Internationale Wirtschaftspartner – serie

It is generally understood that some effective leadership behaviors of Chinese managers differ from those of Western managers. It has also been debated controversially whether Chinese learners can benefit from Western learning approaches. Taking these two aspects into consideration, Jingjing Wang examines whether a global leadership development program from Western countries has as much impact on Chinese managers as on Western managers. She conducts the empirical study within one global corporation originating from Germany and the data were collected from Germany and China. Based on the core results of the study, implications for the globalization of leadership development are discussed.

Mayank Kumar Golpelwar analyses why Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) units and their young employees found themselves to be the target of severe criticism from India’s middle classes. Using social and organizational psychological frameworks as well as ethnographic and variance analytic research, the author takes a look at the validity of the criticism against the BPO industry. He uses the framework of cultural theories to analyze and present the gap between the mainstream Indian culture and its rapidly emerging and globalized BPO sub-culture.

Torsten M. Kühlmann and Ramona Heinz developed this guideline in reference to a European project designed to analyze the overall situation of skilled immigrants. They show that the management of a workforce which is comprised of people from diverse cultural backgrounds is a challenge for small and medium-sized companies. In particular, the challenge is not only to find but also to integrate and retain immigrant workers and to use their potential to a full extent. This guideline has been developed in order to meet these challenges. It has a special focus on small to medium-sized organizations and sets out to give an introduction to the topic of “managing cultural diversity” and “integrating highly skilled immigrants.”

Wilhelm Griga explores benefits of inpatriation, issues, remediation strategies, and factors influencing inpatriate assignment effectiveness to better fulfill individual and organizational demands. The author covers inpatriation theory and presents empirical research results on inpatriates from China and USA in Germany. Antecedents to inpatriate’s competence build-up, goal achievement, and career development are explored and established. Significant insights and recommendations on the transfer of employees from foreign subsidiaries of multinational corporations to the headquarters of the parent company are provided.

Katrin Leifels untersucht soziale Stressoren und Ressourcen, die in der Zusammenarbeit in multikulturellen Teams von Bedeutung sind. Dabei berücksichtigt sie Spezifika, die bei der Interaktion von Menschen unterschiedlicher kultureller Hintergründe zum Tragen kommen. Mittels einer Kombination aus qualitativen und quantitativen Methoden arbeitet sie soziale Stressoren und Ressourcen heraus und unterzieht sie verschiedenen statistischen Tests. Die Autorin leitet daraus Hinweise ab, wie Stress entgegengewirkt werden kann, der durch kulturelle Diversität in Teams begünstigt wird.

Simone von Boddien analysiert begleitende Partner als Erfolgsfaktor bei Auslandsentsendungen, die als unterstützende Ressource für die Entsandten fungieren, aber auch selbst zum Stressor werden können. Dabei berücksichtigt die Autorin insbesondere Spillover- und Crossover-Prozesse, die für das Anpassungsgeschehen im Gastland von Relevanz sind. Mittels eines Mixed Methods-Ansatzes arbeitet sie auf qualitativer Ebene Probleme und Coping-Formen von begleitenden Partnern heraus und ermittelt quantitativ mit einem Strukturgleichungsmodell, wie begleitende Partner den Entsendungserfolg von Auslandsentsandten beeinflussen. Die Autorin leitet daraus neue Handlungsempfehlungen für die Verbesserung des Entsendeprozesses ab und gibt Hinweise für die Global Mobility Praxis in Bezug auf begleitende Partner.