This paper offers a historiographic and ethnographic analysis of how reflexivity, as a communicative practice and valued personality trait, has been understood, regulated, legitimised and used to control Chinese workers from the planned-economy era to the present. Using a Shanghai-based multinational company as a case study, I document how and…

Globalisation poses a challenge for businesses with linguistically diverse staff, prompting the choice of English as the default corporate language. Although many studies extensively explored the role of corporate language policy in large corporations, employees' perceptions of such policy has not been explored adequately. Fewer studies…

Globalisation has resulted in people from different parts of the world migrating from one country to another in search of better job opportunities. Countries that provide attractive job opportunities are most likely to become the major destinations of migrant workers. In Southeast Asia, Malaysia is one of the preferred destinations of economic…

Many workplaces in Vietnam, such as international non-government organisations (INGOs), where Vietnamese staff collaborate with people from different cultures, have become increasingly culturally diverse and interdisciplinary. This paper is based on the findings of broader qualitative research conducted between December 2010 and November 2012 that…

The demand for leaders able to navigate the complexity of multinational circumstances working with and through people of multicultural backgrounds is greater today than ever before. Corporations, non-governmental organizations, and governmental agencies and operations are all dealing with a globalized marketplace and economy. Work and the dynamics…

Purpose: There is a growing consensus among human resources researchers and professionals that a participative environment can enhance job satisfaction, commitment, employee motivation and productivity. Moreover, globalization has caused that organizations operate in a huge number of culturally diverse countries. Studies suggest that understanding…

Foreign language education primarily aims to cultivate learners' competence to communicate in an additional language. However, the meaning of communication competence is not entirely transparent, especially given the current neoliberal valorization of communication in the knowledge economy. The meaning of communication can be scrutinized in two…

Employee learning which is known by terms such as "human capital development" and "lifelong learning" is an aspect of post-school learning which people engage in for purposes of enhancing their work-related competencies and possibly achieve upward professional mobility. There are different views on how best employee learning…

When we consider a strategy for dealing with globalization, it can be seen that intercultural interactions and encounters are very important and appropriate as effective outcomes are expected. Therefore, the need to assess the intercultural communicative competence (ICC) of those expected to achieve these outcomes is worth consideration. This…

The rapid re-expansion of agriculture following a decade of drought highlighted long-standing unresolved issues in the Australian agriculture workforce. This paper investigates the career paths of existing farmhands, through a theoretical lens to increase our understanding of career pathways on agriculture. Semi-structured interviews were…

The proving ground of the global marketplace makes Japan and the United States more alike than most people think. Both struggle with the effects of the worldwide recession, with work forces that are losing their predictable sameness, and with the failure of tried-and-true management practices. (Author)

This document contains four papers from a symposium on the changing workplace and its relationship to human resource development (HRD). In "Globalization, Immigration and Quality of Life Dynamics for Reverse Brain Drains" (Ben-Chieh Liu, Maw Lin Lee, Hau-Lien), the factors responsible for the brain drain from Taiwan to the United States…

This document contains three papers from a symposium on different ways of learning. "How Engineers Learn in the Face of Organizational Change" (Robert Reardon) reports on a qualitative study during which nine engineers described how they learned to perform their altered roles after a major reorganization. The study findings supported…

A study examined adults' attitudes and experience related to work and the selection of a career or job. Data were gathered through a telephone survey of a sample of 1,003 adults (659 employed either full- or part-time), 18 years of age and older, conducted in June and July 1999. The following areas were explored: current employment status; the…