Current Issues in International HRM: Alternative Forms of Assignments, Careers and Talent Management in a Global Context

The German Journal of Research in Human Resource Management is the highest ranked German journal covering research on all issues related to Human Resource Management (HRM) and is listed by the SSCI. The Special Issues published in English receive considerable attention both in Germany and across Europe.

This Special Issue is dedicated to current issues in international HRM: Global assignments, global careers and global talent management. These topics have gained tremendous importance due to the increasing globalization of the world economy and the war for internationally qualified talent. This not only applies to multinational enterprises, but also to small- and medium-sized enterprises, as senior managers are challenged to attract and retain global talent.

We seek to publish research articles that deepen our understanding of phenomena related to global assignments, global careers and global talent management from both individual and from organizational perspectives. Individual perspectives include challenges of various types of assignments and their management. Papers on global careers might address, for example, the success of international assignments, female careers in international management, or cross-cultural learning processes of expatriates. The organizational perspective comprises various functional areas in IHRM, including the most important practice, global talent management. However, topics such as expatriate management and global performance management are also related to global assignments, global careers, and talent management.

The objective of this Special Issue is to draw together scholars who are working at the forefront of this research domain. This includes strong theoretical, conceptual and/or empirical papers using quantitative or qualitative approaches in order to advance our knowledge of international HRM – especially with regard to global assignments, global careers, and global talent management.

As an illustrative (but not exhaustive) list of themes/topics we hope to see addressed in this special issue are:
•    Various types of assignments (traditional, self-initiated assignments, etc.)
•    Expatriation and repatriation for various types of assignments
•    International careers
•    Female careers in international management
•    Global performance management
•    Global talent management
•    Cross-cultural training methods
•    Cross-cultural learning
•    Human resource development strategies
•    A comparative approach to human resource development
•    Any additional theoretical, empirical, review or model-building contributions in international human resource development (broadly defined).

Submissions
In order to be considered for publication in this Special Issue, an abstract of two pages should be sent to the editors by 15 July, 2012. The submission process is competitive, and the Editors will review the abstracts and contact authors with an invitation to submit full manuscripts. Abstracts and full papers should be written in English.
The deadline for the full papers is 31 December, 2012. The papers will undergo a double-blind review process. Submitted papers must represent original work that is unpublished and not currently submitted or under review for possible publication in other journals. Formal guidelines for final submission are available from: www.Hampp-Verlag.de or www.zfp-personalforschung.de. Publication is scheduled in late 2013.