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EMERALD_PR_PR605900 458..473 Inclusive management in international organizations How does it affect local and expatriate academics? Charlotte Jonasson Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark Jakob Lauring Department of Management, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark, and David S.A. Guttormsen Department of Communication and Culture, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway Abstract Purpose – A growing number of academics relocate abroad to work as expatriates in the university sector. While this employee group seems to have a highly constructive influence on the performance of university organizations, some problems in relation to effective inclusion of these individuals have been noted. In order to further advance the theoretical understanding regarding integration efforts in international university organizations, the purpose of this paper is to explore how two types of inclusive management, empowering management (identity-blind) vs English management communication (identity-conscious), affect local and expatriate academics. Design/methodology/approach – Using responses generated from a survey of 792 local and 620 expatriate academics, this paper assesses the effects of inclusive management on job engagement and stress among the two groups. Findings – The results show that one type of inclusive management, empowering management (identity-blind), has a favorable influence on job engagement and stress in both subsamples. The other type, English management communication (identity-conscious), increases stress for local academics but has no effect on the expatriates. These findings are useful for theory development in relation to employee inclusion in international organizations. Originality/value – The authors have little knowledge about how inclusive management functions in international organizations. Testing the effect of identity-blind and identity-conscious inclusive management practices among two different groups of local and expatriate academics provides new insight to this area. In particular, the use of English management communication provides new knowledge on the integration of majority and minority groups in international organizations. Keywords Expatriates, Quantitative, Internationalization, Cross-cultural, International HRM, Diversity management, University academics Paper type Research paper Introduction The global mobility of expatriate academics has increased substantially along with university internationalization making this area increasingly important to the field of human resource management (Altbach et al., 2010). The relatively high degree of autonomy in their jobs and the notion that tasks can often be carried out in a similar fashion across different countries are key reasons for the expanding cross-national relocation among academics (Froese, 2012; Isakovic and Whitman, 2013). This intensification in academics’ international mobility has led to a growing interest in this group from practitioners and researchers (Richardson and McKenna, 2002; Selmer and Lauring, 2012, 2013). Over the years several studies have revealed the importance of expatriate academics for universities in terms of research productivity (Levin and Stephen, 1999; Corley and Personnel Review Vol. 47 No. 2, 2018 pp. 458-473 © Emerald Publishing Limited 0048-3486 DOI 10.1108/PR-12-2015-0323 Received 17 December 2015 Revised 23 June 2016 Accepted 5 June 2017 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm 458 PR 47,2 Sabharwal, 2007) and for global rankings used to produce various university league tables (Gress and Ilon, 2009). At the same time, an increasing attention has developed in relation to the difficulties experienced with the recruitment and retaining of expatriate academics (Altbach, 1996, 2005; Richardson and McKenna, 2000). Some of these difficulties concern the working conditions which expatriate academics are faced with as university employees. For example, Skachkova (2007) found that expatriate academics regularly experience devaluation of their contributions and exclusion from important networks that could lead to opportunities for publishing and for acquiring research grants. Interviewees in this study also described the existence of discrimination in the form of sexism, racism, and ethnocentrism. Similarly, Munene (2014) identified problems related to isolation of the foreign faculty along with minimal professional development opportunities and exclusion in research and teaching activities. Hence, a number of problems exist in relation to providing a good working environment for expatriate academics (Austin, 2003). One idea to improve this conceptually has been suggested. That is to use inclusive management practices for integrating foreign individuals into the local work culture (Devita, 2000; Mor-Barak, 2000; Lauring and Klitmøller, forthcoming). In addition to these few studies having investigated inclusive management in international organizations, a small group of studies has suggested the relevance of inclusive management for other types of minorities defined by profession, ethnicity, and gender (e.g. Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006; Nishii and Mayer, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2015). Spurred by this notion we set out to explore the role of inclusive management practices in relation to local and foreign personnel and thereby to take the first small step toward a more general theorizing about inclusive management in international organizations (cf. Feldman et al., 2006). So far only a handful of studies have dealt with inclusion in international organizations. For example, Lauring (2013) found that expatriates in Saudi Arabia reinterpreted inclusive policies from the parent company thus developing localized practices that best suited their own aims. Michailova (2002) studied two western subsidiaries in Russia and concluded that expatriates should not use empowerment and participation approaches as the cultural context did not allow for it. Both these studies qualitatively explored how superior expatriate managers exercised inclusion of the lower-level local employees. However, in order to develop a more generic theory-building concerning how inclusive management practices work in international organizations, researchers need to focus on both expatriate and local employees. This is because it cannot be assumed that expatriates will always be a dominant group facilitating the inclusion. In recent years organizations are to an increasing extent recruiting self-initiated expatriates that are not per se entering the organization at the management level (Tharenou, 2013). Self-initiated expatriates, which encompass most expatriate academics, can work in all kinds of positions in a foreign country organization (Selmer et al., 2015). Hence, in general, what distinguishes expatriate academics from local employees is not the level of power but rather the novel situation they face in the new country. An inclusive practice that may help this particular group would be to assist these international individuals to carry out their work despite lacking a full set of skills for functioning in the local context. In order to develop a better understanding of inclusion in international organizations, we argue that there is a need to focus on two different types of groups (locals and expatriates) and two different types of inclusive management practices: a general one and one that is specialized to the needs of the minority. With regard to the two different groups, only a limited amount of research has actually explored if there are any variations in how expatriate and local employees are affected by management practices. Differences between the two groups have been mentioned to be assumed rather than confirmed (Olsen and Martins, 2009). 459 Inclusive management Moreover, it can be argued that in order to understand expatriates’ work-lives better, we need to explore this group not only in isolation but to compare the expatriates to their local counterparts (Caprar, 2011). Only then will we be able to identify the difficulties which are arising from the international setting and subsequently to relate these challenges to what is generally experienced by all organization employees and what is caused by insufficient integration. Accordingly, the first step in developing a theory for inclusive management in international organizations would be to outline how such practices affect locals and expatriates, respectively. In relation to the different types of inclusive management that may be exercised in international organizations, we take departure in Konrad and Linnehan’s (1995) framework. Here inclusive management in diverse organizations is depicted as either identity-blind or identity-conscious. Identity-blind inclusion is directed toward any individual in the organization whereas identity-conscious inclusion is aimed at a group with particular needs. As an identity-blind inclusive management practice we use general empowerment fostering participation in decision making. As an identity-conscious inclusive management practice we use English language management communication as this would be an initiative facilitated primarily to include foreign organization members. To the best of our knowledge, in prior studies of inclusive management, the practice of English management communication has not been included as a type of practice. This may be due to the fact that the majority of studies of inclusive management (e.g. Nishii and Mayer, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2015; Randel et al., 2016) focus on a domestic organizational context rather than on an international setting including local and expatriate employees. In this context, English management communication can be argued to be an internationally oriented inclusion practice. When assessing the role of the two types of inclusive management among local and expatriate academics, we use the level of job engagement and stress to determine the effect. This is because such outcomes are important indicators for the well-being and productivity of employees in an organization. Theory and research questions Inclusive management Theories on inclusion have primarily been concerned with employee involvement and the integration of diversity (Verkuyten, 2005; Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006; Nishii and Mayer, 2009; Mitchell et al., 2015). Inclusive management refers to the words and actions of the manager indicating an invitation and appreciation for diverse employees’ contributions (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006). This research has specifically emphasized the inclusion of individuals fromminority groups, and an aim has been to grant them access to communication networks where they can influence decision making and adapt the organization to their special needs (Pettigrew and Martin, 1989; Mor-Barak and Cherin, 1998; Randel et al., 2016). As such, organizational inclusion research generally focuses on removing hindrances to the participation of minority group employees (Roberson, 2006). Inclusion, however, is not only for the weak or the few. Inclusive management practices can also have positive effects on majority group members making them feel empowered in the workplace (Pelled, 1996). Accordingly, Konrad and Linnehan (1995) distinguish between general inclusive management practices and inclusive practices directed toward a specific gender, race, or nationality. The general practices they label identity-blind practices. This is where no special concern is taken toward any demographic group (Konrad and Linnehan, 1995). In other words, this type of general inclusion can facilitate more participation through involvement of all organization members. In contrast, some management practices may be structured to ensure that in addition to overall individual concerns, the specific needs of a demographic group are taken into 460 PR 47,2 consideration (Konrad and Linnehan, 1995). This could be done to support the inclusion of a minority group, which may otherwise be excluded from communication networks and participation in organizational decision making (Shore et al., 2011). Hence, two different approaches to inclusion in organizations exist. There may also be different reasons for the positive effect of inclusive management. Benefit to the individual may be caused by both instrumental and symbolic outcomes of the practices. With regard to instrumental reasons, Seibert et al. (2004) pinpoint autonomy and information sharing as important reasons for why organization members want to feel included. As