Ilaria Boncori

‘Learning without thought is labour lost, thought without learning is perilous’: the importance of pre-departure training and emotions management for expatriates working in China

Based on data gathered from an autoethnographic account and in-depth qualitative interviews with Italian expatriates, this paper explores the importance of pre-departure linguistic and cultural training for expatriates working in China, with a particular focus on the emotional aspects of movement. According to the latest Global Relocation Trends surveys, China is ranked second only to the USA as the top international destination. However, it also tops the ranking in terms of expatriate assignment failure as it is regarded as the country in which expatriates find it most difficult to adapt (GMAC, 2010, 2011). It is here argued that linguistic competences together with cultural understanding are crucial determinants of a positive expatriate experience in terms of general adjustment, social adjustment and work adjustment. Notably in respect of emotional experience, training can ameliorate emotional dissonance as well as being a precursor for a more general sense of expatriate emotional wellbeing.

Mission impossible: A reading of the after-death of the heroine

ABSTRACT Based on two articles written by Heather Höpfl [2003, “Becoming A Virile Member: Women and the Military Body.” Body and Society 9 (4): 13–30; 2010, “The Death of the Heroine.” Management & Organizational History 5: 395–407] this paper investigates the depiction of the heroine in action movies through a close reading of the blockbuster movie series Mission: Impossible comprising of five films released between 1996 and 2015. This article explores the relationship between gender stereotypes, traditionally male professional environments and the changing role of the heroine. We consider three aspects of the heroine: her body, her relationship to the hero and her role in the movie’s representational economy. We conclude by suggesting that the role of female characters has considerably evolved in popular culture over the past decades, which is evidenced in this movie series by a shift from the traditional subordinate supporter female role to a more equal view of a co-hero/ine. Our paper builds on Heather’s work and offers an empirical contribution to the use of visual data in organization studies.

The Salience of Emotions in (Auto) ethnography: Towards an Analytical Framework

Ethnographic research methods have gained increased popularity within the field of organisation studies. Although autoethnography is also becoming increasingly common in contemporary research, many scholars in organisation studies (OS) still tend to conceal their personal feelings because emotional experiences are often perceived as too subjective and not ‘scientific enough’ for publication. The practice of ethnography in OS is here explored as emotionally embodied by drawing from various theories in the field of psychology. This chapter seeks to emphasise how emotions add an invaluable layer of meaning and understanding to the richness of ethnographic research, and argue that the researcher’s emotional experience should take its neglected place on the centre stage of ethnographic studies.

I lost my baby today: Embodied writing and learning in organizations

This article focuses on miscarriage and the sharing of intimate experiences as an example of alternative writing that can be used to challenge and resist dominant masculine discourse in academia. It steps back from patriarchal forms of writing organizations and contributes in three ways: in terms of methodology through the use of multi-voice autoethnography that embraces evocative language; with regard to the subject matter, by sharing a narrative that focuses on the bodily and dirty in day-to-day organizing; and in style, by going beyond traditional structures to foster personal, fragile and reflexive narratives that can enhance the understanding of lived experiences in organizations. More specifically, the first author’s autoethnographic account of perinatal loss in the context of contemporary academia is used as an example of resistance to patriarchal norms of organizing.

Pre-Departure Knowledge

When I conducted my pilot interviews, I had a list of themes and questions I had planned to ask my interviewees which had been informed by both my own experience and an initial literature review. I am almost ashamed to admit that I had underestimated what turned out to be probably the most important and most passionately argued topic of the subsequent interviews conducted for this study: the importance of cultural as well as linguistic understanding. When I went to China for the first time in 1997, I could already speak Chinese at a lower-intermediate level, so even though communication was still tiring and strenuous, I could nonetheless survive on my own, and this is probably one of the reasons why in my pilot study I had underestimated how overwhelming it is to go to China without being able to speak the language at all (especially before the 2000s, when it was very rare to find an English-speaking host national). All 18 interviewees in Zimmermann, Holman and Sparrow’s study (2003) on German expatriate adjustment in China agreed that language is the most basic need in terms of interaction adjustment, which mirrors the unanimous responses of my interviewees.

Contributions, Considerations and Reflections

This study enriches previous work on expatriate adjustment particularly through the presentation of empirical material derived from both the interviews and my autoethnographic account, but also in the specificity of the selected group (Italian expatriates in China), who had not been investigated before in a modern context through academic lens of an author who experienced expatriation in China first hand. Analysis of the available literature related to this topic was undertaken repeatedly, before, during and after the interviews with expatriates. The iterative character of the literature review allowed me to take advantage of both older and more recent publications while appreciating the currency of this research topic. Previous research examined during that review called for more empirical research on expatriates involving non-American participants (Mol et al., 2005) and further research on the importance of cross-cultural training (Littrell et al., 2006) and language competence (Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005). This study is a modest attempt to respond to those calls.

Recruitment and Preparation

Skills, previous experience and relevant knowledge Expatriate adjustment is strictly linked to expatriate selection, as recruiting the best people for foreign assignments could improve the rate of those who manage to adjust and avoid turnover or early repatriation Caligiuri, Tarique and Jacobs (2009) note how being qualified and performing in one country does not necessarily imply success abroad, ever in the same role. Given that expatriate performance and adjustment is influenced by a number of factors including personality, language competence and prior international experience (see for instance Hechanova Beehr and Christiansen, 2003; Bhaskar-Shrinivas et al., 2005; Mol et al. 2005), it seems necessary to carefully consider selection processes both for standard and self-selected expatriates.

Expatriates in the Middle Kingdom

Shortly after my arrival in China, during my first brief stay in 1997, it became apparent to me that there were very distinct types of expatriates living and operating in the country. The main differences between them did not seem to stem from different nationalities but appeared to be collections of traits generally applicable across cultures. The distinctions became more obvious once I started living in Shanghai in 2002 as a postgraduate student and even more so when I began my career there shortly afterwards. However, the peculiarity of this classification and how topical it is only really struck me once I became an expatriate in the UK and noticed how the typologies that could be identified and applied in China could not be made to fit the expatriate reality in England, which is nonetheless very varied and multicultural. Being conscious of the fact that I approach this matter from a European point of view and from personal experience, I included mention of this in the vignette I used as a prompt for my interviews. Other topics I had included such as national identity were not picked up by many interviewees, but all of them discussed the idea that there are very obvious and distinct types of expatriates living and working in China.

No Place Like Home

In cultural anthropology the term ‘liminality’ refers to a transitional or indeterminate state between stages of a person’s life, which may be culturally defined. Liminality can also manifest itself in terms of spaces. I asked my interviewees if they had felt at home in China and what ‘home’ means for them. Ahmed (1999: 330) suggests that home is not a building but the place where people deal with the intricacies of their ‘belonging’ in relation to their surroundings both in a physical and emotional way.

Introduction to International Business in China

From the beginning of the 21st century the gravitational centre of the world’s economy has shifted to East Asia (De Mente, 1994); China is now considered a country whose influence on the international business environment has become increasingly important. Recessions, the internationalization of business, the development of online retailers, political turmoil and customers’ demands are forcing corporations to diversify their offerings and find ways to become more competitive in order to gain, or even maintain, their market share. Many Western countries are now looking to China as a market for exported products, a source for imports or as a location where, thanks to the low price of labour, the construction of factory sites is both time and cost effective. In many industries moving operations to ‘the Middle Kingdom’, finding suppliers or workers in China and focussing on that country as a market for Western products has proved to be a winning strategy. However, the business context in China changes quickly and misunderstanding about ‘the Chinese way’ of doing business can cause costly misunderstandings and even failure.