Susan McGrath-Champ

Expatriate performance management and firm internationalization: Australian multinationals in China

This paper presents the results of an empirical study exploring the expatriate performance management systems of 16 Australian multinational firms operating in China. The results show that highly internationalized firms tend to be better at deploying the ‘hard’ components of performance management (goal-setting and performance appraisals), and yet most firms, and in particular highly internationalized ones, are poor at managing ‘soft’ control mechanisms like training and mentoring. The results give some support for the notion that expatriate performance management takes on increased importance as a firms international operations become more dispersed; however, it also suggests a lack of appreciation of the value of soft control mechanisms in achieving this. The study contributes to international human resource management literature by identifying the relationship between the degree of internationalization of firms and the nature of expatriate performance management.

Supporting student self-study: The educational design of podcasts in a collaborative learning context

One activity-rich way to utilize collaborative learning, team-based learning (TBL), can present students and teachers with both opportunities and challenges. TBL requires students to prepare for each class, where they are then assessed for their ‘readiness’ to apply the concepts learned during their pre-class preparation. This study addresses two aspects of TBL in an aim to better support and facilitate student learning and engagement: (1) supporting students during their pre-class preparation by providing metadata on the often-difficult required readings, and (2) offering students communication from the teacher, or ‘expert’ – something students often perceive as missing in active learning classes. Short, supportive podcasts are provided to students to give context to their out-of-class preparation and to allow them to hear directly from the teacher. Results suggest that the intervention of supportive podcasts successfully addresses these two issues and may benefit other collaborative classrooms that face similar challenges.

Global production networks, labour and small firms

The literature on global production networks (GPNs) and global commodity/value chains has generally conceptualised small firms as being at the bottom of the commodity chain hierarchy, and thus subordinate to larger firms. As a consequence, small firms and their employees are typically imagined to be fairly powerless to shape the structure of GPNs. By way of contrast, in this paper we argue that small firms and their employees are not lacking in the capacity to affect the way GPNs and commodity chains develop, but can in fact shape them in potentially significant ways. This recognition becomes evident if, instead of starting any analysis of small firms in GPNs with the governance structures of production networks or managerial strategies, we instead start the analysis with the organisation and control of the labour process in concrete settings, and tie this to broader understandings of uneven and combined development under capitalism.

Strategy and industrial restructuring

This article examines ‘strategy’ as a key aspect of industrial restructuring. The notion of strategy has been largely underdeveloped in much of the geographical literature on restructuring. This article discusses a range of dimensions that are useful in grasping the nature of strategy rationality, consciousness, level of analysis, power, contingency, individual versus collective action and interaction with structure. It is argued that a joint concept which includes ‘deliberate’ and ‘emergent’ strategy helps in grasping the complexities of restructuring initiatives and effective implementation of restructuring policies. Labour management relations and corporate strategy are used as vehicles for discussing these fundamental concepts. The article contributes to establishing a more concrete, detailed articulation of concepts of strategy in industrial geography.

Organizational change in Australian building and construction: rethinking a unilinear ‘leaning’ discourse

Over the past few decades there has been extensive reorganization of the construction industry in many developed countries including removal of head contractor companies from direct operational construction, elongation of the subcontracting chain, rising self‐employment, casualization of work and reduced investment in training. These trends are the subject of a prescriptive, industry literature directed at industry ‘improvement’ and an important British‐based critique of the underlying drivers of ‘leanness’ and organizational ‘re‐engineering’. Drawing primarily upon interviews with organizations across the breadth of the industry, this paper provides evidence concerning such key changes in the Australian context, revealing both ‘leaning’/‘re‐engineering’ tendencies but also counter‐tendencies necessitated by the goal of sustaining enduring enterprise and a viable labour force. A more reflexive approach by major companies to competitive pressures and risk shifting is revealed. Further, this evidence provides grounds for challenging the re‐engineering/lean construction critique which is discerned as succumbing to the unitarist and unilinear discourse which it seeks to challenge.

Enterprise Bargaining and Regional Prospects: The Effects of Rescaling Wage Regulation in Australia

This article explores disparities emerging under localized collective (‘enterprise’) bargaining in Australia, and relates these to regional economic prospects. The purpose is to highlight how, driven by a rhetoric of globalization and international competitiveness, the ‘rescaling’ of wage regulation is recasting workers’ well-being and shifting the politics of regional development. This is situated in the context of growing cross-disciplinary dialogue concerning the spatiality of labour (industrial) relations. With the effects of the first decade of enterprise bargaining becoming discernible, the article considers the longer-term influence of increasing wage disparity produced by spatially disaggregated wage setting. The article backgrounds regional economic development in Australia, noting the heritage of a near-century of centralized wage institutions as a possible contributor to the very pronounced metropolitan primacy that has been established in this country. It questions whether increasing geographical wage disparity in Australia will act as a catalyst to rural and regional viability. The challenge for labour is to anticipate, find and create appropriate scales of action that can counter these outcomes.

Human resources and expatriate evacuation: a conceptual model

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to introduce a conceptual model that integrates multi-disciplinary research in relation to crisis management, and to consider its application for international human resource managers in preventing and managing the evacuation of expatriate staff during crises. Design/methodology/approach - – The paper critically reviews and distils research into crisis and evacuation management, and examines its relevance to a generic framework of international human resource roles. The paper evaluates this body of literature and suggests potential research avenues from an international human resource perspective. Findings - – The review reveals a dearth of research on emergency evacuation of expatriates from a human resources perspective. The paper articulates a framework that delineates what role human resource managers could, or should, play during crisis preparation and response. This framework aims to establish a basic “roadmap” for use by practitioners and researchers. Originality/value - – Focusing on the human (rather than business) implications of crises, the paper links crisis management literature to the role of international human resource managers in supporting the health, safety, and security of international assignees during crises. A framework is presented which enables managers to map their current (and potential) contributions to preventing and managing expatriate evacuation. From this, several avenues of future research are drawn.

The art of selling corporate culture

Human resource (HR) practices are increasingly concerned with adding value through increased skills, autonomy and contribution. Whilst useful in some cultural and industry contexts, there is potential for incompatibility with other norms, especially those outside western culture or the manufacturing industry mainstream. Australian construction companies in Malaysia use the language of normative HR, but they are challenged by the differing cultural norms of Asia. It is concluded that HR policies and corporate culture are used as marketing devices not solely as management strategy.

From One Skill Shortage to the Next: The Australian Construction Industry and Geographies of a Global Labour Market:

The initial prosperity of the 21st century’s first decade was accompanied in Australia by a skills shortage. Despite a relatively brief hiatus created by the ‘global financial crisis’, significant skills shortages have re-emerged. Drawing on multi-scalar insights into the construction industry in Australia and worldwide, and qualitative research in Australia, this article highlights the geographically constituted nature of the construction industry and the contradictory interplay of local labour force formation with increased recourse to the global labour market to meet workforce needs. More broadly, the article demonstrates how an appreciation of the geographical nature of an industry can yield new insights into work and employment.

The role of human resources in protecting expatriates: insights from the international aid and development sector

Abstract Multinational organisations of all kinds face growing challenges to ensure that their international operations and staff are safe from threat of physical and psychological danger. This is particularly acute in the international aid and development sector, where expatriate field staff are both valuable and vulnerable, and where organisations often confront limited infrastructure and financial resources. This paper reports an empirical study exploring the ways in which 10 international non-government organisations from 5 nations (USA, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Australia), all with substantial experience operating in high-risk contexts, manage the safety and security of their expatriate staff. Our results unearth four areas where these organisations seek to build in-house competence, centred on culture building, and supported by a suite of human resource practices relating to people services, information services and communication services. These competencies coalesce around an overarching philosophy towards safety and security that we describe as ‘personal responsibility and empowerment’.