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To enlarge the focus on international mentoring beyond traditional company-assigned expatriates, this conceptual paper examines important contexts and dynamics of intercultural mentoring involving traditional expatriates and host country nationals (HCNs), with both as mentors and mentees.

This conceptual paper explores how intercultural mentoring in different contexts can guide the individual professional development of expatriates and HCNs, and in doing so, contributes to MNC knowledge management and organization development.

Major contributions of this paper include increased attention to the role of culture in mentoring, and an illumination of important intercultural mentoring opportunities and imperatives involving traditional company-assigned expatriates and HCNs, who are key global talent players in MNC knowledge management and overall operations performance. This paper also provides practical recommendations on how organizations can facilitate mentoring within a global context, as well as suggestions for viable avenues for future research, including further extending the global talent reach of international mentoring.

This paper emphasizes the importance of taking the intercultural context into account when planning and managing mentoring in MNCs and outlines how culture can affect mentoring relationships involving traditional company-assigned expatriates and HCNs. This contextual aspect has often been neglected in the extant literature, yet can be crucial for the success of mentoring relationships that cross cultural borders. With its inclusion of HCNs, this paper also expands the picture of international mentoring beyond the traditional focus on company-assigned expatriates.

Most studies of expatriates have explored global careers as unfolding within assigned or self-initiated expatriation contexts in a predominantly linear fashion. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize that expatriates’ career progression is facilitated by frequent moves between domains, with an increasing overlap among assigned-expatriate (AE) and self-initiated expatriate (SIE) contexts.

Underpinned by findings from extant literature, the authors review and integrate studies of expatriation and careers to conceptualize an AE-SIE career continuum.

The authors debunk the idea that AEs and SIEs are a type of expatriate per se, but instead is indicative only of their career orientation in terms of where they choose to sit on the AE-SIE career continuum at any point in time. Specifically, individuals pursuing global careers in international labor markets include up to eight types of expatriate who retain varying degrees of AE vs SIE characteristics dependent on the point they choose along the continuum.

The tension that dynamic global careers cause for multinational enterprises (MNEs) is not necessarily “bad”, and that by accepting and accommodating changes in career orientation MNEs will be able to make clearer and more consistent global staffing decisions.

The authors provide a new, improved conceptualization of linear and non-linear global careers and of the challenges global career actors face throughout their career development both at home and abroad. They further show that while career orientation explains why expatriates engage in various types of international work experiences, their typology adds explication of the various types of expatriate who pursue global careers.

Transorganisational groups can be characterised by formal meetings, often sponsored by professional associations, professional colleague networks, consulting firms, or research institutes; the central purpose is the advancement of professional knowledge. The author reports his experience of such groups in the USA with the Marketing Science Institute. The incidental yet valuable learning benefits for the participants are explored.

Storytelling, which is widely recognised as having a powerful influence upon learning in organisations, should be formalised to promote a more systematic, predictable individual learning and change process. The training function represents a natural arena where formalisation can take place. Four ways are described in which storytelling as part of formal training can contribute to more effective individual learning in organisations, which in turn may contribute to successful organisational change and performance.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the emerging international career phenomenon of the “expat-preneur,” an individual temporarily living abroad who initiates an international new venture (self-employment) opportunity in a host country.

This analysis is based on the authors’ observance of developing trends that also are showcased in the international management and IHRM literatures.

Two general types of expat-preneurs are proposed: first, pre-departure expat-preneurs who move abroad with a preconceived entrepreneurial purpose; and second, transitioned expat-preneurs who, only while abroad, recognize and pursue a new venture opportunity, either from the status of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) looking for local employment or while serving as organization-assigned expatriates and leaving the organization at the end of the assignment or midstream.

Distinctions between expat-preneurs and typical business SIEs are explored, and important contributions that expat-preneurs may provide in strengthening local host country economies are considered. Directions for further systematic and empirical research on the expat-preneur international career phenomenon are discussed.

Important mutually beneficial implications are noted for multinationals in supporting expat-preneurs’ long-term success in host country environments.

This conceptual study provides a valuable recognition and analysis of an important and growing international career category that has received scant attention in the literature. This research has important implications for the understanding of new international career dynamics associated with the growing trend of international entrepreneurship, especially valuable for emerging markets and of interest to multinational firms interested in the movement of their human capital.

The social context of expatriation is crucial for expatriate success, including for building local host country national (HCN) social network support that can facilitate effective adjustment through information exchange. However, expatriates have particular difficulties in breaking out of the expatriate bubble and building social ties with HCNs in certain countries, especially in Scandinavia. This paper focuses on the case of Denmark and explains why many expatriates find it difficult to make social connections with Danes.

This study involves a meta-ethnography of literature on Danish culture, as well as semistructured interviews with a total of 16 expatriates in Denmark.

Three main cultural elements are identified as crucial for explaining the difficulty expatriates face in connecting with Danes, namely homogeneity, the value placed on equality and the public–private divide. The homogeneity and inward-looking mentality make it more difficult for outsiders to break into the social circle. Outsiders have to earn the trust that is difficult to obtain, reflecting Denmark's high score on GLOBE's institutional collectivism.

In light of the challenges that many expatriates face in creating a new social network abroad, organizations can support them in several ways. The authors discuss context-specific strategies for making new social connections in Denmark, which may be usefully applied in other countries.

This study focuses on the context of expatriate social network formation and shows that cultural differences in socializing affect the ease with which expatriates can make connections with HCNs, who can have a positive impact on expatriate adjustment and performance success.

This study compared the perceptions of US, German, Korean, and Mexican managers on six different survey items assessing the business success viability of female US expatriates. The US managers’ perceptions were generally less positive than those held by their foreign counterparts who represented the actual foreign business environment in their regions, suggesting a possible unfounded selection bias against US women and an unnecessary career obstacle. Furthermore, gender played a significant role in the US sample in assessing the perceived viability of American US expatriates, with female US managers expressing a more favorable attitude.

The purpose of this paper is to examine strengths and limitations of current experiential approaches for enhancing international business education, and propose a new, particularly cost‐effective approach grounded in the travel and tourism industry and specific context of international cruises.

This study combines an analysis of current literature with an examination of actual case experience.

A particularly successful short‐term experiential learning approach was used at a private university in southern California that is focused on the specific international business context of the international cruise industry within travel and tourism. The authors believe that this approach has significant merit to be included as a viable option for helping students develop important international business competencies required to compete in an increasingly global marketplace. With its specific focus on the international cruise industry and experiential travel agency operational design, this approach provides not only the opportunity to learn about general culture and business environments in the areas of travel, but also allows the practical application of many international and domestic business concepts and skills within a specific global industry context.

The present study is limited to a very few experiences and within the international cruise industry. Future applied research in international business education should provide more rigorous analyses for verifying intended student learning outcomes, as well as examine applications within other contexts within the growing field of international travel and tourism.

The approach described here provides practical information for developing similar experiential coursework for enhancing international business education, and is particularly useful for smaller educational institutions that may lack the ability to offer and participate fully in more extensive options such as study abroad and international internships.

The approach described in the paper provides a highly relevant context for international business experiential education that is economical for students and schools alike.

Researchers and organisational practitioners must become partners in the research effort; both parties must accept the other's knowledge as valid information. A process model is presented, based on applied research, for use in various disciplines of applied research where co‐operation between academic and practitioner is paramount, and where both become members of research steering groups. Recommendations are made on how such groups can become effective in operation and for further research.