The Reviewer from Hell

Citation

Selmer, J. (2019), "The Reviewer from Hell", Journal of Global Mobility, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 2-4. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-03-2019-069

The Reviewer from Hell

Many of us have encountered this reviewer, especially my senior colleagues. In the 1980s, when many of us started our publication careers, it seemed that reviewers perceived that it was their duty to stop manuscripts from being published. Eventually, both authors and editors realized that such an attitude was not in their best interest and developmental reviews started to gain ground. But the “Reviewer from Hell” can occasionally still be encountered. One way such reviewers operate is to start with an avalanche of criticism and when the author has worked tirelessly to address all of that, the reviewer responds by launching a completely new critique, focussing on concerns not mentioned during the first round of review. And this spiral of unending criticism goes on and on. At this point, it is the job of the editor to stop this charade and make a completely independent publication decision.

Fortunately, JGM reviewers originate from Heaven rather than from Hell. Developmental reviews are an essential cornerstone of the editorial policies of this journal. Many of our authors can bear witness to the substantial improvement of their manuscripts after going through the revise and resubmission process. Some of their statements can be found on the JGM website: http://emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/journals.htm?id=jgm

A new feature of JGM is an editorial review board (ERB) of dedicated specialists within our area performing highly developmental reviews. This is also done in a prompt and timely fashion, underlining the JGM policy of a one-month turnaround time for the first submission of a manuscript until a decision is made. That probably makes the journal the fastest in our area. Since JGM is the only academic journal to consistently and exclusively focus on global mobility and expatriate management, the slogan that JGM is managed “by experts for experts” becomes ever more true by introducing an expert ERB. Since the journal was launched, the editorial advisory board of JGM reads as a “who’s who” in our area and the editorial team and authors are also all specialists.

Recognized as a fast-developing newcomer, JGM went straight into the No. 2 level of the Chartered Association for Business Schools (CABS, UK) Academic Journal Guide 2018. Before this, JGM was indexed in Scopus (CiteScoreTracker February 2018: 1.91) and ESCI. The journal is also ranked by the Australian ABDC List as a B journal and ranked by the Nordic countries and Brazil.

Two special issues are scheduled for this year: “The dark side of global mobility”, edited by Benjamin Bader, Tassilo Schuster, Anna Katharina Bader, and Margaret Shaffer and “Low status expatriates” edited by Chris Brewster, Washika Haak-Saheem and Jakob Lauring.

The journal is also involved in social media featuring JGM-associated content. We have a JGM LinkedIn Group, a JGM Facebook Group (please contact Yvonne at: ymcnulty@expatresearch.com if you want to join) and a Twitter account, @JanSelmer_JGM.

Despite its specialist emphasis, JGM publishes a variety of rigorous research methods, thorough theoretical developments and focussed literature reviews. We also welcome multi-level studies and research from a variety of academic domains, as well as cross-disciplinary studies.

Unlike many other academic research journals, JGM welcomes replication studies. We believe that, as important that it is for science to break new grounds, previous discoveries must be examined again to reaffirm or disconfirm their existence. Replication studies can be of various forms, where previous results are investigated with same or different methodologies and settings as well as providing the extensions of primary research.

In this issue

The first article, authored by Lai Wan Hooi, explores the factors needed for the development of global human resources for leadership assignments in foreign subsidiaries to enhance the expatriate mission accomplishment rate. Eight senior HR managers in three financial institutions in Taiwan were interviewed and data from 28 expatriates in their overseas subsidiaries were collected by e-mail. Results indicated that organizational policies do not focus on developing global human resources. Instead, the focus is on staffing overseas subsidiaries with foreigners and Taiwanese that can speak English. While there was limited preparation of staff for expatriation, organizational policies that favoured those that were not expatriated, in terms of career progression, motivated managers to avoid international assignments. Authored by Adam Potter and Christopher Richardson, the second article suggests how ethnographic research can help conceptualize expatriate acculturation. By doing so, it increases our understanding of the expatriate’s position in relation to host country nationals, informing selection criteria, cross-cultural training programmes and support plans as they pertain to specific international assignments. The proposed PGM model highlights the value of host country national’s culture and preferences as input for selection and cross-cultural training of an expatriate worker and contributes to the body of literature that views expatriation with multiple stakeholder perspectives. The third article in this issue, written by Diana Farcas and Marta Gonçalves, aimed to develop a model of cross-cultural adaptation for emerging adult self-initiated expatriates (SIEs). Data were collected from interviews with 18 Portuguese SIEs, aged between 18 and 29 years, residing in the UK. Five dimensions of cross-cultural adaptation were identified (cultural, emotional, social, practical and work), along with 18 determinants related with four different levels: personal, interpersonal, societal and situational. This is the first model which was inductively developed, enabling a broad understanding of emerging adult SIEs’ cross-cultural adaptation, in terms of what constitutes and influences it. Written by Tinashe Timothy Harry, Nicole Dodd and Willie Chinyamurindi, the fourth article deals with self-initiated academic expatriates (SIAEs) in South Africa. The study used an interpretivist approach and data were collected through unstructured interviews of 25 SIAEs within South Africa. Through the stories and narratives, their expatriation experience seemed challenging. Their experiences were grouped into life and career experiences. The life experiences consist of immigration difficulties, family separation, social adjustment difficulties and unavailability of accommodation. Career experiences included remuneration differences, gender discrimination, limited professional development opportunities and communication difficulties. The findings are fundamental in understanding this neglected group in the extant literature and also assist in proposing possible solutions to these challenges. The fifth paper in this issue, authored by Joanne Mutter and Kaye Thorn, explores the career of the stay-at-home partner. The article examines the case where the expatriates travel for their career, while the partners are left behind. Based on semi-structured interviews with the partners of international yachtsmen, findings highlight the prioritization of the traveller’s career which could be detrimental to the career of the partner. The authors identify a new dual-career strategy; the entrepreneurial secondary career strategy, which may have the flexibility required to manage both work and family demands, and allow partners to enact their authentic career. The last article in this issue, written by Svala Gudmundsdottir, Thorhallur Orn Gudlaugsson and Gylfi Dalmann Adalsteinsson, investigates the relationship between adjustment, social support and satisfaction with life for expatriate spouses. Based on a sample of 268 European diplomatic spouses, residing all over the world, the findings reveal a significant relationship between adjustment and emotional and instrumental support as well as satisfaction with life. Since little is known about diplomatic spouses, the results will be an important first step for foreign ministries within Europe to improve their expatriate programmes and policies.

By establishing the ERB, the “Reviewer from Hell” is effectively banned from JGM. Instead, you can expect to encounter the “Reviewer from Heaven”, delivering highly developmental reviews in a prompt and timely fashion and facilitating your path to a favourable publication decision of your important manuscript. In other words, you are supported by a dedicated team of specialists making our motto for JGM a reality; managed by “experts for experts”. Hence, the new ERB contributes to establishing JGM as the leading outlet for academic research on global mobility and expatriate management.