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      Non-traditional international assignments, knowledge and innovation: an exploratory study of women's experiences

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            Abstract

            For many multinational corporations (MNCs), sustainable competitive advantage resides in an MNC's ability to innovate; that is, to create new knowledge, integrate it with an existing knowledge base and exploit the resulting knowledge bundles across national borders. Traditionally, a key mechanism by which knowledge is transferred across borders and recombined works through expatriate assignments. There is, however, a growing trend towards alternative forms of international assignments, such as flexpatriates, commuters, frequent flyers and self-initiated expatriates. We ask how the use of such non-traditional international assignments affects knowledge creation and transfer in MNCs and hence innovation, which we construe as both idea generation and implementation. Our exploratory study draws on the experiences of five women living in Spain who undertook various forms of international assignment in MNCs with differing administrative heritages, working in consultancy and engineering fields. Our findings point to variations in the type and quality of knowledge generated across different forms of international assignments, and draw attention to the socially embedded, informal interactions underpinning much knowledge transfer and recombination. Our findings are also suggestive of a gendered element to knowledge creation and transfer, and how these activities may be perceived by the senior management of MNCs. Our concluding conjecture is that within each form of international assignment, women's contributions to the innovative efforts of MNCs may have somewhat less to do with formal management practices, and may even, at times, be in spite of them.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Contributors
            Journal
            10.2307/j50022063
            prometheus
            Prometheus
            Pluto Journals
            0810-9028
            1470-1030
            1 September 2015
            : 33
            : 3 ( doiID: 10.1080/prometheus.33.issue-3 )
            : 277-303
            Affiliations
            [ a ]Department of International Business and Asian Studies, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia;
            [ b ]Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia
            Article
            08109028.2015.1122952
            10.1080/08109028.2015.1122952
            27b0c6db-49e3-452b-a60e-c58621e3d588
            © 2015 Pluto Journals

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            Custom metadata
            eng

            Computer science,Arts,Social & Behavioral Sciences,Law,History,Economics

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