Grenzstellenarbeit in transnationalen Arbeitsumgebungen: Expatriate-Manager als ‚Boundary-Spanner‘ in translokalen und transkulturellen ‚Workscapes‘

Bredenkötter Bastian ()
Additional contact information
Bredenkötter Bastian: Universität Bielefeld, Fakultät für Soziologie, Universitätsstr. 25, 33615Bielefeld, Deutschland

Arbeit, 2019, vol. 28, issue 3, 215-240

Abstract: The article uses the ‘workscapes’ framework of Felstead, Jewson and Walters (2005a) to investigate the work of expatriate managers as boundary spanners in multinational companies (MNCs). It proposes to describe the workscape of expatriates as ‘transnational workscape’ and shows that the central characteristics of this workscape – the translocality of workstations and workplaces and the transculturality of the ‘new’ office – are accompanied by challenges, the management of which is a key aspect of the boundary-spanning work of expatriates in MNCs and deeply influences their working and living conditions. The article thus introduces a conceptual framework to the German-language discussion on the new places of work and at the same time a space-sensitive perspective to expatriate research and demonstrates its benefits. The terms ‘transnational workscape’ and ‘transcultural office’ also contribute to the further development of the approach of Felstead and colleagues by adding a systematic perspective on the globalization of work.

Keywords: expatriates; boundary spanner; workplace; transnationalization; transcultural office; translocal workscape; Expatriates; Boundary-Spanner; Arbeitsraum; Transnationalisierung; transkulturelles Büro; translokale Arbeitsumgebung; expatriates; boundary spanner; workplace; transnationalization; transcultural office; translocal workscape (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/arbeit-2019-0015 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:arbeit:v:28:y:2019:i:3:p:215-240:n:2

DOI: 10.1515/arbeit-2019-0015

Access Statistics for this article

Arbeit is currently edited by Gerhard Bosch, Katrin Hansen and Arne Heise

More articles in Arbeit from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().