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The objective of this study is to analyze the process of reverse knowledge transfer (RKT) occurring in multinational companies (MNCs), examining whether headquarters' absorptive capacity and the human resource management (HRM) practices developed by the parent unit influence success.

The data were collected through a questionnaire completed by the human resource manager of multinational company (MNC) headquarters. The analysis has been carried out on a sample of 115 Spanish MNCs by using structural equation models (SEM).

The results indicate that a parent firm's absorptive capacity positively influences RKT and that, in turn, this absorptive capacity is greater if headquarters implement certain practices of employee staffing, training, participation and performance appraisal.

This study extends existing research on RKT by examining the absorptive capacity of headquarters. Its main contribution is to provide evidence that MNCs can improve their RKT through HRM practices developed by the parent unit. This is original because most studies on RKT focus on HRM practices used by subsidiaries.

This study aims to address this unexplored influence of international assignment types on the development, transfer and utilization of career capital by assigned repatriates from host to home country. In response to existing literature gap, it aligns with the need for qualitative case studies that delve into threats to the self-reinforcement of repatriates' career capital.

By mean of a qualitative case study, this paper deepens understanding of linkages and processes in career capital development and clarify the interplay between individual interpretations of career actions and the organizational context in which they unfold. Nineteen qualitative interviews with assigned repatriates explored the impact of exposure to new career contexts.

This study provides valuable insights into the complex dynamics of career capital development and transfer during international assignments. It elucidates the impact of career context on assigned repatriates' career capital, emphasizing challenges in career capital generation, dispersion and absorption within multinational enterprises. It contributes to understanding the complexities of (new) managerial capacity development by revealing varied effects that international assignments can exert on individuals' immediate competencies and career capital.

If the assigned expatriate/repatriate’s understanding of the firm’s assignment motive, and their own motive (understanding/reason) for the assignment corresponds then expectations of outcomes can be better managed. Organizations otherwise run the risk of perpetuating inequities in the career development opportunities of employees.

Studies on career capital emphasize its qualities or examine different globally mobile employee types. Yet there's a gap in understanding how the type of assignment impacts career capital development, transfer and utilization. This research fills this void by investigating the international transfer of career capital from host to home country specifically for assigned repatriates.

In the context of international assignments, repatriates are confronted with social, organisational and cultural challenges. However, the impact of community and social support on the reintegration process has gone unnoticed. The purpose of this paper is to identify the influencing factors on the reintegration process of expatriates who were sent to Asia, especially considering social support and the role of the community. In the context of the community, this paper discusses which factors influence the reintegration process after repatriates return to Germany.

In order to research reintegration problems as well as social support and the role of the community, seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with repatriates from Germany.

The central results of the study show that there are variables in different areas that influence the reintegration process of repatriates sent to Asia, which have both reintegration-promoting and reintegration-inhibiting effects. Furthermore, it was found that a lack of support from social networks in the home country has negative effect on the reintegration process causing repatriates to stay in known repatriate communities.

The results of the study demonstrate that social networks and communities in the home country represent crucial challenges in the reintegration process. Furthermore, it demonstrates the need for future exploratory research into this area to gain further insights into this topic.

Successful knowledge transfer (KT) between younger and older workers (YW and OW, respectively) is critical for organizational success, especially in light of the recent surge in employment volatility among the youngest and oldest segments of the workforce. Yet, practitioners and scholars alike continue to struggle with knowing how best to facilitate these exchanges. The qualitative study offers insight into this phenomenon by exploring how KT unfolds in YW/OW dyads.

The authors performed a reflexive thematic analysis of semistructured interviews with two samples of blue- and white-collar younger/older workers from the USA (N = 40), whereby the authors interpreted the “lived experiences” of these workers when engaged in interdependent tasks.

The analysis, informed by social exchange theory and exchange theories of aging, led to the development of the knowledge transfer process model in younger/older worker dyads (KT-YOD). The model illustrates that, through different combinations of competence and humility, KT success is experienced either directly (by workers weighing the perceived benefits versus costs of KT) and/or indirectly (through different bases of trust/distrust perceived within their dyads). Further, humility in dyads appears to be necessary for KT success, while competence was insufficient for realizing KT success, independently.

In exposing new inner workings of the KT process in YW/OW dyads, the study introduces the importance of humility and brings scholars and organizations a step closer toward realizing the benefits of age diversity in their workplaces.

Integrating anxiety and uncertainty management (AUM) theory and theory of organizing, this study aims to contribute to the knowledge management literature by examining the interdependent and bidirectional nature of knowledge transfer between expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs). Specifically, the authors investigate how receivers’ cognitive response to senders’ behaviors during their interactions becomes an important conduit between senders’ behaviors and the successful transfer of knowledge.

The authors used the actor partner interdependence model to analyze data from 107 expatriate-HCN dyads. The authors collected the responses of these expatriate-HCN dyads in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

Receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty, as a response to senders’ relationship building behaviors, mediate the relationship between senders’ relationship building behaviors and successful knowledge transfer. When senders are expatriates, senders’ communication patience and relationship building behaviors interact to reduce the direct and indirect effects of both receivers’ interaction anxiety and uncertainty. However, when senders are HCNs, the moderation and moderated mediation models are not supported.

The study contributes to the knowledge management literature by investigating knowledge transfer between expatriates and HCNs using an interpersonal cross-cultural communication lens. The authors make refinements to AUM theory by going beyond the sender role to highlighting the interdependence between senders and receivers in the management of anxiety and uncertainty which, in turn, influences the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. The study is also unique in that the authors underscore an important yet understudied construct, communication patience, in the successful transfer of knowledge.

This study aims to explore how an organization’s ethical climate determines the type and effectiveness of entrepreneurial marketing activities. Also, this study seeks to identify the most critical intra-organizational capabilities related to entrepreneurial marketing components and explain their role in the path of ethical climate to entrepreneurial marketing, which means moving from the intra- to the extra-organizational environment.

Data were collected from managers working in 100 scientific and research companies in Iran through survey questionnaires. Latent variable structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships.

The findings reveal that the linkage between the ethical climate of the organization and entrepreneurial marketing is partially mediated by work engagement. In addition, the mediating role of knowledge transfer was not confirmed. These results imply that the ethical climate of the organization fosters entrepreneurial marketing by enabling employees with absorption, vigor and dedication.

Scientific and research companies in this research are different in size, resources, knowledge management system, organizational structure and products offered to the market; they have different emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship as well. This issue increases the variety of data and the ability to generalize the results. Still, on the other hand, it reduces the ability to categorize data and increases the amount of outlier data. Future research in a comparative manner between different industries is needed.

This study indicates that an organization’s ethical climate can be a critical predictor of its entrepreneurial marketing as well as effective knowledge transfer and work engagement. In this regard, organizations should pay attention to employee’s perception of the organization’s ethical climate and create an environment that supports productive behaviors, commitment, trust, communication, work dedication, etc., to facilitate knowledge transfer effectively so that the organization can identify market opportunities and turn it into customer-oriented innovation, cocreate value for their customers and increase market share.

In turbulent markets, companies need to introduce quality and reliable products. Still, because the life cycle of products has shortened and the speed of introducing new products has increased, the supply of products will fail if companies are not equipped with new marketing methods. In this regard, the current research will seek to provide a mechanism for organizational capabilities on the road to entrepreneurial marketing by expressing entrepreneurial marketing as an innovative approach and trying to identify factors affecting it.

Agenda for knowledge creation within inter-project alliances and inter-firm supply chain networks has been extensively debated. However, the existing knowledge networks within consultant-supplier interfaces in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry seem to be vague, loose, incidental and insignificant. This study examines factors affecting knowledge networking intention (KNI) within construction service supply chain (CSSC) networks.

Data analysis was conducted on a quantitative survey of 161 consulting professional service firms in Tanzania, employing stepwise regression modelling as the statistical technique.

The results indicate that three types of knowledge inertia (KI) exert varying effects on KNI. While both procedural (PI) and learning inertia (LI) negatively impact KNI, experience inertia (EI) has no impact on KNI. In addition, knowledge governance (KG) mechanisms are found to strongly strengthen and leverage the negative effects of PI and LI on KNI and the positive link between EI and KNI within outbound and heterogeneous CSSC actors, with formal KG having greater leverage than informal KG.

The study offers guidance on how managers of PBOs should strategically orchestrate knowledge governance mechanisms within CSSC networks to leverage KI behaviours.

Current literature on KNI, KI and KG within CSSC networks offers a limited understanding of how KI behaviours influence KNI of project-based organizations (PBOs) in tapping vibrant outbound peripheral knowledge. The research presents two major original contributions. First, the empirical evidence contributes to deepening the current understanding of how heterogeneous external knowledge within consultant-supplier interactions is negatively influenced by KI. Lastly, the study suggests formal and informal knowledge governance strategies for managers on how to counteract KI forces, thus extending the theoretical debate on KNI, KI and KG literature.

This qualitative study has two aims. The first is to explore the cognitive, affective, and behavioural dimensions of Eurasian self-initiated expatriates’ (SIEs) work and non-work adjustments in Korea. The second is to understand how the Confucian-oriented Korean culture influences Eurasian SIEs' work and non-work domains, in particular their organisational practices and relations with locals.

This study was conducted through a qualitative analysis of interviews conducted with 27 Eurasian SIEs working in Korea. The interviews were conducted face-to-face with open-ended questions.

Eurasian SIEs in Korea express different cognitive, affective, and behavioural life and work adjustment processes that affect their future careers. A high level of language proficiency and knowledge of cultural and social expectations does not guarantee work and life adjustment success. Due to the heavy presence of Korean culture in work and living environments, SIEs face challenges in joining social and work networks and balancing work and life domains, which slows down adjustment. Results indicate that SIEs adjusted well regarding cognitive and behavioural dimensions in work and non-work domains. However, affective adjustment is difficult to achieve, even for SIEs who have lived in the country for many years, and many have the intention to leave if there were other options.

This study contributes to the literature by focussing on the multidimensionality of SIEs' work and life adjustments, with cognitive, affective, and behavioural components. SIEs have been in a complicated process of adaptation and integration for a long time. This study attempts to contribute to SIE literature by analysing the elements of Confucianism-oriented Korean culture and organisational practices prevalent in SIEs' multidimensional adjustment and career challenges.

Despite the high rates of repatriate attrition, organisations in developing countries continue to send some of their employees to study in tertiary institutions in developed countries to acquire and build competencies that are deemed strategically important for contemporary work. Although several studies have been conducted on expatriate experience and challenges, those relating repatriation experiences are limited, particularly those concerning organisationally assigned scholars (employees who are sponsored to study overseas). Consequently, the present study explored the intention to stay or leave of organisationally assigned Ghanaian scholars who pursued higher degrees in Australia.

To understand the decision of organisationally assigned sponsored scholars to either stay in or leave the host-organisation upon their return, a phenomenological methodology was adopted to explore the lived experiences of organisation assigned scholars (OAS) from Ghana, studying in Australia. The face-to-face interview approach was used to interview 20 Ghanaians who pursued their further studies in Australia. The interviewees consisted of six females and 14 males.

The results reveal that for expatriate’s in this study, the decision to stay or leave the organisation upon repatriation was made mid-way through the expatriation process in the host county. Hence, organisations intending on retaining their OAS when they return home must focus their support and engagement efforts during this crucial period.

Although they are away on further studies, OAS are still active members of the organisation. Therefore, organisations need to maintain contact with them (OAS), constantly check progress of their study and provide some support, as they might motivate them to want to return and work with the organisation. Consequently, more effective strategies (those for managing them while they are away and those for managing them when they return) should be deployed to incentivise their expatriate to return home.

The study explored an important yet understudied research questions in the repatriation literature. By studying the decision of OASs to either return and stay in or leave an organisation back home contributes uniquely to the existing literature, as studies focusing on that population (i.e. OAS’s) are scarce.

The purpose of this study is to examine the question of whether the repatriation adjustment process varies with different combinations of duration and purpose of international assignments.

A multiple-case study within one company was conducted based on in-depth interview data.

The authors find that learning-driven international assignments are more beneficial for career growth and receive better organizational support, as assignees are able to maintain regular communication (visibility) with the home unit. On the other hand, those on demand-driven, long-duration international assignments need to have a closer connection (integration) with employees in the host unit and find it challenging to maintain high visibility in the home unit simultaneously.

The authors contribute to existing research by highlighting that demand-driven assignees on longer assignments face greater challenges upon returning home. In addition, expatriates on short-term assignments face drastically fewer challenges than expatriates on longer assignments.