“Play it again, Sam”: the case for replication studies

Citation

Selmer, J. (2016), "“Play it again, Sam”: the case for replication studies", Journal of Global Mobility, Vol. 4 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/JGM-04-2016-0014

"Play it again, Sam": the case for replication studies

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Global Mobility, Volume 4, Issue 2.

"Doing it again" is widely regarded as inferior in much of the social sciences, although replication research is very common in many disciplines outside this sphere, especially in the natural sciences. Some of us may have received a rejection letter from an academic journal explaining that our submission is merely a replication study and the journal in question does not publish such papers. This is a mistaken point of view of editors and reviewers in our field because the benefits of replications are undisputable. In fact, replication research is at the very core of the scientific method that is based on the crucial principle of reproducibility, promoting empirical generalization that develops our knowledge. Without it, the literature will abound with piecemeal results of unknown validity. Unfortunately, there are few replication studies within our area, as in the rest of the social sciences. This provides an opportunity for the Journal of Global Mobility (JGM) to uphold one of the most important principles of the scientific method.

JGM offers a better service than many established academic journals through a prompt and professional revise and resubmit process. Since JGM is also the only specialist research journal that exclusively focusses on global mobility and expatriate management issues, JGM is proud to be an outlet "for experts, by experts." Submitted manuscripts are reviewed by experts in the area and authors receive high quality, developmental feedback.

JGM aims to publish special issues to feature important but under-researched topics. Our special issue this year, "Expatriates in context: expanding perspectives on the expatriate situation" with Fabian Froese and Soo Min Toh as guest editors, contributes to filling important research gaps in the extant literature. In 2017, we will publish two special issues: "Beyond corporate expatriation: examining neglected non-corporate communities", edited by Yvonne McNulty, Kelly Fisher, and Charles Vance as well as "Dangerous moves and risky international assignments", edited by Luisa Helena Pinto, Benjamin Bader, and Tassilo Schuster.

A broad spectrum of rigorous research methods applied to empirical research is welcome at JGM but we are also interested in publishing thorough theoretical developments and focussed literature reviews. Research at various levels of analysis – individual, team, organizational, or even national – are also of interest to the journal. Last, but not least, we would like to publish research from a variety of academic domains, not only from business and management, as well as cross-disciplinary studies.

In this issue

The first article, authored by Jodie-Lee Trembath, is a literature review of expatriate academics. With the increasing internationalization of higher education, this paper provides a much needed update about what is known about academic expatriates. Based on 23 studies, this is the first article to aggregate the results of the literature on expatriate academics, presenting a clear definition and description to aid future research and clarify the emerging research stream. Authors of the next paper are Riana Schreuders-van den Bergh and Yvonne Du Plessis. Based on data from 21 female SIEs, living and working in the Netherlands, allocated to two focus groups, the role of motivational cultural intelligence in the experiential learning and cross-cultural adjustment of SIE women is explored. Findings especially emphasize the importance of reinvention, self-efficacy, and goal-setting as motivational strategies. Succeeding that article, Annamaria Kubovcikova presents a methods paper on the dimensionality and internal consistency of the widely used three-dimensional adjustment scale by Stewart Black and colleagues. Examining content differences and data-model fit adjustment between reflective and formative measures using structural equation modeling on newly collected data from 468 assigned expatriates in Asia, the study presents some novel conclusions about the stability and consistency of the adjustment scale. The next article, authored by Zaza Nadja Lee Hansen and Lauge Baungaard Rasmussen, advances our understanding of mentoring of expatriates. Based on 37 semi-structured interviews with employees from three large Danish companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including expatriates, mentors and HR personnel, relevant types of guidance and the areas of mentoring are outlined. Besides these findings, home and host international mentoring are also compared. The authors of the next article, Charles Vance, Yvonne McNulty, Yongsun Paik, and Jason D’Mello, respond to the increasing scholarly and practice interest in self-initiated expatriates by attempting to delineate SIE entrepreneurs from other types of SIEs. They suggest that expat-preneurs is one type of business SIEs, among others, differentiating them from other kinds of SIEs as well as immigrant entrepreneurs. Using case examples, they propose two general types of expat-preneurs: pre-departure expat-preneurs (who move abroad with a preconceived entrepreneurial purpose) and transitioned expat-preneurs (who, only while abroad, recognize and pursue a new venture opportunity). The last article, authored by Susan Shortland and Stephen J. Perkins, address the issue of women expatriates and the international assignment reward policy and its practical application. Through a qualitative research study from the oil and gas exploration and production industry, the authors find that expatriate "balance sheet" policy lead to unintended assignee dissatisfaction and potentially affect women’s future expatriate participation decisions.

In the classic 1942 film, Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, the former’s character is commonly believed to have said: "Play it again, Sam." In fact, nobody says this. Although the mystery of this modern legend is intriguing enough, it is reminiscent of the mistaken opposition from editors and reviewers of top-tier academic research journals to publish replication studies. But since replications are widely accepted in many disciplines outside the social sciences, and their advantages are undisputable, JGM welcomes such studies, especially if they replicate widely debated topics of importance to our field. Being in the forefront of the development of research on expatriate management or other issues of global mobility, JGM is proud to take up this challenge that is spurned by many of our competitors. After passing the regular double-blind review process, the journal will publish such papers, whether they report findings that support or refute previous research published in JGM or elsewhere. We are convinced that this initiative will attract even more reputable scholars as authors and readers by creating expert content for experts.

Jan Selmer