Browsing by Author "Renshaw, Phil St John"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Exploring the organizational value of international assignments: home versus host
    (Informa UK Limited, 2024) Renshaw, Phil St John; Parry, Emma; Dickmann, Michael
    International assignments (IAs) are a common feature of international business and human resource management, yet evidence of their organizational value is mixed and contradictory. We argue, contrary to extant IA literature, that this is due to the need to investigate the value to each of the home and the host organizations separately. We apply such an approach in a public sector case study using a dynamic capabilities lens, relevant given its theoretical underpinnings in value creation. Extending the IA value literature, we find that the value to the home and host differs both in type and timing, that the value to one may be detrimental to the other, and that the funding of the underlying costs of an IA is a critical feature. Understanding and assessing these factors separately is key to managing the overall combined organizational value of IAs.
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    International assignments – extending an organizational value framework
    (Emerald, 2020-06-03) Renshaw, Phil St John; Parry, Emma; Dickmann, Michael
    Purpose This study aims to present a framework relating to the organizational value of international assignments (IAs). This extends the existing framework by Lepak et al. (2007) and applies to other fields researching questions of value. Design/methodology/approach This is a conceptual paper that applies new thinking to the critical practical and theoretical issue of organizational value in global mobility (GM) and international business (IB) literature. The Lepak et al. (2007) framework is explained, used and extended to appraise the value of IAs to organizations. Findings The primary contribution is the establishment of a value framework within which future IA research can position itself, refining extant measures and thereby enabling greater cohesion in future studies. The secondary contribution, impacting beyond the field of GM, is the development of this framework, including the identification and discussion of value itself, the significance of organizational sub-levels, the extension of the definitions of isolating mechanisms and competition to explicate value capture, the importance of temporal analysis and the inclusion of value assessment. Research limitations/implications The paper is limited by its application to IAs at the organizational level only. However, the relationship with other levels is also explored. Research within different contexts or focusing on the other levels of value will increase the understanding of value. Practical implications Definitions of the value of IAs are extended, and practitioner implications are discussed. Originality/value A new framework for evaluating the organizational value of IAs and new definitions to enable this value to be assessed are produced.
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    The organisational value of international assignments.
    (Cranfield University, 2019-08) Renshaw, Phil St John; Dickmann, Michael; Parry, Emma
    Our theoretical understanding and knowledge of the field of international assignments (IAs) has expanded enormously since Edström and Galbraith’s (1977) seminal paper evaluating the reasons that organisations use expatriation. In that time many underlying features and our understanding of the IA landscape have changed. This includes the reasons to use IAs, the recognition of and increasing use of more flexible IAs such as short-term and commuter assignments, as well as a move away from the traditional HQ-subsidiary IA. Despite this, academic knowledge regarding the value that is generated for organisations using IAs is unclear. More surprisingly perhaps, practitioner consultancy surveys of Global Mobility consistently report a desire to address this issue with relatively little success. Rather the practitioner field focuses on cost issues even though they are unable to place this in a value context. As a step to resolving this imbalance, this thesis contributes to understanding the organisational value of IAs through four interconnected studies written as journal articles. The context is first established using a systematic literature review (SLR) of the field. This is then built upon by a paper addressing the confusions regarding the definition of ‘organisational value’, applying and extending an existing framework using the IA construct. Together these provide a detailed understanding of the literature field emphasising a relational perspective, an extended model for understanding organisational value, and research propositions to move the field forward. The final two papers use empirical case study interviews in the public sector to demonstrate how two different theoretical lenses, the Dynamic Capabilities View and Real Options Theory respectively, extend our theoretical understanding of the underlying phenomenon. The over-riding contribution of this thesis is its explanation of the organisational value of IAs. This value arises through the positive impacts of IAs on the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities and hence their contribution to the long term competitiveness of the organisation. Furthermore, IAs are shown to be types of real option. This theoretical positioning adds significantly to the understanding of how IAs affect organisations and offers explanations for some of the issues in the IA literature such as the negative impact of high attrition. Furthermore, this thesis demonstrates that IA organisational value needs to be considered from the combined perspectives of the home (sending party) and the host (receiving party) whilst taking a relational view. In other words the relationships between the home and the host are affected by a wide range of factors all of which have the potential to change the value to each of these parties as well as the combined total value. These factors also extend to the relational context within which the home and host sit including the value implications for other parties within their intra- organisational system. This is a distinct change to extant research which empirically considers either the host (subsidiary) or the overall organisation when assessing the organisational value of IAs. From a practitioner perspective this bifurcation of the home and the host within their relational context creates significant consequences for the implementation of IAs, the HR practices managing them and the determination of the value they create.
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    The organizational value of international assignments – the relational underpinning
    (Taylor and Francis, 2020-10-10) Renshaw, Phil St John; Parry, Emma; Dickmann, Michael
    The organizational value of international assignments (IAs), is unclear and rarely measured by organizations. We argue that taking a relational perspective may enable a greater understanding of the value of IAs to organizations. A relational perspective involves focusing upon the relationship between the home and host organizations participating in an IA. Our literature review combines separate strands of research from the fields of Human Resource Management, International Business and Global Mobility to investigate whether such a relational underpinning exists. Based on this we develop a relational framework enabling the clarification of extant knowledge and illuminating the contradictions, uncertainties and areas for further research. As a result, we offer exploratory propositions and a future research agenda to improve our knowledge and understanding of this fundamental topic. Through reframing extant knowledge of IA organizational value we enable HR departments to refine their global mobility strategies and guide their choices amongst assignment options.
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    Place - The Final Frontier: exploring the outer reaches of collaborative agency using the Japanese concept of Ba
    (SAGE, 2021-05-24) Robinson, Jennifer L.; Renshaw, Phil St John
    Scholars within the field of Leadership-as-Practice (LAP) address the way that individuals ‘transcend their own immediate embeddedness’ to achieve volitional coherence known as collaborative agency. The process of collaborative agency is described as inseparable from LAP, yet it remains a nascent field of enquiry requiring additional empirical research. This article presents an investigation of collaborative agency through an abductive case study using video ethnography and interviews. To interpret our results, we turn to the Japanese ideogram for ‘place’, known as ‘Ba’. Rather than a physical reality, Ba is considered an existential space in which leadership groups weave together to create and ripen collaborative agency. Ba guides us to look across and around a group and its socio-material practice. We find that collaborative agency is trans-subjective in nature and sits on a spectrum on which we identify the outer reaches, from one end where Ba is woven through to the other end, called Collapse. We suggest that the place of leadership is within the warp and weft of collaborative agency, including but not limited to a special place woven in Ba where collaborative agency is high and where the group reports they are able to transcend their individualism.
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    Seconded National Experts and global mobility - extending the paradigm
    (2017-11-02) Renshaw, Phil St John; Parry, Emma; Dickmann, Michael
    Global mobility is an expanding field of academic research, which identifies an increasing range of modern variants of people working abroad. The community of Seconded National Experts (SNEs) in the institutions, bodies, and agencies of the European Union (EU) is a distinct category of internationally mobile employees, which has so far been neglected. This article assesses the features of this influential group of people and compares them to other communities within the generally recognized expatriate community. The unique nature of SNEs and hence the challenges that need to be considered by human resource (HR) practitioners to ensure they achieve their desired goals at organizational and individual levels are identified. The findings suggest that expatriate typologies should be extended to include this unique community and provide further guidance to HR practitioners. Finally, areas for additional research are offered, with the aim of learning from SNEs to extend international assignment theory.
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    Teaching research philosophy: a game changer
    (Academic Conferences International Ltd, 2022-06-20) Robinson, Jennifer; Renshaw, Phil St John
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    The value of international assignments through the lens of real-options-reasoning
    (Elsevier, 2021-07-16) Renshaw, Phil St John; Dickmann, Michael; Parry, Emma
    Studies over several decades demonstrate that international assignments (IAs) are implemented for a variety of reasons and yet their total organizational value is generally not assessed nor theoretically understood. We suggest that a new theoretical approach is needed in order to understand the organizational value of IAs more fully. Using data from the financial services sector we apply real options theory to IAs and identify two organizational real options – for the home and host respectively. We argue that real-options-reasoning offers theoretical clarity to understanding the organizational value of IAs. This paper identifies new practical consequences for managers to maximize the value of their IAs and a series of research propositions to extend our comprehension of IA managerial decision-making.
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    Work, what is it good for?
    (British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy, 2021-10-31) Renshaw, Phil St John; Robinson, Jenny
    The COVID-19 pandemic has created new and different challenges for most people, both in their personal and working lives – with the increasing difficulty of identifying distinctions between the two. While some have had positive experiences of continuing to work at home or on site, others have had more negative ones, and the demands of new working patterns have triggered greater levels of stress and conflict for leaders to manage for themselves, as well as for others. This heated mix of pandemic worry, new working arrangements and demands of family or personal fraility has heightened pre-existing leadership challenges and made successful outcomes all the more difficult.