EMERALD_PR_PR XXXXXXXXXX
Inclusive management in
international organizations
How does it affect local and expatriate
academics?
Charlotte Jonasson
Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Aarhus University,
Aarhus, Denmark
Jakob Lauring
Department of Management, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, and
David S.A. Guttormsen
Department of Communication and Culture,
BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway
Abstract
Purpose – A growing number of academics relocate a
oad to work as expatriates in the university sector.
While this employee group seems to have a highly constructive influence on the performance of university
organizations, some problems in relation to effective inclusion of these individuals have been noted. In orde
to further advance the theoretical understanding regarding integration efforts in international university
organizations, the purpose of this paper is to explore how two types of inclusive management, empowering
management (identity-blind) vs English management communication (identity-conscious), affect local and
expatriate academics.
Design/methodology/approach – Using responses generated from a survey of 792 local and 620
expatriate academics, this paper assesses the effects of inclusive management on job engagement and stress
among the two groups.
Findings – The results show that one type of inclusive management, empowering management (identity-blind),
has a favorable influence on job engagement and stress in both subsamples. The other type, English management
communication (identity-conscious), increases stress for local academics but has no effect on the expatriates.
These findings are useful for theory development in relation to employee inclusion in international organizations.
Originality/value – The authors have little knowledge about how inclusive management functions in
international organizations. Testing the effect of identity-blind and identity-conscious inclusive management
practices among two different groups of local and expatriate academics provides new insight to this area.
In particular, the use of English management communication provides new knowledge on the integration of
majority and minority groups in international organizations.
Keywords Expatriates, Quantitative, Internationalization, Cross-cultural, International HRM,
Diversity management, University academics
Paper type Research pape
Introduction
The global mobility of expatriate academics has increased substantially along with
university internationalization making this area increasingly important to the field of
human resource management (Altbach et al., XXXXXXXXXXThe relatively high degree of autonomy
in their jobs and the notion that tasks can often be ca
ied out in a similar fashion across
different countries are key reasons for the expanding cross-national relocation among
academics (Froese, 2012; Isakovic and Whitman, XXXXXXXXXXThis intensification in academics’
international mobility has led to a growing interest in this group from practitioners and
esearchers (Richardson and McKenna, 2002; Selmer and Lauring, 2012, 2013).
Over the years several studies have revealed the importance of expatriate academics fo
universities in terms of research productivity (Levin and Stephen, 1999; Corley and
Personnel Review
Vol. 47 No. 2, 2018
pp XXXXXXXXXX
© Emerald Publishing Limited
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DOI XXXXXXXXXX/PR XXXXXXXXXX
Received 17 December 2015
Revised 23 June 2016
Accepted 5 June 2017
The cu
ent issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/ XXXXXXXXXXhtm
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Sabharwal, 2007) and for global rankings used to produce various university league tables
(Gress and Ilon, XXXXXXXXXXAt the same time, an increasing attention has developed in relation to
the difficulties experienced with the recruitment and retaining of expatriate academics
(Altbach, 1996, 2005; Richardson and McKenna, XXXXXXXXXXSome of these difficulties concern the
working conditions which expatriate academics are faced with as university employees.
For example, Skachkova XXXXXXXXXXfound that expatriate academics regularly experience
devaluation of their contributions and exclusion from important networks that could lead to
opportunities for publishing and for acquiring research grants. Interviewees in this study
also described the existence of discrimination in the form of sexism, racism, and
ethnocentrism. Similarly, Munene XXXXXXXXXXidentified problems related to isolation of the
foreign faculty along with minimal professional development opportunities and exclusion in
esearch and teaching activities.
Hence, a number of problems exist in relation to providing a good working environment
for expatriate academics (Austin, XXXXXXXXXXOne idea to improve this conceptually has been
suggested. That is to use inclusive management practices for integrating foreign individuals
into the local work culture (Devita, 2000; Mor-Barak, 2000; Lauring and Klitmøller,
forthcoming). In addition to these few studies having investigated inclusive management in
international organizations, a small group of studies has suggested the relevance of
inclusive management for other types of minorities defined by profession, ethnicity, and
gender (e.g. Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006; Nishii and Mayer, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2015).
Spu
ed by this notion we set out to explore the role of inclusive management practices in
elation to local and foreign personnel and thereby to take the first small step toward
a more general theorizing about inclusive management in international organizations
(cf. Feldman et al., 2006).
So far only a handful of studies have dealt with inclusion in international organizations.
For example, Lauring XXXXXXXXXXfound that expatriates in Saudi Arabia reinterpreted inclusive
policies from the parent company thus developing localized practices that best suited thei
own aims. Michailova XXXXXXXXXXstudied two western subsidiaries in Russia and concluded that
expatriates should not use empowerment and participation approaches as the cultural
context did not allow for it. Both these studies qualitatively explored how superio
expatriate managers exercised inclusion of the lower-level local employees. However,
in order to develop a more generic theory-building concerning how inclusive management
practices work in international organizations, researchers need to focus on both expatriate
and local employees. This is because it cannot be assumed that expatriates will always be a
dominant group facilitating the inclusion. In recent years organizations are to an increasing
extent recruiting self-initiated expatriates that are not per se entering the organization at the
management level (Tharenou, XXXXXXXXXXSelf-initiated expatriates, which encompass most
expatriate academics, can work in all kinds of positions in a foreign country organization
(Selmer et al., 2015).
Hence, in general, what distinguishes expatriate academics from local employees is not
the level of power but rather the novel situation they face in the new country. An inclusive
practice that may help this particular group would be to assist these international
individuals to ca
y out their work despite lacking a full set of skills for functioning in the
local context.
In order to develop a better understanding of inclusion in international organizations, we
argue that there is a need to focus on two different types of groups (locals and expatriates) and
two different types of inclusive management practices: a general one and one that is
specialized to the needs of the minority. With regard to the two different groups, only a limited
amount of research has actually explored if there are any variations in how expatriate and
local employees are affected by management practices. Differences between the two groups
have been mentioned to be assumed rather than confirmed (Olsen and Martins, 2009).
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Inclusive
management
Moreover, it can be argued that in order to understand expatriates’ work-lives better, we need
to explore this group not only in isolation but to compare the expatriates to their local
counterparts (Caprar, XXXXXXXXXXOnly then will we be able to identify the difficulties which are
arising from the international setting and subsequently to relate these challenges to what is
generally experienced by all organization employees and what is caused by insufficient
integration. Accordingly, the first step in developing a theory for inclusive management in
international organizations would be to outline how such practices affect locals and
expatriates, respectively.
In relation to the different types of inclusive management that may be exercised in
international organizations, we take departure in Konrad and Linnehan’s (1995)
framework. Here inclusive management in diverse organizations is depicted as eithe
identity-blind or identity-conscious. Identity-blind inclusion is directed toward any
individual in the organization whereas identity-conscious inclusion is aimed at a group
with particular needs. As an identity-blind inclusive management practice we use general
empowerment fostering participation in decision making. As an identity-conscious
inclusive management practice we use English language management communication as
this would be an initiative facilitated primarily to include foreign organization members.
To the best of our knowledge, in prior studies of inclusive management, the practice of
English management communication has not been included as a type of practice. This
may be due to the fact that the majority of studies of inclusive management (e.g. Nishii and
Mayer, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2015; Randel et al., 2016) focus on a domestic organizational
context rather than on an international setting including local and expatriate employees.
In this context, English management communication can be argued to be an
internationally oriented inclusion practice.
When assessing the role of the two types of inclusive management among local and
expatriate academics, we use the level of job engagement and stress to determine the effect.
This is because such outcomes are important indicators for the well-being and productivity
of employees in an organization.
Theory and research questions
Inclusive management
Theories on inclusion have primarily been concerned with employee involvement and the
integration of diversity (Verkuyten, 2005; Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006; Nishii and Mayer,
2009; Mitchell et al., XXXXXXXXXXInclusive management refers to the words and actions of the
manager indicating an invitation and appreciation for diverse employees’ contributions
(Nembhard and Edmondson, XXXXXXXXXXThis research has specifically emphasized the inclusion of
individuals fromminority groups, and an aim has been to grant them access to communication
networks where they can influence decision making and adapt the organization to their special
needs (Pettigrew and Martin, 1989; Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998; Randel et al., XXXXXXXXXXAs such,
organizational inclusion research generally focuses on removing hindrances to the
participation of minority group employees (Roberson, XXXXXXXXXXInclusion, however, is not only
for the weak or the few. Inclusive management practices can also have positive effects on
majority group members making them feel empowered in the workplace (Pelled, 1996).
Accordingly, Konrad and Linnehan XXXXXXXXXXdistinguish between general inclusive
management practices and inclusive practices directed toward a specific gender, race,
or nationality. The general practices they label identity-blind practices. This is where no
special concern is taken toward any demographic group (Konrad and Linnehan, 1995).
In other words, this type of general inclusion can facilitate more participation through
involvement of all organization members.
In contrast, some management practices may be structured to ensure that in addition to
overall individual concerns, the specific needs of a demographic group are taken into
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consideration (Konrad and Linnehan, XXXXXXXXXXThis could be done to support the inclusion of a
minority group, which may otherwise be excluded from communication networks and
participation in organizational decision making (Shore et al., XXXXXXXXXXHence, two different
approaches to inclusion in organizations exist.
There may also be different reasons for the positive effect of inclusive management.
Benefit to the individual may be caused by both instrumental and symbolic outcomes of the
practices. With regard to instrumental reasons, Seibert et al XXXXXXXXXXpinpoint autonomy and
information sharing as important reasons for why organization members want to feel
included. As