Ebook: Making Sense of Culture: Cross-Cultural Expeditions and Management Practices of Self-Initiated Expatriates in the Foreign Workplace

This book lies within two interdisciplinary fields which are crucial to be bridged: cross-cultural management and international human resource management. The consequences of globalization lead to a more extensive recruitment process of global talents as to fit the different work structures and competitive work environment of tomorrow. The emergence of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) further intensify the challenges faced by multinational organizations because people are searching for better career prospects and they are willing to re-locate in order to obtain competitive salary or compensation packages. With the emergence of SIEs, multinational corporations need to acknowledge the influence of culture on management practices because the expatriates will bring their own cultural baggage and uniqueness to the company's doorsteps. By integrating both fields, this book is expected to provide a valuable understanding in order to educate SIEs on the richness of cultural behaviors and also the challenges confronted and synergies obtained culturally in the global workplace.



Culture has a paramount impact on how leaders manage their colleagues and teams in the workplace. One's attitudes, values, beliefs and perceptions all matter when people work with culturally diverse colleagues. Cultural differences cannot be ignored as a work structure that thrives only in a monoculture environment is hardly in existence for multinational corporation of today. Instead, the multi-cultured environment takes priority with the soaring number of demands for global talents and workforces that need to be recruited. It is clearly established in the field of international human resources that there are increasing trends and phenomenon of burgeoning SIEs in newly occupied cosmopolitan cities in the world such as Dubai, Qatar, Jeddah, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, and many others. Hence, this topic is timely because it allows the combined fields of international human resources management and cross-cultural management to offer new perspectives on strategies, challenges and advantages of the cultural journey of SIEs in light of crucial management practices such as decision making, negotiation, leadership, global teams, intercultural communications, and expatriation.