Books as key to the wide world
‘It is books that are the key to the wide world; if you can’t do anything else, read all that you can.’ Jane Hamilton (novelist) If you don’t have the opportunity to travel, or if you want to prepare for…
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Baking a Galette des Rois: I can do this!
When was the last time you tried something new? And how did you feel about it? Do you challenge yourself and do you see failure as an opportunity to learn? For my upcoming book, I’ve been recently writing about growth…
How to make friends with Danes
Expats find Denmark one of the most difficult countries to make local friends, as is shown in the annual survey of InterNations, the global network for expats. But why do expats find particularly Denmark difficult for making local friends? I…
Broadening international mentoring: involving host country nationals
Mentoring is a key HR practice to increase knowledge transfer and can guide the individual professional development of expats and host country nationals (HCNs), and, in doing so, contribute to MNC knowledge management and organization development. With my colleagues Vlad…
How do expats get the social support they need?
When expats1 move abroad, they leave behind a large part of their social network. They must create new social connections to make sure they get the support they need to deal with the cross-cultural transition. In this article in International…
Learning the local language
One of the challenges an expat often faces when moving abroad is the local language. In a time when you are trying to settle into a new host country and culture learning a new language might seem too much of…
Intercultural competence in European international management
Following up on my previous blog about intercultural competence, I now would like to highlight some recent research that has been published on the topic in a special issue in the European Journal of International Management. The European context With…
Træfpunkt HR 2019: Soft skills, employee learning and Dave Ulrich
Guest blog post by Simon Kennell Last month, I attended Træfpunkt HR 2019 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Annually organized for nearly two decades by The Association of Danish HR Professionals, the exhibition displayed services from 150 companies and was attended by…