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Dear colleagues (apologies for cross-posting),



I am emailing to inform you that we have extended the submission deadline 
for the special issue of Human Resource Management Journal ‘New Avenues in 
International Careers Research’ until May 3. Please see the details below



Best wishes

Elaine Farndale





New Avenues in International Careers Research Call for Papers 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-8583/asset/homepages/Special_Issue_CfP__HRMJ_.pdf?v=1&s=d40c89393dee3438d7bf2406587e01bd176a987a>
Guest Editors: Adam Smale, Jon Briscoe, Michael Dickman, Wolfgang Mayrhofer 
and Emma Parry
New Submission Deadline: 3 May 2017



In this special issue we invite theoretical and empirical contributions that 
speak to one of the following three avenues of research, which we believe 
deserve greater scholarly attention: the contextual embeddedness of careers, 
comparative career research, and career management in MNCs. A short 
background behind these research avenues and some suggestions for 
corresponding research questions are presented below.



Research on ‘global careers’ to date has been dominated by work on the 
career attitudes and behaviours of expatriates at the individual level, and 
more recently on other less traditional forms of international mobility such 
as self-initiated expatriates, short-term assignees, and international 
business travellers (Shaffer, Kraimer, Chen & Bolino, 2012). Whilst this 
represents an important body of work, our understanding of careers in the 
international context remains piecemeal without simultaneously including 
other groups of employees and drawing upon alternative perspectives, levels 
of analysis and related fields of inquiry. We believe this can be addressed 
through the pursuit of three broad avenues of research into international 
careers.



Contextual Embeddedness of Careers – Every nation has its own unique sets of 
institutional arrangements, deep-seated values, attitudes, and beliefs. They 
inform and are reflected in the ways that the society and the economy 
operate, and the ways that people work and are managed at work. Career 
planning, promotion decision-making, individual career decisions, and career 
preferences have been shown to differ between institutional contexts and 
cultural values such as future orientation, power distance and individualism 
(e.g. Chong, 2013; Dany, Mallon, & Arthur, 2003; King, 2003; Schaubroeck & 
Lam, 2002). However, the majority of careers research has been carried out 
within single countries, predominantly the WEIRD (Western, Educated, 
Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) countries. This has contributed to a 
general lack of understanding about the nuances of career-related concepts 
and the heterogeneous views on careers possessed by individuals around the 
world. Indeed, institutional and cultural perspectives on careers remain 
largely overlooked in most careers research.



Key research questions that could help to address this are, for example:



· How do culture, institutional context, and other macro factors impact 
conceptions of career, and career success? To what extent can they be 
meaningfully compared across cultures?

· To what degree does the concept of career and career success exist in 
“nature”? If it does exist, to what degree is this defined by 
individual-level factors (e.g. self-directed career behaviour, personality) 
versus higher-level factors (e.g. cultures, economies, educational levels, 
or generations)?

· At the structural level, which context-specific characteristics of careers 
can be found, for example, in career planning, career paths, career 
decision-making, and promotion criteria?

· At the behavioural level, which context-specific characteristics of 
careers can be found in individual career management, career expectations, 
career success and career mobility?

· How should we study careers across societies and cultures? What 
methodological approaches and designs could international careers research 
build on from other disciplines to help advance the field?



Comparative Career Research – Beyond a cross-cultural approach that focuses 
on cultural differences, Comparative Career Research (CCR) – similar to 
comparative HRM research – takes a broader view on international careers 
(Mayrhofer, Meyer & Steyrer 2007). It also includes other contextual factors 
such as institutional arrangements or national boundaries and has an 
explicit focus on comparison between various contextual settings. Among 
other things, this inevitably means a stronger focus on context and 
structure, counterbalancing the ‘actor-only’ tendency in careers research to 
date. Countries can be small or large, have greater or fewer regional 
differences, include one or many language groups, and are more or less 
economically developed. They may have different labour markets and education 
systems, different employment laws and trade unions, and different cultural 
expectations. Research has identified different career models that are 
pertinent for certain countries in terms of, for example, career entry and 
development, career paths, career success factors, and career transitions 
within and between organizations (e.g. Andresen, Al Ariss & Walther, 2013; 
Chudzikowski et al. 2009; Davoine & Ravasi, 2013; Lazarova, Dany & 
Mayrhofer, 2012). While there are an increasing number of studies looking at 
commonalities and differences in individual careers and organizational 
career management between countries, there is little systematic research 
available in this area.



Key research questions that could help to address this are, for example:

· How do different institutional factors influence careers systems?

· How do, in reaction, actual careers and career practices vary from country 
to country?

· What are the comparative similarities and differences between countries 
and between regions?

· Do we observe patterns of stasis, convergence and/or divergence between 
countries in terms of career systems and practices over time?

· Who, or what, are the key actors in the change (or rigidity) of career 
systems and practices, and through what kinds of processes does this take 
place?

· In addition to neo-institutional theories, what other theoretical schools 
(e.g. neoliberal and behavioural economics, national business systems) can 
help shed light on commonalities and differences between contextual settings 
as well as changes in their career systems over time?



Career Management in MNCs – Firms operating globally will need to decide 
whether their career system, and corresponding career-related practices and 
policies, should be standardized across the MNC in order to achieve 
worldwide consistency (global integration), or adjusted to account for the 
local environment (local adaptation). Prior research has mostly focused on 
the individual perspective, in particular on the international careers of 
expatriates in MNCs (e.g. Stahl & Cerdin, 2004), and to a lesser extent on 
their expatriate management practices (cf. Tungli & Peiperl, 2009). The same 
is largely true in terms of the outcomes of MNC career management practices 
insofar as most research focuses on the subjective and objective career 
outcomes of individuals, typically expatriates and inpatriates. With few 
exceptions (Dickmann & Doherty, 2008) there is little attention on the 
outcomes for MNCs and foreign subsidiaries.



Key research questions that could help to address this are, for example:

· How are the careers of those who comprise the MNC’s global workforce 
managed, i.e. beyond expatriates? How are MNC career practices designed and 
what factors (e.g. relating to the country-of-origin, industry or the MNC) 
influence the design?

· Which factors influence the decision for the standardization versus 
localization of career-related practices and policies? For example, how do 
MNCs respond to differences in the emphasis placed on career self-management 
versus organisational career management in different parts of the world?

· Given the cultural and institutional embeddedness of careers and career 
success, how easily can career-related practices be diffused within the MNC? 
Which factors determine their ‘diffusability’ and to what extent can 
transmutations be observed?

· What kinds of (international) career paths can be distinguished in MNCs 
and how are they influenced by internal labour markets and global leadership 
development activities?

· What are the intended versus actual outcomes of MNC career management 
practices from both MNC and individual perspectives? How do MNCs assess 
whether they have accomplished the goals of their career management policies 
and practices?



The overarching objective of this special issue is to advance international 
careers research in areas that have hereto received scant theoretical or 
empirical attention, more specifically around the three research avenues 
outlined above. Given the natural interlinkages between research on careers 
in the HRM, organisational behaviour and international management 
literatures, a further objective of the special issue is to encourage 
leading-edge contributions that attempt to cut across these different fields 
in ways that will enrich the theoretical and empirical work on international 
careers.



Submission deadline: 3rd May 2017 at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hrmj, 
indicating “New Avenues in International Careers Research” as the Special 
Issue. Enquiries related to the focus of papers or other queries related to 
the call for papers should be directed to Adam Smale ([log in to unmask]) or 
Emma Parry ([log in to unmask]).



References

Andresen, A. Al Ariss, A. & Walther, M. (2013). Self-initiated Expatriation: 
Individual, Organizational, and National Perspectives (Eds.). London: 
Routledge.



Chong, E. (2013). Managerial competencies and career advancement: A 
comparative study of managers in two countries. Journal of Business 
Research, 66(3), 345-353.



Chudzikowski, K., Demel, B., Mayrhofer, W., Briscoe, J.P., Unite, J., 
Bogicevic Milikic, B., Hall, D.T., Heras, M.L., Shen, Y., & Zikic, J. 
(2009). Career transitions and their causes: A countrycomparative 
perspective. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 82: 825– 
849.



Dany, F., Mallon, M., & Arthur, M.B. (2003). The odyssey of career and the 
opportunity for international comparison. The International Journal of Human 
Resource Management, 14(5), 705-712.



Davoine, E., & Ravasi, C. (2013). The relative stability of national career 
patterns in European top management careers in the age of globalisation: A 
comparative study in France/Germany/Great Britain and Switzerland. European 
Management Journal, 31(2), 152- 163.



Dickmann, M., & Doherty, N. (2008). Exploring the career capital impact of 
international assignments within distinct organizational contexts. British 
Journal of Management, 19, 145-161.



King, Z. (2003). New or traditional careers? A study of UK graduates' 
preferences. Human Resource Management Journal, 13(1), 5-26.



Lazarova, M., Dany, F., & Mayrhofer, W. (2012). Careers: a 
country-comparative view. In C. Brewster & W. Mayrhofer (Eds.), Handbook of 
Research on Comparative Human Resource Management: 298-321. Cheltenham, UK; 
Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.



Mayrhofer, W., Meyer, M., & Steyrer, J. (2007). Contextual Issues in the 
Study of Careers. In H. P. Gunz & M. A. Peiperl (Eds.), Handbook of Career 
Studies: 215-240. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.



Schaubroeck, J., & Lam, S.S. (2002). How similarity to peers and supervisor 
influences organizational advancement in different cultures. Academy of 
Management Journal, 45(6), 1120-1136.



Shaffer, M. A., Kraimer, M. L., Chen, Y., & Bolino, M. C. (2012). Choices, 
challenges, and career consequences of global work experiences: A review and 
future agenda. Journal of Management, 38(4), 1282-1327.



Stahl, G.K., & Cerdin, J.-L. (2004). Global careers in French and German 
multinational corporations. Journal of Management Development, 23(9), 
885-902.



Tungli, Z., & Peiperl, M. (2009). Expatriate practices in German, Japanese, 
U.K., and U.S. multinational companies: A comparative survey of changes. 
Human Resource Management, 48(1), 153-171.



HRMJ OVERVIEW

Human Resource Management Journal (HRMJ) is a scholarly journal, published 
by Wiley-Blackwell, which aims to promote the theory and practice of HRM, to 
provide an international forum for discussion and debate, and to stress the 
critical importance of people management to a wide range of economic, 
political and social concerns. HRMJ’s focus lies in providing a critical 
link between high quality academic research and the practical implications 
for business practice. Over the last decade, HRMJ has broadened its 
editorial scope to become more globally orientated and has strengthened the 
international character of its Editorial Team and Board.



HRMJ seeks to publish well-written, well-researched and well-informed 
articles on any aspect of employment studies but especially those focused on 
issues related to the management of people at work. Articles should appeal 
both to practitioners and academics by virtue of their contribution to 
contemporary issues, the good use of theory and research and well-founded 
conclusions and practical implications. HRMJ is open to qualitative, 
quantitative and mixed methods approaches



HRMJ operates a minimum of double blind-review. Our review system seeks to 
provide constructive, critical and timely feedback (average days from 
submission to final decision is less than 90 days) on submissions.



HRMJ is accessed by almost 5,000 institutions and libraries worldwide. HRMJ 
articles average 130,000 annual downloads.



In 2016, we had almost 360 original submissions and our paper acceptance 
rate stands at 9.8%.



HRMJ’s one-year ISI impact factor is currently 1.845, ranking us 6th out of 
26 journals in the "industrial and labor relations" category, and 71st out 
of 192 journals in the “management” category.



The journal is ranked as a "4", reserved for journals that “publish the most 
original and best-executed research” in the current Association of Business 
Schools (ABS) Academic Journal Guide (UK).  The journal is also ranked ‘A’ 
by the Australian Business Deans Council journal list.







Dr Elaine Farndale

Associate Professor of Human Resource Management

Co-Editor-in-Chief of Human Resource Management Journal: 
<http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-8583> 
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1748-8583

Founder and Director, Center for International Human Resource Studies: 
<http://ler.la.psu.edu/cihrs> http://ler.la.psu.edu/cihrs



School of Labor and Employment Relations

The Pennsylvania State University

501c Keller Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA

email:  <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]; phone: +1 814-867-3320

webpage:  <http://ler.la.psu.edu/directory/euf3> 
http://ler.la.psu.edu/directory/euf3

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