This work explores everyday face-to-face interactions between expatriate and host national employees in cross-cultural offices of transnational organizations and corporations. Applying the concepts of cosmopolitanism, social capital, and network theory, the book highlights both closure and openness in interpersonal interactions thus presenting more nuanced ways of understanding employees' transnational business/social connections. It also offers useful suggestions, such as the importance of developing a sense of respect for each other, for those who work in transnational office environments in both home and host societies. The author based her findings on one year of intensive fieldwork in Indonesia, which provides an intimate look at the transnational relationships between Japanese expatriate employees and Indonesian host national co-workers. Social science and international business scholars will embrace this ethnographic study of the relationships formed by these professional migrations.

First book-length ethnographic study to focus on Asian expatriate employees working in an Asian country Challenges the superficial image of the expatriate bubble separated from host societies, which is the dominant view in the social science literature Addresses an under-explored side of transnational movements and their consequence by highlighting the formation of transnational connections between expatriate and host national employees, within and beyond host societies Brings host national employees, an invisible element in business studies in general, firmly and squarely into analysis

Autorentext

Yukimi Shimoda is a Research Fellow at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute, Japan, and Honorary Research Fellow at The University of Western Australia. Her research interests include mobility, cross-cultural interaction, transnational connection, migration, networks, and inclusive business.

Inhalt

1. Transnational Encountering: Openness and Closure in in-Between Spaces.- 2. Transnational Offices.- 3. Living in a Bubble?.- 4. Porous Spaces: Coping with Differences and Familiarities.- 5. Mediators: Trust in Individuals and Groups.- 6. Scale of Groups and Communities.- 7. Transnational Business/Social Ties: Consequences of Interactions.- 8. Conclusion: Insights from Porous Spaces.- 9. Epilogue.