This research stems from the need by organisations to retain their key talent in the context of the change in the psychological contract manifesting in the emergence of boundaryless careers. Employees have ceased to be loyal to one organisation and this has marginalised employers as they still need to retain their key talent as a source of competitive advantage. Most organisations have segmented their workforce to develop talent pools of high potential employees to meet the organisation’s current and future critical skills needs. Hence, this study investigates the impact of inclusion in the talent pool on the psychological contract. Various instruments in the literature study were used to measure the psychological contract of employees in the talent pools in comparison to those not in talent pools. These include the transactional and relational psychological contract instrument by Millward and Hopkins (1998), organisational citizenship behaviour by Coyle-Shapiro (2002), trust by Robinson and Rousseau (1994) and turnover intention by Blomme et al. (2010). The study presents findings from 195 employees from three different organisations, about 50% of whom were in talent pools. The study shows that both groups of employees in and outside talent pools consider their psychological contract with their employers as less transactional. Although being part of the talent pool has a positive impact on the relational psychological contract and organisational commitment, it does not necessarily translate into trust and the intention to stay with organisations. Employees in talent pools are not different to those not in talent pools with regard to trust and the turnover intention. The report offers insights aimed at managers to understand the psychological contracts of their employees within the talent pools to avoid unnecessary violations and to explore new value propositions that are aligned to those contracts. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

China is growing as an economic power leading to more and more foreign organizations taking the opportunity of its future potential and hence opening up their subsidies there. Companies nowadays, have several options when it comes to what type of workforce they should recruit. Self-Initiated Expatriates (SIEs) are a growing group in the international workforce who goes to work in another country on their own initiative as compared to the traditional expatriates that are sent by companies. Our literature research indicated that SIEs are perceived as a group of people who lack organizational commitment and tend to switch jobs often, which makes organizations reluctant to employ and invest in them.Inspired by this, we have a performed a study, which investigated SIEs’ experiences in China. The purpose of the study was to develop recommendations for organizations on how to better leverage SIEs as human resource. To fulfill the purpose of our thesis, we conducted a qualitative study, where we interviewed ten Westerners who currently had a job or previously had been employed in China. Our empirical findings revealed that SIEs perceive themselves as developing better cross-cultural skills and improving their language proficiency more than traditional expatriates as well as being much cheaper to employ. They do however need challenges, freedom and career development possibilities in order to stay satisfied. The failure to provide these from the company side results in them quitting their job or if the costs of quitting are too high, they stay on but performing only what they absolutely have to. As for the existing definitions, we found that a definition that only includes individuals with clear plans of return is not suitable since some SIEs have a “for now” mindset and only considering SIEs who intend to leave in the near future might lead to an overrepresentation of “failed” SIEs in the population. A more suitable definition should allow for less definite plans for staying in the host country.

L'objectif de cette thèse est de mettre en relation deux éléments caractéristiques des sports collectifs professionnels : la nomadisation croissante des carrières et la stratégie marketing des clubs qui tendent de plus en plus à devenir des marques. D'un point de vue théorique, cette recherche s'appuie, d'une part, sur la stratégie classique de marque et d'image qui, appliquée au club sportif professionnel, permet de définir le concept de « club marque » et, d'autre part, sur le courant des carrières nomades. Grâce au croisement de ces deux dimensions, émerge la question de l'influence de la stratégie de marque des clubs sportifs professionnels sur la volatilité des ressources humaines dans le sport spectacle. Emblématiques de ce dernier, le football et le rugby français constituent le terrain de la recherche. Deux cas sont étudiés : le FC Grenoble Rugby et l'Olympique Lyonnais. En recourant à une méthode qualitative et exploratoire (entretiens semi-directifs, analyse de contenu), les discours des acteurs des deux clubs choisis permettent de débattre des trois propositions de recherche, d'envisager les implications managériales à la fois pour le club et pour le joueur et, enfin, d'élaborer une typologie des joueurs nomades qui favorise l'appréhension du caractère subi ou voulu de la mobilité. / The object of the present thesis is to establish the relationship between two characteristic features of professional collective sports: namely the rise in boundaryless careers and marketing strategies in sports clubs which are increasingly becoming brands. From a theoretical point of view, the research is based on the one hand on traditional brand and image strategy which, when applied to professional sport clubs, outlines the concept of "brand-clubs", and, on the other, on the development of boundaryless careers. At the intersection of these two dimensions comes the question of what influence professional sports club marketing strategy has on the volatility of human resources in entertainment sports. French soccer and rugby, as illustrative examples, constitute the basis for the research through the following two case-studies : "FC Grenoble Rugby" and "Olympique Lyonnais". Applying both qualitative and exploratory methods (semi-directive interviews, content analysis) and drawing on the comments made by actors from both clubs, the three research proposals can be discussed, managerial implications for both club and players explored and a typology of boundaryless players developed in view of assessing the volontary or compulsory character of such mobility.

The mobility of students has increased dramatically in the past decades which primarily is a consequence of globalization (Ninnes & Hellstén, 2005). Many higher education institutions (HEIs) around the world have responded to the global educational trend by actively recruiting students from abroad, with the incentive of maintaining a competitive position on the global, knowledge-based market (Knight, 2004). Simultaneously, an increasing number of students have responded to the expanded opportunities which have become available, aspiring to secure the best education to facilitate their path into a well-remunerated career (Waters & Brooks, 2011). By employing a qualitative research approach, this study explores how international degree-seeking students undertaking engineering studies in Swedish HE, take on their career development within a global framework. The findings are compared and analyzed in order to provide further insights into the career trajectories of engineering students from different countries. The findings suggest that the participants in the study have employed a large degree of agency and independence in advancing their career development further. Moreover, it has also been indicated that they, as global professionals, uphold a flexible stance towards future career opportunities, regardless of where in the world these would be located. Considering the increasing numbers of international students that occupy Swedish HEIs, the study concludes that further attention needs to be paid to gain further insights into the realities of this student population, both to increase our understanding of how they respond to the forces of globalization and to safeguard that career services address the real career needs of this population.