Authors: Andreja Jakli?; Anže Burger; Iris Koleša
With international business taking place in a highly networked context, firms increasingly operating in a networking mode and employees being more and more (intra- and inter-organisationally) mobile, corporate-sponsored international assignments are becoming an important tool for facilitating business internationalisation. By acting as boundary spanners between enterprise units as well as between various organisations, international assignees generate both human and social capital, which can in turn enhance organisational capital – if managed properly. The mechanisms for transforming intangible human and social capital into organisational capital have not been thoroughly explained, however, as the process has been analysed from either an individual or an organisational perspective, while an interactive team perspective has been grossly neglected. In our conceptual paper we thus investigate the interactions between individuals within and across (home and host) units and organisations as well as study the potential gaps (between international assignees, their colleagues and their organisations) that may develop in the process and lead to an international assignment failure. Following Parasuraman’s service quality model, we propose five gaps that may occur pre-, during- and post- an assignment if the latter is poorly managed: (1) the assignee expectationmanagement/HR department perception gap, (2) the management/HR department perceptionassignment quality specification gap, (3) the assignment quality specification gap-assignment delivery gap and (4) the assignment delivery-external communications gap which all lead to a more general (5) expected service-perceived service gap. A list of dimensions that need to be considered when managing international assignments to avoid the five potential gaps is provided as a starting point for empirical testing of our conceptual framework. The paper provides relevant implications for theory development on internationalisation and international human resources management, as well as a foundation for further research and development of new managerial practices for internationalisation through international assignments.
Journal: n.a. (n.a. – n.a.)
Web Address: n.a.
Publish Year: 2016
Conference: Poznan, Poland (2016)