The Global Context and People at Work: Special Issue Introduction

PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY2014, 67, 5–21

THE GLOBAL CONTEXT AND PEOPLE AT WORK:SPECIAL ISSUE INTRODUCTION

MARIA L. KRAIMERUniversity of Iowa

RIKI TAKEUCHIHong Kong University of Science & Technology

MICHAEL FRESENational University of Singapore and Leuphana University

Although considerable research has been conducted on a variety ofcross-cultural management topics, we still know very little about howorganizations can effectively manage people involved in global work orhow cross-cultural differences impact individuals and groups at work.To address this gap, we edited a special issue of Personnel Psycho-logy that presents scholarly research contributing to understanding howglobal experiences and contexts impact people at work. We identified3 research themes: cross-cultural comparisons, the different types ofglobal workers, and theoretical perspectives that underlie the acceptedarticles’ contributions to this special issue. We conclude with specifictheoretical and methodological recommendations for research on humanresource management and organizational behavior topics incorporatingthe global context.

With the globalization of business, more and more people are requiredto perform their work within a global context. This means more people arerequired to interact with others from around the world in order to performtheir jobs (i.e., more people are engaged in global work experiences).Global work experiences can range from having virtual interactions withinternational colleagues or customers to living and working in a foreigncountry as an expatriate manager or a professional. Although considerableresearch has been conducted on a variety of cross-cultural managementtopics, including but not limited to expatriate issues, we still know verylittle about how organizations can effectively manage people involved inglobal work or how cross-cultural differences impact individuals and theirrelationships with others at work. Thus, this special issue aims to providea platform to present scholarly research that contributes to understandinghow global experiences and contexts impact people at work.

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Maria L. Kraimer, De-partment of Management & Organizations, 108 John Pappajohn Business Bldg., Universityof Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242-1994; [email protected].

C© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. doi: 10.1111/peps.12067

5

6 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGY

For the purposes of this special issue, we defined the global workcontext broadly to include any job-related activities that involve interact-ing with people from other countries. Examples include interacting withcustomers or coworkers from foreign countries, working in cross-nationalteams, having extensive international travel requirements as part of thejob, and living and working in a foreign country for extended periods oftime (whether self- or corporate-initiated). The articles published in thisspecial issue examine a broad range of global work experiences from avariety of theoretical perspectives.

There appears to be strong interest in studying how the global contextimpacts people at work. We received 69 submissions, 4 of which were“desk rejected” due to the topic not fitting within the boundaries of theglobal context of work. The remaining 65 manuscripts were assigned toone of the three editors of this special issue (the authors of this article)and subject to “blind” review by two experts: one with expertise in globalor cross-cultural issues and one with expertise in the study’s content area.We ultimately accepted the five articles that appear in this issue (Ohet al., 2014; Phillips, Gully, McCarthy, Castellano, & Kim, 2014; Reiche,Cardona, Lee, & Canela, 2014; Ren, Shaffer, Harrison, Fu, & Fodchuk,2014; Shao & Skarlicki, 2014), which represents an 8% acceptance rateand is consistent with the journal’s overall 8–10% acceptance rate.

In the remainder of this paper, we summarize the articles in the specialissue (see Table 1) and identify several themes in order to integrate thetheoretical and empirical contributions of the set of articles. Our goalis to highlight the strengths and contributions of these articles and offerrecommendations for researchers interested in studying the global contextof work. To accomplish this objective, we identified the following threethemes: (a) cross-cultural comparisons, (b) type of global work, and (c)theoretical perspectives. We conclude with some recommendations ontheoretical and methodological considerations for future research.

Theme 1: Cross-Cultural Comparisons

Three of the studies in this special issue made cross-cultural com-parisons with regard to organizational behavior phenomena includingcustomer service worker’s responses to mistreatment by customers, an-tecedents to manager’s trustworthy behaviors, and outcomes of person–environment fit.

Shao and Skarlicki (2014) compare the reactions of Canadian andChinese customer service workers to mistreatment by customers. Theirresults show that Canadian workers, compared to Chinese workers, morestrongly reacted to such mistreatment with target-specific, active behaviors

MARIA L. KRAIMER ET AL. 7

TAB

LE

1B

rief

Sum

mar

ies

ofA

rtic

les

Incl

uded

inSp

ecia

lIss

ue

The

oret

ical

fram

ewor

ksan

dgl

obal

topi

cM

etho

dsan

dsa

mpl

esM

ain

rese

arch

ques

tions

Mai

nfin

ding

san

dim

plic

atio

ns

Shao

and

Skar

licki

(201

4)•C

onse

rvat

ion

ofre

sour

ces

theo

ry•C

ultu

ralv

alue

sof

indi

vidu

alis

man

dco

llect

ivis

m•C

ross

-cul

tura

lco

mpa

riso

ns

Fiel

dsu

rvey

of21

3cu

stom

erse

rvic

eem

ploy

ees

intw

oho

tel

loca

tions

:one

inC

hina

(n=

132)

and

one

inC

anad

a(n

=81

).C

ritic

alin

cide

ntte

chni

que

used

tode

velo

pm

easu

res

for

empl

oyee

s’pe

rcep

tions

ofcu

stom

erm

istr

eatm

ent

and

empl

oyee

s’sa

bota

gebe

havi

ors

tow

ard

the

cust

omer

.

1.D

oes

coun

try

and

empl

oyee

s’cu

ltura

lva

lues

mod

erat

eth

ere

latio

nshi

pbe

twee

nm

istr

eatm

entb

yth

ecu

stom

eran

dem

ploy

ees’

sabo

tage

beha

vior

sdi

rect

edto

war

dth

ecu

stom

er?

2.D

oes

coun

try

and

empl

oyee

s’cu

ltura

lva

lues

mod

erat

eth

ere

latio

nshi

pbe

twee

ncu

stom

erm

istr

eatm

enta

ndem

ploy

ees’

citiz

ensh

ipbe

havi

ors

tow

ard

cust

omer

s,in

gene

ral?

•Mis

trea

tmen

tby

cust

omer

spo

sitiv

ely

rela

ted

toem

ploy

ees’

sabo

tage

beha

vior

sdi

rect

edat

the

cust

omer

,and

this

rela

tions

hip

was

stro

nger

for

empl

oyee

sin

Can

ada;

empl

oyee

s’in

divi

dual

ism

cultu

ralv

alue

sac

coun

tsfo

rth

eco

untr

yef

fect

.•M

istr

eatm

entb

ycu

stom

ers

nega

tivel

yre

late

dto

empl

oyee

s’ci

tizen

ship

beha

vior

sdi

rect

edat

cust

omer

s(i

nge

nera

l),a

ndth

isre

latio

nshi

pw

asst

rong

erfo

rem

ploy

ees

inC

hina

;em

ploy

ees’

colle

ctiv

ism

cultu

ralv

alue

sac

coun

tsfo

rth

eco

untr

yef

fect

.•T

heim

plic

atio

nsar

eth

atem

ploy

ees

may

reac

tto

cust

omer

mis

trea

tmen

tin

way

sco

nsis

tent

with

thei

rcu

ltura

lva

lues

;in

colle

ctiv

istic

cultu

res

this

may

incl

ude

with

draw

ing

citiz

ensh

ipbe

havi

ors

tow

ard

cust

omer

s,in

gene

ral,

and

thus

impa

ctin

gqu

ality

ofcu

stom

erse

rvic

e.

cont

inue

d

8 PERSONNEL PSYCHOLOGYTA

BL

E1

(con

tinue

d)

The

oret

ical

fram

ewor

ksan

dgl

obal

topi

cM

etho

dsan

dsa

mpl

esM

ain

rese

arch

ques

tions

Mai

nfin

ding

san

dim

plic

atio

ns

Rei

che

etal

.(20

14)

•Soc

iale

xcha

nge

theo

ry(g

ener

aliz

edex

chan

ge,

norm

ofin

dire

ctre

cipr

ocity

)•C

ultu

ralv

alue

sof

indi

vidu

alis

man

dco

llect

ivis

m•C

ross

-cul

tura

lco

mpa

riso

ns

Fiel

d(o

nlin

e)su

rvey

of74

1m

anag

ers

and

2,11

1su

bord

inat

esin

18co

untr

ies.

1.W

hydo

man

ager

sex

hibi

ttru

stw

orth

ybe

havi

ors

inre

spon

seto

orga

niza

tiona

lci

tizen

ship

beha

vior

sex

hibi

ted

byth

esu

bord

inat

es?

2.D

oes

cultu

ralv

alue

ofin

divi

dual

ism

/col

lect

ivis

mm

oder

ate

the

rela

tions

hip

betw

een

OC

BI/

OC

BO

and

man

ager

’str

ustw

orth

ybe

havi

ors

(med

iate

dth

roug

hm

anag

ers’

affe

ctiv

etr

ustt

owar

dth

esu

bord

inat

es)?

•Man

ager

s’af

fect

ive

trus

tin

subo

rdin

ates

med

iate

sth

ere

latio

nshi

psbe

twee

nsu

bord

inat

es’

OC

BO

and

OC

BI,

and

man

ager

ialt

rust

wor

thy

beha

vior

acro

ssdi

ffer

entc

ount

ries

stud

ied.

How

ever

,co

llect

ivis

mm

oder

ated

the

rela

tions

hip

betw

een

man

ager

s’af

fect

ive

trus

tin

subo

rdin

ates

and

man

ager

ial

trus

twor

thy

beha

vior

such

that

the

posi

tive

rela

tions

hip

betw

een

affe

ctiv

etr

usta

ndm

anag

eria

ltru

stw

orth

ybe

havi

orbe

cam

eno

nsig

nific

antf

orhi

ghly

colle

ctiv

istic

cultu

res.

•The

impl

icat

ions

ofth

isst

udy

for

appl

icat

ion

ofso

cial

exch

ange

argu

men

tis

that

the

stud

ym

oves

beyo

nda

focu

son

rest

rict

ed,d

irec

tso

cial

exch

ange

prev

alen

tin

the

liter

atur

eto

exam

ine

how

affe

ctiv

etr

ust

med

iate

sth

ein

dire

ctre

cipr

ocity

ofdi

scre

tiona

rybe

havi

ors

(OC

BI

and

OC

BO

)no

tnec

essa

rily

targ

eted

tow

ard

the

man

ager

dire

ctly

lead

sto

man

ager

sex

hibi

ting

trus

twor

thy

beha

vior

s.

cont

inue

d


TAB

LE

1(c

ontin

ued)

The

oret

ical

fram

ewor

ksan

dgl

obal

topi

cM

etho

dsan

dsa

mpl

esM

ain

rese

arch

ques

tions

Mai

nfin

ding

san

dim

plic

atio

ns

Oh

etal

.(20

14)

•Fit

mod

el•C

ross

-cul

tura

lco

mpa

riso

ns

Ran

dom

effe

ctm

eta-

anal

ysis

focu

sing

onE

astA

sian

(Eas

tA

sian

;k=

81)

and

Eur

opea

nst

udie

sof

fit(k

=13

)co

mpa

ring

them

toN

orth

Am

eric

anst

udie

s(k

=16

plus

othe

rsta

ken

from

Kri

stof

-Bro

wn,

Zim

mer

man

,&Jo

hnso

n,20

05;t

otal

k=

110)

.

1.Is

fitcu

ltura

llyun

iver

sally

posi

tive

for

outc

omes

?2.

Do

som

ety

pes

offit

pred

ictd

iffe

rent

outc

omes

for

diff

eren

tcul

ture

s?

•The

mos

tim

port

antc

ultu

rald

iffe

renc

esap

pear

edfo

rre

latio

nalfi

t(m

ore

impo

rtan

tfor

outc

omes

inSo

uth

Eas

tA

sia)

and

for

ratio

nalfi

t(m

ore

impo

rtan

tfor

outc

omes

inN

orth

Am

eric

a).

•Rat

iona

lfiti

nclu

des

pers

on–o

rgan

izat

ion

fitan

dpe

rson

–job

fit.

•Rel

atio

nalfi

tinc

lude

spe

rson

–gro

upfit

and

pers

on–s

uper

viso

rfit

(har

mon

ious

rela

tions

hip)

.•I

nge

nera

l,fit

isun

iver

sally

posi

tive

for

pote

ntia

lout

com

essu

chas

orga

niza

tiona

lcom

mitm

ent,

job

satis

fact

ion,

inte

ntto

quit,

and

job

perf

orm

ance

.P

hilli

pset

al.(

2014

)•A

ttrac

tion–

sele

ctio

n–at

triti

onm

odel

(ASA

fram

ewor

k)•S

igna

ling

theo

ry•R

ecru

iting

for

jobs

requ

irin

gin

tern

atio

nal

trav

el

Stud

y1:

Fiel

dex

peri

men

tsu

rvey

desi

gnw

ith23

0ac

tual

job

seek

ers.

Stud

y2:

Fiel

dex

peri

men

tsu

rvey

desi

gnw

ith26

0w

orki

ngad

ults

.

1.W

hati

sth

epr

oces

sth

roug

hw

hich

ajo

bad

vert

isem

entt

hati

nclu

des

info

rmat

ion

abou

tajo

b’s

glob

altr

avel

requ

irem

ents

impa

cts

appl

ican

t’sjo

bpu

rsui

tint

entio

ns?

2.D

oes

the

appl

ican

t’sw

illin

gnes

sto

trav

elgl

obal

lyam

ong

job

seek

ers

•Agl

obal

trav

elre

crui

tmen

tmes

sage

indi

rect

ly,n

egat

ivel

y,re

late

dto

job

purs

uiti

nten

tions

thro

ugh

perc

eive

djo

bfit

and

job

attr

actio

nam

ong

job

seek

ers

with

low

will

ingn

ess

totr

avel

glob

ally

.•A

glob

altr

avel

recr

uitm

entm

essa

gepo

siti

vely

rela

ted

tope

rcei

ved

job

fit

cont

inue

d


TAB

LE

1(c

ontin

ued)

The

oret

ical

fram

ewor

ksan

dgl

obal

topi

cM

etho

dsan

dsa

mpl

esM

ain

rese

arch

ques

tions

Mai

nfin

ding

san

dim

plic

atio

ns

and

glob

alm

inds

etm

oder

ate

the

rela

tions

hip

betw

een

the

glob

altr

avel

recr

uitin

gm

essa

gean

dap

plic

ant’s

job

purs

uiti

nten

tions

?3.

Isa

recr

uitm

entm

essa

geab

outt

hegl

obal

pres

ence

ofan

orga

niza

tion

dist

inct

from

are

crui

tmen

tmes

sage

abou

ttra

vel

requ

irem

ents

ofth

ejo

bin

pred

ictin

gap

plic

ant’s

job

purs

uiti

nten

tions

?

with

ave

ryhi

ghw

illin

gnes

sto

trav

elgl

obal

ly;a

glob

altr

avel

recr

uitm

ent

mes

sage

nega

tive

lyre

late

dto

perc

eive

djo

bfit

amon

gem

ploy

ees

with

alo

ww

illin

gnes

sto

trav

elgl

obal

ly.

•Are

crui

tmen

tmes

sage

abou

tthe

“glo

bal

pres

ence

”of

anor

gani

zatio

nin

dire

ctly

rela

ted

tojo

bpu

rsui

tint

entio

ns,b

eyon

dgl

obal

trav

eljo

bre

quir

emen

tsm

essa

ging

.•T

hein

dire

ctef

fect

ofgl

obal

trav

elre

quir

emen

tsm

essa

ging

onjo

bpu

rsui

tin

tent

ions

isco

nditi

onal

onth

ejo

bse

eker

s’w

illin

gnes

sto

trav

elgl

obal

ly;t

hein

dire

ctef

fect

ofor

gani

zatio

n’s

glob

alpr

esen

ceon

job

purs

uiti

nten

tions

isco

nditi

onal

onth

eap

plic

ant’s

glob

alop

enne

ss.

•The

impl

icat

ions

are

that

incl

udin

gin

form

atio

nab

outg

loba

ltra

vel

requ

irem

ents

inre

crui

tmen

tads

shou

ldin

crea

seth

epr

opor

tion

ofpo

tent

ial

appl

ican

tsin

the

pool

with

high

glob

alop

enne

ss/m

inds

etan

dw

illin

gto

trav

elgl

obal

ly.

cont

inue

d


TAB

LE

1(c

ontin

ued)

The

oret

ical

fram

ewor

ksan

dgl

obal

topi

cM

etho

dsan

dsa

mpl

esM

ain

rese

arch

ques

tions

Mai

nfin

ding

san

dim

plic

atio

ns

Ren

etal

.(20

14)

•Pos

itive

orga

niza

tiona

lsc

hola

rshi

ple

ns•J

ob-d

eman

dsre

sour

ces

mod

el•S

elf-

initi

ated

expa

tria

tes’

adju

stm

ent

and

rete

ntio

n

Stud

y1:

Two-

wav

e,tim

ela

gged

,fie

ld(o

nlin

e)su

rvey

desi

gnw

ith17

5–18

1in

tern

atio

nale

xpat

riat

ete

ache

rsin

the

Uni

ted

Stat

es.

Stud

y2:

Four

-wav

e,tim

ela

gged

,fie

ldsu

rvey

desi

gnw

ith10

9–20

7in

tern

atio

nale

xpat

riat

eE

nglis

hte

ache

rsin

Hon

gK

ong.

1.H

owdo

reac

tive

asw

ell

aspr

oact

ive

fact

ors

influ

ence

expa

tria

tes’

adju

stm

enta

ndem

bedd

enes

s,le

adin

gto

actu

alre

tent

ion?

2.In

part

icul

ar,w

hati

sth

eim

pact

ofex

patr

iate

s’pr

oact

ive

tact

ics

(e.g

.,in

form

atio

nse

ekin

g,re

latio

nshi

pbu

ildin

g,an

dpo

sitiv

efr

amin

gta

ctic

s)on

expa

tria

tion

proc

esse

s?

•Bot

hcr

oss-

cultu

rala

djus

tmen

t(ov

eral

l)an

dor

gani

zatio

nale

mbe

dded

ness

lead

toac

tual

rete

ntio

nth

roug

hre

tent

ion

cogn

ition

s.•C

ross

-cul

tura

ldem

ands

(cul

tura

lnov

elty

,cu

ltura

lval

uedi

stan

ce,a

ndho

stco

untr

yla

ngua

gede

ficie

ncy)

redu

cecr

oss-

cultu

ral

adju

stm

enta

ndor

gani

zatio

nal

embe

dded

ness

,whe

reas

proa

ctiv

eta

ctic

s(i

nfor

mat

ion

seek

ing,

rela

tions

hip

build

ing,

and

posi

tive

fram

ing)

enha

nce

cros

s-cu

ltura

ladj

ustm

enta

ndor

gani

zatio

nale

mbe

dded

ness

.•T

heim

plic

atio

nof

the

stud

yis

toex

pand

our

focu

sbe

yond

stre

ssor

–str

ess–

stra

inm

odel

prev

alen

tin

the

expa

tria

tion

liter

atur

eto

unde

rsco

reth

epr

oact

ive

role

sex

patr

iate

sca

npl

ayin

expa

tria

tion

expe

rien

ces.


such as customer sabotage. Further, employees’ individualism explainedwhy employees in Canada had a stronger relationship between mistreat-ment by customers and sabotage behaviors. In contrast, Chinese workersmore strongly reacted to customer mistreatment with target-general, pas-sive behaviors such as withdrawing citizenship behaviors directed at cus-tomers; employees’ collectivism explained why employees in China hada stronger relationship between customer mistreatment and withdrawal ofcitizenship behaviors. These findings suggest that customer service work-ers’ coping strategies can vary based on the cultural values associated withthe country and endorsed by the individual. A strong feature of Shao andSkarlicki’s study is that they measured individualism and collectivism atthe individual level to demonstrate that these values explained the coun-try differences in employees’ reactions to customer mistreatment (e.g.,Kirkman, Lowe, & Gibson, 2006).

Relying on the notion of generalized exchange from the socialexchange theoretical perspective (Yamagishi & Cook, 1993), Reicheet al. (2014), consider managers’ (trustors’) reactions to subordinates’(trustees’) organizational citizenship behaviors targeted toward the orga-nization (OCBO) and toward the individual (OCBI) in terms of their owntrustworthy behaviors via manager’s affective trust toward the subordi-nates. Trustworthy behaviors refer to the “types of behaviors managersengage in that build trust” (Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard, & Werner, 1998,p. 514). They also examined how collectivism/individualism at the countrylevel affected the relationship between managers’ affective trust and theirtrustworthy behaviors, using Hofstede and Hofstede’s (2005) scores on18 countries. They observed that the indirect relationship between subordi-nates’ OCBs and manager’s trustworthy behaviors via managers’ affectivetrust was present only when collectivism was low to moderate (i.e., moreindividualistic cultures). In contrast to Shao and Skarlicki (2014), theyrelied on societal-level cultural values to test their idea. Their study thuscomplements Shao and Skarlicki nicely to illustrate that the use of indi-vidual versus societal cultural values should be driven by the particularresearch question being posed and addressed in their respective studies. InReiche and collegues’ case, they examined individual behaviors (OCBs)that may be shaped by identifying with other employees and that may beinstrumental to attaining rewards; society values shape group identifica-tion and perceptions of instrumentality. In comparison, Shao and Skarlickiexamined a negative behavior (sabotage or withdrawal of OCB), which ismore likely to be adopted when an employee internalizes the values thatmake such behavior more acceptable in the society.

“Fit Happens Globally” by Oh et al. (2014) is an interesting meta-analysis because it shows that it makes very much sense to developcross-cultural hypotheses (in this case, that different fits are more or


less important for different cultures) and to test such hypotheses withlocally relevant and existing articles. The results show that a specific com-parison between meta-analytic results based on North American studiesand meta-analytic results based in South East Asia (with a number ofEuropean samples included as well) can lead to important ideas and results.In particular, perhaps because South East Asian cultures value harmoniousrelationships, relational fit (person–group and person–supervisor) had arelatively stronger relationship with employees’ job attitudes and behav-iors, compared to the effects in North American studies. In contrast, NorthAmericans and to a lesser extent Europeans had stronger relationships be-tween rational fit (person–job and person–organization) and employees’outcomes. Differences in institutional collectivism, in-group collectivism,and power distance values, measured at the national level using GLOBEscores (House, Hanges, Javidan, Dorfman, & Gupta, 2004), partially ac-counted for the regional effects.

Theme 2: Type of Global Work

The four articles that included a primary data collection to test thehypotheses focused on a variety of different types of global workers (e.g.,Shaffer, Kraimer, Chen, & Bolino, 2012). In particular, studies in thisspecial issue examined global domestics, international business travelers,and self-initiated expatriates. Given the limited research on these types ofglobal workers, we hope that these studies will prompt further researchon the different types of work experiences and issues.

Two of the studies focused on global domestics, or employees who pri-marily remain in their home country but work in international corporationsand/or in jobs that require interactions with individuals in or from othercountries (Shaffer et al., 2012). Shao and Skarlicki (2014) studied domes-tic customer service workers employed in an international hotel chain.Such customer service workers will frequently interact with internationalcustomers (hotel guests) and therefore be exposed to cultural differencesand sometimes cultural misunderstandings in carrying out their day-to-dayjob tasks. Although not specifically acknowledged in their paper, Reicheet al. (2014) also studied global domestics; they surveyed managers from18 different countries currently enrolled in a nondegree granting executiveeducation program. Presumably many managers seeking such educationalopportunities are employed in global corporations. Both of these studiesprovide important theoretical insights for understanding how cultural val-ues may impact employees’ coping strategies for dealing with, and re-actions to, interpersonal cross-cultural misunderstandings. For example,depending on their degree of individualistic or collectivistic values, an


employee may adopt more target-specific or more general strategies tocope with cultural misunderstandings (Shao & Skarlicki, 2014). Reicheet al.’s (2014) findings suggest that cultural misunderstandings that under-mine trust in another person may have less of an impact on the exchangerelationship between those two people in highly collectivistic culturescompared to individualistic cultures. The findings of these two studieshave important implications for managing workforce diversity in globalcorporations. We hope these studies prompt further research on how in-dividual and/or societal values impact exchange relationships between oramong employees and their stakeholders.

For many positions in multinational organizations, global travel is notoptional but rather a job requirement. Phillips et al. (2014) specificallyaddress how international travel requirements of a job position relate tojob applicant’s attraction to the job. As they argue, if details in the re-cruitment advertising can shape the applicant pool to include a higherproportion of job seekers willing to travel internationally, then hiringquality and efficiency for jobs involving global travel should improve.Their results revealed that a recruitment advertisement including globaltravel requirements indirectly positively related to job pursuit intentions(through perceived job fit and job attraction) only among employees witha very high willingness to travel. They also present data suggesting thathaving a “global mindset” positively relates to willingness to travel. Theirstudy thus provides initial insight into individual characteristics associatedwith a willingness to travel globally and accept job positions that involveinternational travel. We hope this study prompts further research on in-dividual characteristics and situational factors that relate to individuals’willingness to accept jobs with global travel requirements. There is alsoa need for research to understand how international travel requirementsimpact employees’ professional and personal lives.

Ren et al. (2014) examine self-initiated expatriates’ turnover (reten-tion) processes utilizing both a proactive and a reactive theoretical lens.Self-initiated expatriates often find moving and adapting to the foreigncountry more challenging, compared to corporate expatriates, becausethey lack the infrastructure and support provided by the global parent com-pany (Shaffer et al., 2012). With this increased difficulty in mind, Ren et al.rely on the job demands-resource model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007)to examine reactive demand-based (through cross-cultural adjustment)and proactive resource-based (through organizational/job embeddedness)pathways to turnover (or retention). Their results, based on a two-study,time-lagged design, illustrate that expatriates can take more proactive rolesin managing their own situations (international assignment) by utilizingdifferent tactics, such as information seeking, relationship building, andpositive framing, rather than simply reacting to the changed environment


(culture novelty, cultural value distance, and host country language defi-ciency). Their studies expand on the stressor–stress–strain framework thathas dominated the expatriation experience literature for many decades andoffers new insights for research on self-initiated and corporate expatriates.

Theme 3: Theoretical Perspectives

Given the demands often placed on global workers, it is not too sur-prising that two of the articles accepted for this special issue had hypothe-ses grounded in stress theories. Shao and Skarlicki (2014) draw uponconservation of resources (COR) theory to explain employees’ reactionsto mistreatment by customers. They consider customer mistreatment tobe a source of stress because it can deplete the employee of personalresources, such as self-esteem. According to COR, individuals are moti-vated to either restore lost resources or protect any further loss (Hobfoll,1989). This leads Shao and Skarlicki to hypothesize that an employeemay react to customer mistreatment by either sabotaging the customer(resource replacement) or withholding citizenship behaviors toward cus-tomers (resource protection). In a similar vein, Ren et al. (2014) drawon job demands-resources (JDR) theory (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) tohypothesize that demands associated with cross-cultural uncertainty andexpatriates’ proactive efforts to acquire resources can each contribute toexpatriates’ adjustment and embeddedness in the host organization. BothCOR and JDR theories hold promise for examining employee reactionsto various types of global work demands.

Fit was a theme in three of the studies. Most prominently is Oh et al.’s(2014) meta-analysis, which directly tests theories of person–environmentfit, including person–organization, person–job, person–supervisor, andperson–group. Phillips et al. (2014) also test person–job fit and person–organization fit as the theoretical explanations for why employees whoare more willing to travel will be more attracted to jobs with a globaltravel recruitment message. Less obvious is the study by Ren et al. (2014)as theoretically they do not draw on fit theories, but their expatriate (i.e.,organizational) embeddedness construct incorporates a fit dimension. Allof these studies highlight that fit really does matter when it comes toattracting individuals to jobs with global work demands and to predictingwhich global employees will have more positive work and adjustmentoutcomes.

Finally, two of the studies provided clear implications for social ex-change theory (Blau, 1964). Shao and Skarlicki (2014) found a positiverelationship between mistreatment by customers and employees’ citi-zenship behavior toward customers, in general. This goes beyond the


typical applications of social exchange theory, which has emphasizedtarget-specific exchanges, by demonstrating that employees sometimesreact to treatment by one target (i.e., a specific customer) with behav-iors directed toward a broader set of individuals who fit the target cate-gory (i.e., all customers). Shao and Skarlicki argued that social exchangetheory could not predict responses to a general category of individuals.Reiche et al., however, point out that generalized exchanges, which in-volve indirect giving and receiving of benefits among actors that belongto the same group, organization, or network (Yamagishi & Cook, 1993),can occur. Generalized exchanges expand resource exchanges beyond thedyad. The principles of generalized exchanges may also explain Shao andSkarlicki’s results that some customer service workers responded tocustomer mistreatment by withdrawing OCBs to all customers. To-gether, these two studies (Reiche et al., 2014; Shao & Skarlicki,2014) suggest that principles of generalized exchange, along with so-cial identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986), may offer insights intohow employees interact with, and react to, culturally different groups ofpeople.

Implications for Future Research

In this section, we offer some recommendations for future researchexamining the global context of work based on our observations of thecommon strengths of the five articles appearing in our special issue.

Theoretical Recommendations

An important strength of each of these articles is that they providetheoretical contributions to not only international HR/OB research butalso to a content area within OB or HR. For example, Shao and Skar-licki (2014) broaden our understanding of how employees may react tomistreatment (or other types of abusive behaviors) by considering mis-treatment as a source of personal resource loss (i.e., loss of self-esteemand self-worth). Reiche et al. (2014) contribute to the trust literatureby examining affective trust as a mechanism through which managersrespond to their subordinates’ organizational citizenship behaviors andby developing and validating a scale to measure managerial trustwor-thy behaviors. Oh et al. (2014) contribute to the person–environment fitliterature by examining the relative importance of four major types ofP–E fit (job, organization, supervisor, and group) on employee outcomes;these four types of fit have not previously been included in a single study(Herdman & Carlson, 2009). Phillips et al.’ (2014) theoretical model


and findings contribute to recruitment research by examining the processthrough which recruitment advertisement messaging relates to job appli-cants’ intentions to pursue the job, and they test the model with actual,noncollege job seekers (in Study 1). Finally, Ren et al. (2014) contribute tothe embeddedness and turnover literature (Mitchell, Holtom, Lee, Sablyn-ski, & Erez, 2001) by identifying proactive tactics—relationship-buildingand positive framing—individuals can use to help embed themselves injobs and organizations. Very little research has examined antecedentsto organizational/job embeddedness, especially individuals’ proactive at-tempts to do so. These studies represent important contributions in partbecause of their strong contributions to substantive OB and HR researchareas. This not only broadens the reader/audience for these articles butalso helps highlight that global/cross-cultural issues are contextual factorsinfluencing the nature of work and how people interact with others atwork.

As such, our recommendation for researchers interested in global andcross-cultural issues is to ensure that any proposed study being conductedcross-culturally or with global workers provides a clear theoretical con-tribution to a substantive HR or OB content area; the global nature of thestudy should be the context in which the substantive topic is investigated.Moreover, we believe that scholars should not just concentrate on directeffects of cultural values on individual and group behaviors; rather, schol-ars should attempt to examine the conditioning effect of culture. Thereare ample suggestions for using cross-level effects for higher level envi-ronmental factors, such as societal cultural values, in the level of analysisliterature (e.g., Johns, 2006; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). A good exam-ple of looking at this conditioning effect of culture on the relationshipbetween work characteristics and individual behavior is the study by Ohet al. (2014) as it examines the effects of culture on the relationship be-tween certain types of fit and individual work outcomes. Similarly, Shaoand Skarlicki (2014) examined the impact of culture on employees’ copingbehaviors with respect to customer misbehavior.

Methodological Recommendations

Although a number of cross-cultural studies were submitted, onlythree were ultimately published. This is partly due to the many challeng-ing methodological problems inherent in designing cross-cultural studies.One such problem is which cultural or societal dimensions should beincluded as control variables when examining research questions froma cross-cultural angle; cross-cultural researchers have not yet developeda consistent approach in this area. This is compounded by the numberof different sets of cross-cultural variables that could be considered as


substantive and control variables: Hofstede proposed 4–5 cultural di-mensions (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005), the GLOBE study proposed 9dimensions (House et al., 2004), and Schwartz’s typology includes 10dimensions (Schwartz, 2008). As there are no clear guidelines on this,we recommend researchers carefully consider potential alternative ex-planations (be it other cultural dimensions or society-level factors) tothe hypothesized cultural dimension(s) and incorporate measures into thestudy design to control for these alternative explanations.

With regard to the various sets of measures of the cultural dimensions,we were a bit surprised by the number of articles submitted that relied onimputation of data from Hofstede. Although Hofstede deserves the honorof having made a cross-cultural dimensional approach possible in orga-nizational psychology, there are a number of methodological problemswith the Hofstede measures—the most important ones are related to thefact that Hofstede did not develop the scales from a theoretical model butrather had to make use of an existing attitude survey for IBM employ-ees. This leads to a lack of content validity of the items (McSweeney,2002) as the items are oriented toward an individual response format in-stead of using society anchors (Hanges & Dickson, 2006; Javidan, House,Dorfman, Hanges, & Sully de Luque, 2006). In addition, scale relia-bilities are only adequate on the individual level and not on the coun-try level (Spector, Cooper, & Sparks, 2001). Fortunately, the GLOBEstudy has overcome many methodological weaknesses—the most im-portant ones being that the cultural dimensions were theoretically de-rived and the study’s results showed that their scales produced accept-able agreement and reliability within countries, had common meaning ofthe factors across countries, and demonstrated variability across coun-tries (i.e., provides cross-cultural differences; Hanges & Dickson, 2004).Industrial-organizational psychology and management science have beenmost adamant about using the right approach to item development test-ing and the appropriate use of items to conform to the level of analysiswith society level items (Chan, 1998; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Clearly,Hofstede and some others do not see these problems in the same way(Hofstede, 2006; Terracciano et al., 2005). We also recognize that someresearcher’s choice for whose cultural values scores to impute at the na-tional level is dictated by the scores available for the specific countries intheir own study (e.g., in our special issue, Reiche et al. would have lostdata for four countries and 666 respondents if they had used the GLOBEdata). We recommend that researchers always clearly explain and justifytheir choice for the measurement of cultural values. In addition, it seemsto us that organizational researchers need to discuss the pros and cons ofthe various cultural measurement approaches again more vigorously.


We also observed that all five of these studies are methodologicallyrigorous in various ways. Shao and Skarlicki (2014) conducted a fieldsurvey study securing comparable employee participants in two coun-tries to examine cross-cultural effects, they directly measured and testedthe participant’s cultural values to test for the hypothesized country dif-ferences, and they developed and validated scales to measure two con-structs introduced in their study. Reiche et al. (2014) collected survey datafrom over 2,000 manager-subordinate pairs in over 18 countries (quite anundertaking!), developed and validated the scale to measure managerialtrustworthy behaviors introduced in this study, and tested their hypotheseswith multilevel analyses. Oh et al.’s meta-analysis included 81 samplesfrom East Asia, 13 samples from Europe, and, in addition, they usedthe meta-analysis of Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, and Johnson (2005)on North American samples plus they added 16 additional samples fromNorth America. Phillips et al. (2014) conducted two experimental studies,one with actual job seekers, and analyzed their data using conditionalprocess modeling to test both indirect and moderating effects. Our finalpaper, Ren et al. (2014), conducted two, time-lagged field survey studies,one collecting data over two time periods and the other study collectingdata over four time periods. Thus, across the five papers, the global issuesexamined here are tested with experimental and field survey designs, atthe country level and individual level, and with primary and meta-analyticdata collections. A variety of statistical techniques are used across thearticles. These studies indicate that a rigorous research design is likely toprovide competitive advantages to authors trying to publish internationalresearch in top-tier journals.

Conclusion

Based on our review and interpretation of the articles presentedin this special issue, we believe research that considers the cross-cultural/international context can offer important insights to HR/OB re-search and practice. Although the importance of “context” in affectingHR/OB phenomena has been recognized for many years (Cappelli &Sherer, 1991), there is still a relatively limited number of studies that ex-plicitly take into account the cultural or global context in HR/OB studies.Similarly, although multilevel theorizing that highlights the embeddednature of individuals and teams within organizational/industry/societalboundaries has gained momentum in HR/OB studies, we see that manyof these multilevel studies only account for individual- and team-levelcontexts, at best. Thus, the set of studies included in this special issueopens up the possibilities of adopting the mesoparadigm that bridges the


macro–micro divide that is prevalent in our field. We would also liketo highlight the critical role editors can play in selecting the right setof reviewers and guiding mesostudies as the authors working in sucha paradigm likely encounter more difficulties during the review processdue to the reviewers, who are embedded within their own topics, poten-tially have varying views about the appropriateness of research questions,design, and methods.

In conclusion, this special issue on The Global Context and Peopleat Work suggests that there are still many unresolved questions about therole of culture and globalization in HR/OB research. We hope the articlespresented here prompt further research to advance our understanding ofhow the global context influences established theories and relationshipsas well as yields important practical insights for better managing a globalworkforce.

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Documents

The Global Context and People at Work: Special Issue Introduction