In this conceptual paper, we aim to develop a much needed ethical research agenda for international Human Resource Management (HRM), given that the changing geopolitical dynamics interrogate the political role of multinational companies and the ethical stance they take in their HRM practices. To theoretically ground this agenda, we turn to cosmopolitanism and distinguish three main perspectives-political, cultural, and social-each of which implies a different understanding of the self-other relation in the context of the global world. We translate the core and ethical stance of each perspective to the field of international HRM, presenting three different foci of an ethical research agenda in terms of the ethical implications for multinational companies, research focus, methodological suggestions, and inherent limitations.
This paper aims to uncover the normative assumptions that guide language
studies in international business. Relying on sociolinguistics and cosmopolitan
theory, we point to the possibility of conceiving language as a social practice
rather than a discrete entity, and understanding globalization as the entanglement
between universality and particularity rather than treating these two
notions separately. Combining these linguistic and global assumptions, we arrive
at three different research approaches to study linguistic performances in global
work settings: monological lingua franca, monological multilingualism and
multilingual franca. As the latter approach is unexplored, we develop the third
option which underlines a human-centered multilingualism that conceives
language as a social activity in which speakers mobilize multiple linguistic
resources to express voice. The advantages of such an approach are its ability to
capture the complexities of contemporary global life and its emphasis on a new
understanding of multilingualism and diversity that truly goes beyond any
kind of monolingualism. In terms of practice implications, a multilingual franca
approach provides space for emancipatory politics through allowing mixed
language use.
This paper argues that organizational identification is more ambiguous than currently depicted in the literature, especially as people try to make sense of their multiple organizational affiliations over the course of their careers. Based on the detailed analysis of ex-consultants’ career narratives, and especially the interplay of multiple, partly conflicting positioning practices through which they express proximity and/or distance towards a past and present working context, this study provides a nuanced understanding of how ambiguous organizational identifications arise in the first place. Rather than problematizing these ambiguous identifications as undesirable for organizations and their members, the study aspires to make space for ambiguity by rethinking identification from a career perspective which is sensitive to aspects of temporality and change, thereby providing a more dynamic conceptualization of organizational identification in the contemporary workplace.
