIWAL scale showed good psychometric characteristics, i.e. a clear two-factorial structure and internal reliable sub-scales. The findings also indicated convergent, divergent and concurrent validity.

Using the SIWAL scale, future research could focus on the individual, social and organizational predictors and outcomes of SIWAL, collect supervisor and peer ratings to further validate this self-report scale and investigate lower-educated workers.

Organizations might try to enhance their employees' SIWAL through organizational policies, such as supportive leadership, and a learning climate.

This study provides a first step toward a better understanding of what workers do to enhance their workplace learning. The study findings indicate that employees address two adaptive behaviors: adjusting job responsibilities and adjusting social interactions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the experiences of officers/civilians with dyslexia serving in the police service in England and Wales. Although there has been a growing body of research which has analysed the experiences of offenders and victims with dyslexia, there have been few studies focusing on the experiences of police officers/civilians with this condition. This study employs the social model of disability to conceptualise the experiences of these police officers/civilians from a disability rights perspective.

This applies a quantitative methodology to analyse data on disabling environments experienced by officers/civilians serving in a police service situated in the North of England. The paper collected data from 56 police employees previously diagnosed with dyslexia.

The findings reveal that a significant number of officers were reluctant to disclose that they had dyslexia to their police service. The choice to disclose was a key concern for officers/civilians, as this was directly linked to their experiences of stigmatisation, as well as the risk of their competences being questioned at work. The analysis presents evidence that, although officers/civilians have legal protections under the Equality Act 2010 (c15) in the UK, very few had experienced any form of “reasonable adjustment” in the workplace.

Drawing on the social model of disability, the paper concludes that the police service must improve access to reasonable adjustment, for example, through the use of assistive technologies, to create a more inclusive and supportive working environment for their employees.

This study addresses a gap in evidence on small employer experiences of managing mental health problems in the workplace. The authors gathered first-hand experiences of small business managers to empirically investigate how the small business context affects the management and support of mental health problems in the workplace, and the practice implications that arise.

Qualitative interviews, combining semi-structured and narrative approaches, with 21 small business managers with experience of managing employees with mental health difficulties. The 21 managers recounted a total of 45 employee cases, which were analysed thematically, using a case-based matrix. Study participants were drawn from small businesses within England and Scotland (UK). Interviews were conducted between November 2019 and February 2020.

Support aligned with current understanding of effective practice, yet was often informal, instinctive and flexible. Accommodating employees with mental health problems impacted the workload of managers and co-workers, and business operation and growth. Challenges and tensions reflected the difficult balancing act faced by managers in organisations of all sizes. However, the intensity and immediacy of cross-pressures was enhanced for small businesses, due to their smaller workforce and lack of dedicated Human Resource Management and occupational health expertise.

Guidance should address the navigation of day-to-day management and support for employees with mental health difficulties, including approaches to balancing the needs of the wider workforce and business operation. Access to HR and occupational health expertise is valuable. Financial subsidies may be of lesser concern to small businesses.

This study offers originality in focusing exclusively on small business managers with first-hand experience of supporting employees with mental health problems. Findings challenge the perception that small firms have unique experiences, whilst highlighting contextual features that exacerbate intensity and immediacy of impacts.

Substantial research has examined the pivotal role of ethical leadership in generating employee outcomes. To date, though, little is known about the relationship between ethical leadership and newcomers' adjustment. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this gap by examining the effect of ethical leadership on newcomers' adjustment. In doing so, the authors highlighted positive emotions of newcomers as a mediating mechanism that explains the aforementioned association.

Data were drawn from a two-wave sample of 271 newcomers. The hypotheses were tested by using hierarchical regression analyses and Hayes' PROCESS macro.

The results demonstrated that ethical leadership affects employees' positive emotions which, in turn, positively relates to newcomers' adjustment. Additionally, newcomers' social comparison orientation moderated the effect of ethical leadership on newcomers' positive emotions.

The research uses a correlational research design, making it difficult to derive causal inferences from the data. Moreover, the data we obtained on the variables were all based on employees' self-reports, which might inflate the relationship between some of the variables.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study that illustrates the role of ethical leadership in enhancing both newcomers’ positive emotions and adjustment.