Laura E. Mercer Traavik

Global transfer of management practices across nations and MNC subcultures.

Executive Overview Our case shows how a Norwegian Multinational Firm (Norwegian Multi) introduced a new performance management practice. The initial starting point was a “best practice” developed by a U.S. consultancy based on the benchmarking of large global firms. Norwegian Multi chose to remove from this best practice the elements that were seen as most provocative to dominant cultural values. Over time more and more subsidiaries reintroduced elements of the original practice. The management practice we examine—performance management (PM)—can be regarded as an extension of the traditional performance appraisal, linking individual performance to corporate strategy.1 Researchers separate calculative PM (focus on individual contributions and rewards) and collaborative PM (focus on creating a partnership culture between employer and employee, for example through competency development).2 In the United States, PM practices contain both calculative and collaborative elements, whereas in Scandinavia the calcu...

Career success for international professional women in the land of the equal? Evidence from Norway

This study investigates the career success of international expatriate women in Norway. Norwegian and international women were compared on both objective and subjective career success. Participants were 125 Norwegian women and 168 international expatriate women who answered a 58 item questionnaire. Although Norwegian women achieved higher career success than the expatriate group, these effects disappeared for objective career success when expatriate women had a high level of education, high English language competency and motivation. Motivation, self focused conflict resolution and language competency were positively associated with subjective career success. Results suggest that although being foreign can be a disadvantage in Norway, expatriate women can overcome this liability through investment in education, language and motivation. Implications for international expatriate women are discussed.

Is the standardization of human resource practices perceived as fair across national cultures

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate perceptions of fairness of a standardized performance appraisal in a multinational enterprise. The paper looks at the first step in understanding fairness perceptions by examining whether national culture influences the view on standardization itself and by comparing China, Lithuania, and Norway.Design/methodology/approach – An experiment using a scenario that outlined a performance appraisal tool in a multinational company is conducted. National culture and individual cultural values are the independent variables and the perception of fairness of the practice is the dependent variable. A sample of 80 management respondents from Lithuania, China, and Norway is taken.Findings – The findings suggest that national culture influences perceptions of fairness of a standardized performance appraisal tool. Employees from countries undergoing profound economic and political change, that score low on the cultural dimension of self‐expression, tend to see the sta...

Is bigger better? Dyadic and multiparty integrative negotiations

Purpose – The purpose of the study is to empirically investigate the similarities and differences between dyads and four‐party groups in an integrative negotiation.Design/methodology/approach – Data are collected in a between subjects experiment. A total of 182 participants completed a negotiation role play and questionnaire. Hypotheses are tested using t‐tests, MANOVAs and two multiple regression analyses.Findings – Results demonstrate that dyads do outperform groups on both the economic and subjective measures of outcomes. Sharing of priority information and the fixed pie bias was higher in groups than in dyads. For dyads the procedure used (considering more than one issue at a time) led to higher economic outcomes, and both procedure and problem solving were important for subjective outcomes. For four‐party negotiations, problem solving was significantly related to higher outcomes, on both economic and subjective outcomes, and procedure was moderately related to economic outcomes. Problem solving was s...

Women and Work Stress: More and Different?

This chapter reviews research on job stress and how it affects working women. Using an occupational stress framework we identify some of the stressors that are most relevant for women within and between occupations, discuss how women experience these stressors in comparison to men, give a review of the research specifically on female managers, and lastly we examine approaches for lessening the negative consequences of these stressors in a work life context. From the research on how women experience stress, and the stressors they are exposed to, it seems that on average they face more and different stressors than most men. Research shows that women and men at the managerial level share some common work stressors, however, women also experience unique sources of stress. It is imperative that organizations recognize these unique and general stressors that women face and set up policies to reduce stress and increase wellbeing. Future research areas are discussed.

Attitudes towards diversity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate diversity attitudes of business school students across three national contexts Norway; India and the Czech Republic. These three countries are dissimilar from one another in terms of values, such as individualism and collectivism (Hofstede, 2001) self-expression and secular-rationalism (Inglehart and Welzel, 2010) and inequality. The authors wanted to explore similarities and differences in diversity attitudes of respondents from these countries. Design/methodology/approach – Using the diversity attitude scale developed by De Meuse and Hostager (2001) the authors conducted comparative research and collected data from 234 business school graduate students. Findings – The authors found that all groups were positive towards diversity, however, there were significant differences in diversity attitudes between the countries. The Czech Republic had the most positive diversity scores and India the least positive. Research limitations/implications – This study...

Reasons Matter: Reactions to Diversity Policy Rationales

Diversity policies are often necessary for organizations to meet the challenges of an increasingly diverse workforce, and policies send important messages to the employees. However, the reasons for...

Alliance formation: the impact of teams and individuals in initial negotiations

In this paper, we investigate whether individuals or teams should be sent to an initial alliance meeting and the impact of shared team aspiration levels on negotiation processes and outcomes. We use an experimental role-play to simulate an initial alliance meeting. 128 subjects participated in our study and our findings reveal that in team to team negotiations, higher economic outcomes were achieved and a higher degree of competitive behaviour was reported than in individual to individual dyads, and that team aspiration alignment was associated with increased reciprocity between teams. These findings suggest that in initial negotiations in an alliance, sending teams may be better for the subsequent developments in the alliance. When these teams are aligned, they are more attuned to the behaviour of their alliance partner.