The role of line managers in acknowledging and addressing employee circumstances has been a consistent theme in HR literature. This role became especially salient during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns shifted office-based work to home-centred arrangements. Under these crisis conditions, line managers were expected to manage and support employees remotely, while addressing a wide range of individual circumstances. Drawing on a qualitative study of 31 line managers and 13 employees working remotely during the lockdowns, we explored which employee circumstances demanded particular attention in this context. Adopting an ethics of care perspective, we outline five strategies that line managers employed to maintain employee well-being and performance across a diverse range of individual circumstances. Our findings underscore the pivotal contribution of line managers to shaping remote work experiences and offer insights for future research and practice on employee support mechanisms that promote inclusive and responsive remote work environments.
This article proposes the Transcultural Harmony Framework as a culturally grounded alternative to dominant work - life balance paradigms in Human Resource Development (HRD). Rather than treating wellbeing as a static equilibrium between work and life domains, the framework conceptualises harmony as a dynamic, relational process rooted in diverse philosophical traditions such as Confucianism, Ubuntu, and Islamic ethics. Four core dimensions - Relational Balance, Value Congruence, Temporal Flexibility, and Communal Embeddedness - capture how harmony enables culturally embedded learning and inclusive performance across organisational contexts. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature, the paper critiques the individualistic, time-based logic of work - life balance and advocates a more holistic approach aligned with lifelong development, ethical coherence, and collective flourishing. The article advances HRD scholarship by repositioning employee wellbeing as a developmental, culturally mediated, and internationally consequential process rather than a universalised policy problem. As hybridisation, transnational mobility, multicultural teams, and cross-border work arrangements increasingly reshape the global workforce, standardised wellbeing models have become progressively less adequate for contemporary HRD practice. Practical implications are discussed for HRD interventions in hybrid workplaces, multinational teams, and migrant labour contexts. The article calls for HRD professionals to act not merely as policy implementers, but as cultural mediators who facilitate meaningful, locally resonant practices of wellbeing. It therefore offers HRD scholars and professionals an internationally usable basis for redesigning wellbeing and development practices across borders without flattening cultural difference.
The purpose of this study is to explore the experiences of Chinese women as they transition to entrepreneurial careers through the lens of gender and culture. This research sheds light on the specific needs of Chinese women entrepreneurs by identifying the factors that facilitate or hinder their career transition, as well as the coping strategies they employ to navigate this process. We employed a basic qualitative research design using a hybrid inductive-deductive approach to analyse in-depth, semi-structured, individual interviews with 16 Chinese women entrepreneurs. The findings were organised into three main categories derived deductively from Schlossberg's 4S transition theory: Challenges (Situation and Self), Support Systems (Support), and Coping Strategies (Strategies). Within these categories, specific themes emerged inductively from the participants' narratives. The most significant contribution of this study is the development of a context-specific model that integrates intersectionality into the 4S framework, demonstrating how gender and culture fundamentally shape the transitional experiences of Chinese women entrepreneurs. By visualising these intersections, the proposed framework offers a more comprehensive understanding of how women navigate entrepreneurship in a patriarchal business environment.
The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Indian Generation (Gen) Z (born between 1995 and 2012) develops a career self-concept contributing to their perceptions of career success. Using a constructivist grounded theory design, we interviewed participants from India's information technology (IT) industry. The analysis indicates that Gen Z participants were conditioned to India's collectivistic cultural construals of careers. However, with extended time spent as working adults, the organisation's individualistic culture triggered the participants to redirect their attention towards themselves and their careers. Evidently, through mutually reinforcing stages of growth, participants developed self-awareness, self-efficacy, career self-efficacy, and career self-concept. Career self-concept allowed the participants to control their careers independently of their collectivistic cultural influences. The findings of this study contribute to career development literature by expanding our understanding of how contextual cultural construals and emerging career self-concept contribute to individuals' perceptions of career success. The findings also have important implications for organisations navigating ways to attract, retain, and engage Gen Z.
High-reliability organisations are exemplary cases known to minimise the intensity of crises they experience, owing to their organisational mindfulness. Given the profound increase in global crises, researchers are increasingly interested in organisational mindfulness and its impact on various organisational outcomes. These include employee motivation, well-being, and human flourishing. This research aimed to investigate the relationship between organisational mindfulness and human flourishing. It also explores underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions, such as job satisfaction and leader gender, that influence this relationship. In 2024, we collected data from 383 employees in top Greek organisations. The analysis confirmed four of five research hypotheses. This enabled us to demonstrate a direct relationship between organisational mindfulness and human flourishing, as well as an indirect relationship through job satisfaction. Furthermore, we discovered that the leader's gender influenced this direct relationship. Our study offers novel insights into the conditions under which organisational mindfulness influences human flourishing. This expands current research, particularly in Human Resource Development. Depicting that leader gender moderates the direct relationship between organisational mindfulness and human flourishing marks another novelty of our study. The impact of leader gender on human flourishing remains unexplored. That said, we provide fresh insights for researchers and practitioners.
Globalisation has increased international assignments, making expatriate adjustment and development central to global business. This study examines associations between intercultural communication, mental well-being, and skill development among 133 expatriates in Taiwan, drawing on the Job Demands - Resources (JD - R) framework. We also test the mediating roles of learning orientation and social support. Results indicate that limited host-country language proficiency is associated with weaker intercultural communication, whereas higher learning orientation and stronger social support are linked to more adaptive communication and more positive attitudes towards the host environment. In turn, intercultural communication shows positive associations with mental well-being and with self-reported skill development. As the design is cross-sectional, findings are correlational and should not be interpreted causally. The study suggests that psychological and social resources are related to work-relevant outcomes during expatriation and offers implications for HRD practice.
While it is often assumed that employees and managers (should) hold similar ideas about workplace learning, few studies to date have compared how employees learn at work and what learning their managers deem desirable for them. This study investigates how engineers shape their learning paths amidst the technological changes of Industry 4.0 and how their managers make sense of the learning that their engineers should engage in. Drawing on the Learning-Network Theory, points of convergence and divergence between engineers and managers are explored. Qualitative interviews with 16 engineers and 4 managers in Vietnam's manufacturing sector reveal engineers' learning-path strategies primarily focused on professional and career development. Although some findings indicate convergence between managers and engineers, the latter learned more with colleagues whereas the former saw themselves playing a more active role providing support through coaching and feedback. Also, engineers indicated learning a lot through critical reflection, while managers rather advocated learning through experience and social interaction. Theoretical and practical implications of the divergence in viewpoints about workplace learning between engineers and their managers are provided.
This study explores the career progression challenges faced by racially minoritised (RM) academics in UK higher education, with a focus on a School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health. Using a qualitative approach, this study draws on semi-structured interviews to examine institutional and social barriers to promotion. Grounded in Institutional Logics theory and Social Closure Theory, the analysis identified five interconnected themes: perceived lack of readiness for promotion, unclear and opaque progression pathways, inequitable access to mentoring and networks, systemic bias in evaluation and decision-making, and emotional and psychological burden. The study contributes to Human Resource Development (HRD) by situating these findings within international and intersectional debates on equity and inclusion and by offering practical and policy-level recommendations aligned with HRD principles of inclusive leadership, organisational learning, and wellbeing. The findings highlight the importance of transparent development pathways and culturally responsive support mechanisms to enhance RM representation in senior academic roles and advance equity in higher education.
This paper offers an intersectional and social role perspective of the interplay among visible (i.e. gender and religion) and invisible (i.e. culture) dimensions of diversity and their implications for women's leadership in an Arab Middle Eastern context - i.e. Jordan. We use intersectionality and social role theories to examine the dynamic interaction between religion and gender, and the institutionalised systems of patriarchal traditions by which they are shaped. Drawing on in-depth interviews, data were collected from twenty-two women working in various leadership positions. The findings demonstrate that women's leadership trajectories are shaped by the interaction between religious discourse and institutionalised socio-cultural structures, including socio-family expectations, tribal norms, and gender role stereotypes. Specifically, this study shows how religious narratives are mobilised within historically embedded power structures that influence leadership legitimacy and access to developmental opportunities. By advancing this argument, the study contributes to the growing field of diversity management by challenging reductive portrayals of Islam as inherently oppressive to women and by advancing intersectional theorisation at the nexus of gender, religion, and local cultural practices. This is particularly significant for Human Resource Development (HRD), as it highlights the need for culturally responsive approaches to diversity that reflect the complexities of workplaces globally.
This study introduces the Perceived Organizational Health and Toxicity (POHT) scale, a theoretically grounded and cross-culturally validated instrument designed to assess and improve workplace climate. Drawing on the Job Demands - Resources (JD-R) model, Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, and the Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) framework, the scale conceptualises organisationalorganisationalorganisational health and toxicity as a multidimensional continuum of employee perceptions. The POHT scale captures seven key dimensions - capability, governance, information flow, fairness, organisationalorganisationalorganisational awareness, growth, and equality - each reflecting tensions between enabling and harmful organisationalorganisationalorganisational forces. It was validated through five studies involving 2,371 clinical nurses across South Korea, China, and Japan during periods of systemic disruption, including a national doctors' strike in South Korea. Analyses using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, item response theory, and cross-national comparisons confirmed the scale's structural integrity, reliability, and contextual sensitivity. The POHT scale addresses persistent gaps in HRD scholarship by bridging positive and toxic workplace dynamics within a unified framework. Its brevity, conceptual clarity, and forced-choice format minimise response bias and enhance utility across cultural settings. HRD professionals may use the tool to monitor climate shifts, implement targeted well-being initiatives, and guide developmental interventions that promote resilience, inclusion, and sustainable organisationalorganisationalOorganisational transformation.
