Search results

This paper presents insights on expatriates in Africa and sets out a research agenda for Africa’s expatriation. The objective of the paper is to provide background and context on expatriation in Africa and to stimulate and guide further research in this important area.

The reviewed papers were drawn from journals and other sources that reported on expatriation to/from African countries. It also incorporates an array of literature on contextual African issues, exploring conceptually how these relate to expatriation.

The review confirmed that there is little research on the topic, particularly with respect to outward expatriation and the studies that exist are one of a kind and stand alone. There has been no attempt to build systematic theory or develop a wholistic picture. This means that the field is wide open for more research. The data provide a picture of the current expatriate situation, including numbers, demographics, host/home locations, success rates and so on, and are provide a basis for further research developing and testing hypotheses regarding individual, organizational and country/national characteristics and how these influence and relate to expatriate experiences and outcomes. Researchers can also draw on the existing expatriation literature from around the world for replication studies to identify uniquely African issues as well as similarities with other locations. As Selmer (2016) noted, replication research is widely used in the sciences and is at the core of the scientific method and thus should be considered for expatriation research.

Limited previous research means there is a need for further research.

Expatriation is a critical aspect of companies operating internationally and companies are increasingly interested in doing business in African countries. Africa's economic growth and development are strong and foreign direct investment (FDI) into Africa is growing with consequent increases in the number of expatriates going to Africa. Understanding expatriation in the African context is thus very important to a variety of companies.

Management literature focusing on Africa is limited and this is true regarding expatriation. This means there is a need for researchers and practitioners to understand expatriation issues in this context, particularly considering economic growth on the continent, increasing interest in doing business there, along with increasing FDI and use of expatriates, as well as the expansion of African companies. This paper provides a research agenda as a guide on which researchers, including those in Africa, can build.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss the design of culturally appropriate training and development (T&D) strategies for enhancing the performance of employees and organizations, using a learning style approach. We provide an example of African countries and use the results of a review of studies on African cultural values and management to discuss learning styles and T&D. The underlying premise is that T&D strategies are only effective when they are designed to fit with the cultural context. Based on Experiential Learning Theory (ELT, Kolb, 1984; 2014), the chapter reviews the Kolb (1984, 2014) learning model as a basis for designing T&D programs and applies this model using the African results. Given the limited number of studies on Kolb's learning styles cross-culturally, we suggest avenues for further research.

The purpose of this project was to evaluate the effectiveness of goal setting in improving performance in an emerging economy, Barbados.

There is a substantial body of literature which has shown that goal setting improves performance in the developed world, but there is relatively little research examining these relationships in emerging economies. This experimental study sought to extend understanding of the impact of goal setting by testing goals in a carefully controlled environment in an emerging economy. The study considered assigned goals and performance, as well as the moderating impact of personal and cultural characteristics.

Results supported the hypothesis that specific, difficult goals improve performance. Personal characteristics did not moderate the relationship, but the cultural characteristics of individualism and uncertainty avoidance (UA) did.

The results of this study are limited because of the experimental nature of the study and the student sample, however, the results encourage further research and provide practical guidance for managers in Barbados.

The results suggest that, similar to developed countries, specific and difficult goals result in better performance, and that higher levels of individualism and lower levels of UA result in better performance under the individual assignment conditions of this research.

The research extends the goal‐setting approach to a new environment and provides a foundation for future research, and it provides evidence for managers in organizations in emerging countries that goal‐setting has a positive impact on performance.

The purpose of this paper is to consider effective leadership in Africa and the African diaspora. This paper reports the results of emic research in Uganda, Barbados, Canada and the USA.

A Delphi technique using open‐ended questions solicited ideas regarding leadership from knowledgeable participants, avoiding researcher bias.

There were differences among the groups on several attributes that made leaders effective. Ugandans suggested a good leader was “honest and trustworthy”; Canadians and respondents from the USA said “being inspirational/charismatic” Barbadians cited “being a visionary”.

Having data for only one African country and the small sample sizes from all countries limit the generalizability of the findings. The results do, however, provide a base of knowledge on which to build future studies on Africa and the diaspora.

The emic approach overcomes the western bias identified by scholars in most African research. Similarities and differences identified provide evidence of the importance of culture in effective leadership. The results provide a basis for developing further research studies.

The purpose of this paper is to compare women's mentoring experience in nine countries within the Americas, and to explore linkages between personal characteristics, mentoring practices, mentoring functions, and consequences of being mentee.

A total of 1,146 successful women are questioned about their mentoring experiences as a mentee: 105 from Argentina, 210 from Brazil, 199 from Canada, 84 from Chile, 232 from Mexico, 126 from the USA, and 190 from three countries in the West Indies (Barbados, Jamaica, and St Vincent).

Most of the women have more than one mentor. Across all countries mentoring practices are more strongly linked to career mentoring function while the age and gender of the mentor are more strongly linked to psychosocial mentoring. Mentoring from the perspective of mentee has the same directional relationship with situational and individual variables, but the significance of those relationships vary by country. A possible cultural difference is detected between Spanish and non‐Spanish speaking countries on the issue of mentoring practice.

The fact that the paper focuses only on successful women in this paper means the findings are not necessarily generalizable to other groups of women or men. The paper is also limited because mentoring functions are constrained to two: psychosocial and career. There may be more functions that mentoring could fulfill for the mentee.

Companies' interest in fostering mentoring among their members, particularly women, should be aware that different mentoring functions are influenced by different factors. For example, formal mentoring programs appear to have a greater impact on career mentoring functions than on psychosocial mentoring functions. To support women in their careers, companies should institute formal mentoring programs; this is especially important in South American countries. Moreover, mentoring programs must be designed to be adaptive since the analyses indicated that there are significant differences by country in terms of many mentoring issues.

In the literature review, the paper finds linkages between culture, mentoring practices, characteristics of mentors and mentees, and mentoring functions, but no evidence that these linkages have been studied with a group of professionally successful women from different American countries, particularly non‐English speaking American countries.

The intent of this cross‐national research is to study the personal and cultural characteristics of successful professional women. High‐achieving women may share certain personal characteristics, beliefs, and experiences, regardless of the countries in which they live. However, every individual is socialized within a particular national culture, and may be expected to share certain values and expectations with other members of that culture.

Over 1,100 professionally “successful women” (including high‐level managers, entrepreneurs, academics, government personnel, and professionals) and 531 undergraduate business students in nine countries – Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, the USA and the West Indies (Barbados, Jamaica, St. Vincent, and the Grenadines) completed surveys containing two sets of variables: national/cultural (collectivism/individualism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance) and personal (self‐efficacy, locus of control, need for achievement).

There were significant differences in the personal characteristics between successful women and the student comparison samples, with successful women consistently higher on self‐efficacy and need for achievement, and more internal on locus of control. There were some significant but smaller than expected differences in cultural characteristics between national samples.

This contrast of successful women living in the Americas provides new insights for managers of international companies seeking to be gender inclusive.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the legacies of Carolyn R. Dexter through the lens of a broader perspective on faculty work productivity and impact.

The authors used critical biography, a qualitative methodology, to explore and explain the development and contributions of Carolyn R. Dexter.

Carolyn R. Dexter was both a product and an anomaly of her times. By contemporary academic standards Dexter’s publication productivity was limited, yet her influence was strong on many individuals and organizations. She promoted internationalization of professional organizations and supported gender equality.

The limitation of authors’ interpretation is recognized.

Dexter’s career is an example of faculty work productivity and impact which is broader than publication productivity. This work illustrates the appropriateness of qualitative research, specifically, critical biography, in placing important management figures in context.

Studies focusing on women leadership at The Academy of Management, the preeminent professional association for management and organization scholars, are limited. Carolyn R. Dexter’s leadership provides a roadmap illustrating practical contributions of faculty productivity and impact beyond publications. Throughout her academic life Carolyn Dexter made her faculty work “meaningful” to the organizations in which she worked and to the people she encountered.

This project aims to examine levels of career and life satisfaction among successful women in nine countries in the Americas.

A structured survey and in‐depth interviews were used, and a variety of occupations, demographics, and personality characteristics assessed – 1,146 successful women from nine countries in the USA responded the survey: 105 from Argentina, 210 from Brazil, 199 from Canada, 84 from Chile, 232 from Mexico, 126 from the USA, and 190 from three countries in the West Indies (Barbados, Jamaica, SVG).

Results show no differences in satisfaction based on occupation or country and most demographic variables investigated did not have a significant relationship with satisfaction. Age had a small, significant, relationship, with satisfaction increasing with age; married women were significantly more satisfied than single women. Higher scores on self efficacy and need for achievement, and a greater internal locus of control were all related to higher levels of satisfaction. The relationship between career satisfaction and general life satisfaction was stronger in Argentina and Chile that in the other countries.

Extends understanding of professional success and satisfaction, in terms of demographic variables and personality, as well as geographically.