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Leveraging Values in Global Organizations: Premises, Paradoxes and Progress

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Abstract

In this focused issue on the theme of “Leveraging Values in Global Organizations”, we highlight several prevalent themes on national, organizational and individual values in the literature. We argue that many premises in the literature have been accepted as fact; yet there are still many avenues open to exploration. We present several paradoxes that are often overlooked or lead to inconsistencies in the literature on values. The five articles in this focused issue address these premises and paradoxes, presenting new challenges and opportunities, providing progress and paving the way for future research on leveraging values in global organizations. The selected articles explore values with respect to international alliances and subsidiaries of multinational organizations at the organizational level, among global managers at the group level, and among employees and inpatriates at the individual level of analysis. We trust that readers of this issue will agree that the articles provide novel insights into key issues in the established, yet dynamic, field of research on values in the context of global organizations.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to start by expressing our gratitude to Professor Elizabeth Rose for her support when this focused issue on Leveraging values in global organizations was initiated. Additionally, we thank her for helpful statistical reviews of the papers, and for providing the authors with detailed suggestions and comments during the workshop. We are especially grateful to all the reviewers (names listed below) for their insightful and constructive comments on the papers submitted to this focused issue. Reviewers can never be thanked enough for taking the time to share their expertise and provide authors with developmental reviews. This work has greatly benefitted the authors and the guest editorial team of this focused issue. Thank you!.

The process of bringing this focused issue to publication has been more prolonged than what any of the editors, or the authors envisioned at the onset of this endeavor. We therefore would like to express our appreciation to the authors and to the MIR Editors-in-Chief Professors Joachim Wolf and Michael-Jörg Oesterle, for their patience and supportive comments throughout the whole process. Additionally, we have a special note of thanks to Stefan Doetsch, assistant to the editorial office who took us through the last phase of the process, and to Sebastian Jilke, who took over from Stefan and helped us make it over the finishing line.

We would like to thank Peter Edlund who helped organize the pre-publication workshop, the wonderful staff and premises at Sigtuna Folkhögskola in Sigtuna, Sweden, and the Department of Business Studies, Uppsala for support with materials. Finally, we are grateful to and would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by the Swedish Science Foundation (Vetenskapsrådet) for the workshop, which was funded together with Professor Lena Zander’s research in the project: ‘Culture in Global Organizations: A study of leadership, philosophies, and core values in companies’ attempts to manage multiculturalism in the workplace’.

List of reviewers

Zeynep Aycan

Shlomo Ben Hur

Iris Berdrow

Allan Bird

Henrik Dellestrand

Jesper Edman

Laura Erkkilä

Stacey Fitzsimmons

Anne Marie Francesco

Magnus Frostenson

Stephan Gerschewski

Sonia Ghumman

Vipin Gupta

Sujin K. Horwitz

Lucas Humphries

Kate Hutchings

Kiyohiko Ito

Kohyar Kiazad

Sowon Celeste Kim-Crettex

Catherine Kwantes

Jakob Lauring

Yih-teen Lee

Orly Levy

Kevin Lo

Alex Luksyte

Svjetlana Madzar

Kristiina Mäkelä

Martha Maznevski

Yvonne McNulty

Christof Miska

Susan Mohammed

Fiona Moore

Andre Pekerti

Daria Podmetina

Markus Pudelko

Nagarajan Ramamoorthy

Hussain Rammal

Sebastian Reiche

Susan Schneider

Joanna Scott-Kennel

Janet Shaner

Maxwell Smith

Ciara Sutton

Norihiko Takeuchi

Ahu Tatli

Sully Taylor

Markus Vodosek

Davina Vora

Todd Weber

Anna Lupina Wegener

Catherine Welch

Sachiko Yamao

Peter Zettinig

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Lena Zander

  2. IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Karsten Jonsen

  3. Monash Business School, Monash University, Caulfield, Australia

    Audra I. Mockaitis

Authors
  1. Lena Zander
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  2. Karsten Jonsen
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  3. Audra I. Mockaitis
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Correspondence to Lena Zander.

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Zander, L., Jonsen, K. & Mockaitis, A.I. Leveraging Values in Global Organizations: Premises, Paradoxes and Progress. Manag Int Rev 56, 149–169 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11575-015-0277-0

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