Although the rhetoric of deglobalization has been increasing, data from McKinsey's global report suggests the opposite, i.e., the world is more deeply integrated than before. The articles in this issue partly reflect this reality and offer some insightful findings. For example, Kalra and Szymanski (2023) examined the impact of language diversity on interpersonal relationships in two types of project teams – multinational and multilingual. They found language-based faultlines in both kinds of teams, and such faultlines and language-based groups can disintegrate into smaller, regional, dialect-based subgroups due to the emergence of dialect faultlines. The good news is that multilingual managers are effective in bridging the faultlines.
Focusing on expatriates and their relationship with the host country, Lehtonen, Koveshnikov, and Wechtler (2023) took a social exchange perspective to study the extent to which self-initiated expatriates’ career and community embeddedness explain their intention to stay in the host country, due to their perceived trust in the host institution and a more tolerant attitude toward workplace discrimination and found empirical support. Meanwhile, Nicklich, Endo, and Sydow (2023) adopted a comparative approach to study German and Japanese wind power sectors and found that different degrees of distance among organizational actors in these two countries result in the development of different skills that stimulate transformation in the field of energy generation.
In a study of international diversification experiences and performance effects of products, Shukla and Kumar (2023) used a longitudinal dataset of Indian firms and found that firms with superior absorptive capacity can effectively acquire and leverage knowledge from their international diversification experiences and mitigate the risks of negative transfer associated with unrelatedness in diversification experiences. In another study conducted in India, Patnaik, Mishra, and Mishra (2023) found that the relationship between perceived organizational support and employee performance was mediated by psychological capital, and organizational justice moderated that relationship such that high organizational justice had a smaller effect on employee performance than that of low organizational justice.
This issue also publishes a replication study (Guo, Wang, Wang, & Li, 2023) of Peng and Luo (2000), which studied the relationship between corporate political ties and firm performance in a transition economy by extending political ties from the individual level to the firm level. The authors not only found similarities with the original study in the mechanism of corporate political ties on firm performance but also revealed key differences in the effect size and contingent effects.
Finally, a case study is included in this issue that unpacks how responsible leadership driven by a social mission can accomplish both social objectives and financial goals to support an organization's survival. Zhang, Yi, and Dong (2023) conducted an in-depth study of a Chinese social enterprise in the healthcare industry and demonstrated how a responsible leader was able to manage the process of balancing social and economic goals.
I truly hope you enjoy reading the articles in this issue. Thank you for your continuous support!
