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Papers by Jodie-Lee Trembath
European Journal of International Management (in press)
Research on Perceived Organisational Support (POS) rarely focuses on the potential gap between em... more Research on Perceived Organisational Support (POS) rarely focuses on the potential gap between employee perceptions versus the support the organisation purports to offer. An understanding of this may provide greater insight into the interventions a university should be making if it hopes to improve retention of its expatriate academics. By analysing qualitative responses to a written questionnaire, this paper explores the perceptions of organisational support held by 163 expatriate academics employed at a large international Danish university, and compares these perceptions to the support the university claims to offer. Our study reveals that, in the case of expatriate academics, even extensive offerings of organisational support can be insufficient if the existence and specific benefits of the support are not adequately communicated, and if the academics do not trust the source of the support on offer. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Journal of Global Mobility, 2017
Purpose – While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teach... more Purpose – While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teachers with daily contact to local students seems to have been largely ignored when examining their adjustment and work outcomes. Based on the job demands-resources model the authors predict that good teacher-student relations, as a supportive job resource, will have a positive effect on expatriate academics’ job satisfaction. This effect, however, will be even stronger for individuals experiencing high job demands and challenges in terms of intercultural job adjustment. In other words, expatriate academics that have difficulties adjusting will benefit more from the social support that can originate from good relations to their students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors surveyed expatriate academics adjusting to a university position in China by use of 124 responses from foreign university employees.
Findings – The authors found that teacher-student relations had a positive association with job satisfaction and that positive teacher-student relations increased job satisfaction more for individuals being slow to adjust.
Originality/value – This is one of the few papers to explore the impact that students can have on expatriate academics and treat this relationship as a potential resource for universities to capitalize upon in socializing their new foreign academic staff members.
The Unfamiliar, 2017
This paper explores the notion of the human-technology hybrid, seeking to understand how 'smart' ... more This paper explores the notion of the human-technology hybrid, seeking to understand how 'smart' technologies are enmeshed with humans in their fleshier forms to assemble different identities from moment to moment. One participant – Associate Professor Inger Mewburn, Director of Research Training (DRT) at a research-intensive university and founder of the blog The Thesis Whisperer – was shadowed as she interacted with the human and non-human actants within her network to produce and sustain various identities. The goal of the study was to illuminate aspects of the DRT's working day that are not accounted for in her job description or performance plan, but are crucial to her success in her role; that is to say, the 'invisible work' that she undertakes, and the ways in which she enrolls, translates and works with or against various technologies — and they, her. In exploring three forms of invisible work – a) where the employee is visible but the work is invisible, b) where the employee is invisible but the work is visible, and c) where both work and employee are invisible – we argue that it is critical for university administrators to understand the invisible work that human/smart technology hybrids are doing within academic environments in order to best manage their rapidly changing workforces and the organizational climates in which they work.
Journal of Global Mobility: The Home of Expatriate Management Research, 2016
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide clarity around the notion of the expatriate acad... more Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide clarity around the notion of the expatriate academic (EA), a construct that is increasingly essential to theories of expatriate management and higher education management. A review of the literature on academic mobility showed that terms such as "international academic" and "foreign faculty" provide highly variable definitions and results, while those papers that self-consciously used the term "EA" were more likely to provide consistency across definition and findings. This allowed for analysis of the characteristics of this unique group. Design/methodology/approach -This study appropriates a meta-narrative approach to literature review, analysing 23 papers about EAs to develop a more comprehensive conceptualisation of this term and to identify key-related themes. Findings -By reviewing 23 papers identifying with the term, a carefully constructed definition of the EA is provided, distinguishing EAs from other types of internationally mobile academic and demonstrating characteristics that EAs display in their professional lives. Recommendations are made to researchers, universities and EAs themselves for how these findings may affect the EA employment cycle. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Originality/value -This is the first paper to aggregate the results of literature on EAs, putting forward a clear definition and description to aid future research and clarify the research stream.
Conference Presentations by Jodie-Lee Trembath
WANTED: Students to do the University Life survey 2010…" The use of behaviour, motivation and per... more WANTED: Students to do the University Life survey 2010…" The use of behaviour, motivation and persuasion theories to increase student participation in a university experience survey: an internal communication campaign in Vietnam Jodie-Lee Trembath 2010 Extended Abstract Overview -This paper contributes to the international literature on survey administration in a Vietnamese university setting. Theories of behaviour, motivation and persuasion were used to design activities to maximise survey responses and the success factors are reported here. Purpose -This paper explores the theories of behaviour, motivation and persuasion used to develop an internal communication campaign at an international university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The campaign, conducted by a group of undergraduate
This paper presents an insight into the activities and interests of expatriates living in Vietnam... more This paper presents an insight into the activities and interests of expatriates living in Vietnam with a view to developing apposite marketing and consumer behaviour insights. A content analysis and subsequent discourse analysis were conducted on a popular magazine targeting this group. Thirty-three categories of interests based on our original literature review were developed. These categories were examined using content analysis and were partially confirmed by the ensuing discourse analysis. Six of the original categories did not appear to be supported, however an argument was made that these categories reflected latent (and thus potentially unknown or unacknowledged) interests. The results of this study should assist Vietnamese marketers in attracting the increasingly lucrative and liquid expatriate worker market, while potentially also assisting with internal communications in cross-cultural workplaces.
Around the world, universities are imbuing their strategic plans with an international focus, cit... more Around the world, universities are imbuing their strategic plans with an international focus, citing curricula that are more inclusive, more multicultural, more globalised, and more culturally sensitive; providing more opportunities for students to engage with an international community. This includes the Australian tertiary public relations sector -the focus of interest in this paper -of which we will ask the following question: does the literature around internationalisation in the PR curriculum in Australia accurately reflect the reality of classroom practice?
This paper offers a critical, systematic review of the literature on the professional experiences... more This paper offers a critical, systematic review of the literature on the professional experiences of expatriate academics published since the year 2000. It provides both thematic analysis and assessment of research quality in an attempt to draw conclusions about the current state and future directions of this steadily growing field. Universities around the globe are becoming progressively more internationally focused, and one aspect of this internationalisation process is the more frequent employment of an international faculty. This presents both opportunities and challenges for internationalised universities, whose HR-related tasks must increasingly account for cultural diversity amongst academic staff members. Equally, the life of an expatriate academic seems also to be filled with uncertainty, and this is experienced by this unique cohort as both a positive challenge and a threat to be minimized. In addition, this paper demonstrates areas of continued uncertainty and opportunity in the research of expatriate academics.
While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teachers with d... more While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teachers with daily contact to local students seems to have been ignored when examining their adjustment and work outcomes. Here, we focus on how teacher-student relations affect expatriate academics'
job performance and job satisfaction. Moreover, we study the moderating effect of intercultural job adjustment and time to proficiency. We do this because good teacher-student relations could be a useful job resource for emotional and instrumental social support for expatriate academics.
We surveyed expatriate academics adjusting to a university position in China by use of 124 responses from foreign university employees. We found that teacher-student relations had positive associations with job performance and job satisfaction. We also found that teacher-student
relations increased job satisfaction more for individuals with a slow time to proficiency.
Relatively little research exists on expatriate academics and so far relations to students have not been paid much attention.
This paper reports the findings of a pilot study, undertaken to experiment with the combined use ... more This paper reports the findings of a pilot study, undertaken to experiment with the combined use of shadowing as a method and Actor-Network Theory as a philosophy, within the context of the Research Training Division of a research-intensive university. One participant - the Director of Research Training (DRT) - was shadowed as she interacted with the human and non-human actants to produce and sustain various identities. This method and philosophy were chosen in the hope that together they would illuminate aspects of the DRT's working day that are not accounted for in her job description or performance plan, but are crucial to her success in her role; that is to say, the 'invisible work' that she undertakes, and the ways in which she enrols, translates and works with or against various technologies - and they, her.
Book Chapters by Jodie-Lee Trembath
We begin the chapter discussing what distinguishes academics as expatriates. Next, we present the... more We begin the chapter discussing what distinguishes academics as expatriates. Next, we present the status of the field of expatriate academics, including their demographic features, motivations to move abroad, career-related risks of expatriation, experiences at the work place and their work outcomes as well as the experiences of expatriate academics. This is followed by a discussion of the theoretical development of the field and types of further research required. Lastly, we conclude by emphasizing that expatriate academics may experience something quite unique and academic scholars may want to pay more attention to their own situation.
European Journal of International Management (in press)
Research on Perceived Organisational Support (POS) rarely focuses on the potential gap between em... more Research on Perceived Organisational Support (POS) rarely focuses on the potential gap between employee perceptions versus the support the organisation purports to offer. An understanding of this may provide greater insight into the interventions a university should be making if it hopes to improve retention of its expatriate academics. By analysing qualitative responses to a written questionnaire, this paper explores the perceptions of organisational support held by 163 expatriate academics employed at a large international Danish university, and compares these perceptions to the support the university claims to offer. Our study reveals that, in the case of expatriate academics, even extensive offerings of organisational support can be insufficient if the existence and specific benefits of the support are not adequately communicated, and if the academics do not trust the source of the support on offer. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Journal of Global Mobility, 2017
Purpose – While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teach... more Purpose – While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teachers with daily contact to local students seems to have been largely ignored when examining their adjustment and work outcomes. Based on the job demands-resources model the authors predict that good teacher-student relations, as a supportive job resource, will have a positive effect on expatriate academics’ job satisfaction. This effect, however, will be even stronger for individuals experiencing high job demands and challenges in terms of intercultural job adjustment. In other words, expatriate academics that have difficulties adjusting will benefit more from the social support that can originate from good relations to their students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors surveyed expatriate academics adjusting to a university position in China by use of 124 responses from foreign university employees.
Findings – The authors found that teacher-student relations had a positive association with job satisfaction and that positive teacher-student relations increased job satisfaction more for individuals being slow to adjust.
Originality/value – This is one of the few papers to explore the impact that students can have on expatriate academics and treat this relationship as a potential resource for universities to capitalize upon in socializing their new foreign academic staff members.
The Unfamiliar, 2017
This paper explores the notion of the human-technology hybrid, seeking to understand how 'smart' ... more This paper explores the notion of the human-technology hybrid, seeking to understand how 'smart' technologies are enmeshed with humans in their fleshier forms to assemble different identities from moment to moment. One participant – Associate Professor Inger Mewburn, Director of Research Training (DRT) at a research-intensive university and founder of the blog The Thesis Whisperer – was shadowed as she interacted with the human and non-human actants within her network to produce and sustain various identities. The goal of the study was to illuminate aspects of the DRT's working day that are not accounted for in her job description or performance plan, but are crucial to her success in her role; that is to say, the 'invisible work' that she undertakes, and the ways in which she enrolls, translates and works with or against various technologies — and they, her. In exploring three forms of invisible work – a) where the employee is visible but the work is invisible, b) where the employee is invisible but the work is visible, and c) where both work and employee are invisible – we argue that it is critical for university administrators to understand the invisible work that human/smart technology hybrids are doing within academic environments in order to best manage their rapidly changing workforces and the organizational climates in which they work.
Journal of Global Mobility: The Home of Expatriate Management Research, 2016
Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide clarity around the notion of the expatriate acad... more Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide clarity around the notion of the expatriate academic (EA), a construct that is increasingly essential to theories of expatriate management and higher education management. A review of the literature on academic mobility showed that terms such as "international academic" and "foreign faculty" provide highly variable definitions and results, while those papers that self-consciously used the term "EA" were more likely to provide consistency across definition and findings. This allowed for analysis of the characteristics of this unique group. Design/methodology/approach -This study appropriates a meta-narrative approach to literature review, analysing 23 papers about EAs to develop a more comprehensive conceptualisation of this term and to identify key-related themes. Findings -By reviewing 23 papers identifying with the term, a carefully constructed definition of the EA is provided, distinguishing EAs from other types of internationally mobile academic and demonstrating characteristics that EAs display in their professional lives. Recommendations are made to researchers, universities and EAs themselves for how these findings may affect the EA employment cycle. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Originality/value -This is the first paper to aggregate the results of literature on EAs, putting forward a clear definition and description to aid future research and clarify the research stream.
WANTED: Students to do the University Life survey 2010…" The use of behaviour, motivation and per... more WANTED: Students to do the University Life survey 2010…" The use of behaviour, motivation and persuasion theories to increase student participation in a university experience survey: an internal communication campaign in Vietnam Jodie-Lee Trembath 2010 Extended Abstract Overview -This paper contributes to the international literature on survey administration in a Vietnamese university setting. Theories of behaviour, motivation and persuasion were used to design activities to maximise survey responses and the success factors are reported here. Purpose -This paper explores the theories of behaviour, motivation and persuasion used to develop an internal communication campaign at an international university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The campaign, conducted by a group of undergraduate
This paper presents an insight into the activities and interests of expatriates living in Vietnam... more This paper presents an insight into the activities and interests of expatriates living in Vietnam with a view to developing apposite marketing and consumer behaviour insights. A content analysis and subsequent discourse analysis were conducted on a popular magazine targeting this group. Thirty-three categories of interests based on our original literature review were developed. These categories were examined using content analysis and were partially confirmed by the ensuing discourse analysis. Six of the original categories did not appear to be supported, however an argument was made that these categories reflected latent (and thus potentially unknown or unacknowledged) interests. The results of this study should assist Vietnamese marketers in attracting the increasingly lucrative and liquid expatriate worker market, while potentially also assisting with internal communications in cross-cultural workplaces.
Around the world, universities are imbuing their strategic plans with an international focus, cit... more Around the world, universities are imbuing their strategic plans with an international focus, citing curricula that are more inclusive, more multicultural, more globalised, and more culturally sensitive; providing more opportunities for students to engage with an international community. This includes the Australian tertiary public relations sector -the focus of interest in this paper -of which we will ask the following question: does the literature around internationalisation in the PR curriculum in Australia accurately reflect the reality of classroom practice?
This paper offers a critical, systematic review of the literature on the professional experiences... more This paper offers a critical, systematic review of the literature on the professional experiences of expatriate academics published since the year 2000. It provides both thematic analysis and assessment of research quality in an attempt to draw conclusions about the current state and future directions of this steadily growing field. Universities around the globe are becoming progressively more internationally focused, and one aspect of this internationalisation process is the more frequent employment of an international faculty. This presents both opportunities and challenges for internationalised universities, whose HR-related tasks must increasingly account for cultural diversity amongst academic staff members. Equally, the life of an expatriate academic seems also to be filled with uncertainty, and this is experienced by this unique cohort as both a positive challenge and a threat to be minimized. In addition, this paper demonstrates areas of continued uncertainty and opportunity in the research of expatriate academics.
While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teachers with d... more While there is a growing interest in expatriate academics, their specific role as teachers with daily contact to local students seems to have been ignored when examining their adjustment and work outcomes. Here, we focus on how teacher-student relations affect expatriate academics'
job performance and job satisfaction. Moreover, we study the moderating effect of intercultural job adjustment and time to proficiency. We do this because good teacher-student relations could be a useful job resource for emotional and instrumental social support for expatriate academics.
We surveyed expatriate academics adjusting to a university position in China by use of 124 responses from foreign university employees. We found that teacher-student relations had positive associations with job performance and job satisfaction. We also found that teacher-student
relations increased job satisfaction more for individuals with a slow time to proficiency.
Relatively little research exists on expatriate academics and so far relations to students have not been paid much attention.
This paper reports the findings of a pilot study, undertaken to experiment with the combined use ... more This paper reports the findings of a pilot study, undertaken to experiment with the combined use of shadowing as a method and Actor-Network Theory as a philosophy, within the context of the Research Training Division of a research-intensive university. One participant - the Director of Research Training (DRT) - was shadowed as she interacted with the human and non-human actants to produce and sustain various identities. This method and philosophy were chosen in the hope that together they would illuminate aspects of the DRT's working day that are not accounted for in her job description or performance plan, but are crucial to her success in her role; that is to say, the 'invisible work' that she undertakes, and the ways in which she enrols, translates and works with or against various technologies - and they, her.
We begin the chapter discussing what distinguishes academics as expatriates. Next, we present the... more We begin the chapter discussing what distinguishes academics as expatriates. Next, we present the status of the field of expatriate academics, including their demographic features, motivations to move abroad, career-related risks of expatriation, experiences at the work place and their work outcomes as well as the experiences of expatriate academics. This is followed by a discussion of the theoretical development of the field and types of further research required. Lastly, we conclude by emphasizing that expatriate academics may experience something quite unique and academic scholars may want to pay more attention to their own situation.