This study conceptualizes inpatriates – foreign nationals who are temporarily assigned to the corporate headquarters (HQ) of a multinational corporation (MNC) – as knowledge agents that link the HQ to its subsidiaries. Along these lines, the thesis examines the determinants of knowledge sharing between inpatriates and HQ staff as well as the resulting implications for inpatriates’ careers. Integrating research on international assignments and MNC knowledge flows with social capital theory, the main argument is that inpatriates can only share their local subsidiary knowledge with and learn from HQ employees if they establish social capital with them. The empirical investigation of inpatriates as the study’s principal unit of analysis follows a multi-method approach. First, a qualitative and inductive case study based on 13 interviews with inpatriates at three German MNCs is conducted, aiming to provide a deeper understanding of the inpatriate phenomenon. The interview findings highlight inpatriates’ role as knowledge conduits and derive various factors that may impact on inpatriates’ knowledge sharing, such as inpatriates’ acculturation attitudes, their host language fluency, host ethnocentrism and available organizational support.

This research was executed as three separate studies. Study 1 focused on the perception of pain and the semantic aspects of pain. Study 2 focused on the measurement of acute pain and mood states. Study 3 focused on the psychological treatment of cancer pain. In Study 1 a group of 66 Setswana-speaking adults were required to describe what they saw, what happened, and what would be the outcome with respect to three visually presented pain scenes using The Pain Apperception Test (PAT) A qualitative analysis of their responses shows that pain is experienced as an all encompassing experience affecting all aspects of their lives, such as the physical, emotional, social, and economic. This was found to be true, irrespective of gender and age with the exception of economic issues. A qualitative analysis of their responses to the Pain Eliciting Incidents Questionnaire (PEIQ) reveals that the Setswana pain descriptors are classifiable according to the three dimensions of pain namely, the sensory-discriminative, affective-motivational, and cognitive-evaluative. Sludy 2 applied the Profile of Mood States (POMS) preoperatively to a group of 58 female laparotomy (gynaecological) patients. These patients were also tested post-operatively with the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the Wisconsin Brief Pain Questionnaire (WBPQ) as pain measures. The pain measures were taken at no medication and at the peak of medication. Factor analysis could not confirm the validity of the six POMS scales. These scales also did not show correlations with post-operative pain. Correlations between the pain measures showed acceptable reliability and validity of the VAS and the WBPQ. In Study 3 three groups of 15 cancer patients each, suffering from chronic pain, were treated over a period of two weeks with either cognitive behavioural therapy plus medication, reassurance therapy plus medication, or medication only. Comparison of before and after treatment pain measures showed that both cognitive behavioural therapy and reassurance therapy had a beneficial effect. Follow-up results three months later showed that the beneficial effect of reassurance therapy did not persist. Patients treated with cognitive behavioral therapy still showed the beneficial effects thereof. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

Thesis by publication. / Thesis (PhD) -- Macquarie University, Macquarie Graduate School of Management, 2008. / Bibliography: leaves 124-133. / Introduction - Literature review -- Online word-of-mouth: a comparison of American and Chinese discussion boards -- Electronic word-of-mouth: a comparison of stated and revealed behaviour on electronic discussion boards -- A cross-cultural comparison of electronic word-of-mouth and country-of-origin effects -- Conclusion. / The growth of electronic discussion boards has enabled consumers from different cultures to communicate with people of similar interests. Through this online channel, marketing concepts such as word-of-mouth (WOM) and country-of-origin (CoO) effects have the potential to become more important because of the potentially large number of participants involved. The US and China, being the largest and second-largest online population in the world respectively, are ideal countries to investigate the frequency and extent of these marketing concepts. --The thesis consists of three separate but inter-related papers which have been published in journals or have been accepted for publication. Each paper builds on the one before and analyses different aspects of online consumer behaviour such as information-giving, information-seeking and the CoO statements made by participants of discussion boards. By examining and comparing the frequency and content of discussion postings on discussion boards within US and China based websites, the thesis makes a comparison of the information-giving and information-seeking behaviour of the discussants and also looks at the extent and the content of CoO statements made. Online observation of discussion postings from six different discussion boards (three each from the US and China) was conducted over two 90-day period in 2004 and 2005 and a total of 5,993 discussion postings were downloaded for analysis. In addition, an online survey of 214 participants was conducted to compare the stated and actual (or "revealed") behaviour of discussants on the US and China based discussion boards. -- Overall, the findings indicate consistent differences over a 12-month period in the bahaviour of the US and Chinese discussants. The US discussants were found to provide more information than their Chinese counterparts while the Chinese discussants exhibited more information-seeking bahaviour on the discussion boards. The findings also indicate that the Chinese discussants demonstrated more negative CoO statements and these statements were observed to be related to Japan and/or brands that originated from Japan. The findings suggest that such negative CoO statements can increase rapidly online and it appears that the negative sentiments by the Chinese were apparently unrelated to product quality; instead they appear to have been predominantly associated with war related animosity. -- These findings have important implications for marketers selling to the Chinese as discussion boards appear to be more important as a source of information for the Chinese than the Americans. Also, given that the Chinese discussants demonstrated a high level of negative CoO statements relating to products from Japan, marketers selling Japanese products to the Chinese must understand the underlying issues related to these negativeCoO statements and take steps to prevent non-purchase of Japanese products. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / vii, 133 leaves ill

This research was executed as three separate studies. Study 1 focused on the perception of pain and the semantic aspects of pain. Study 2 focused on the measurement of acute pain and mood states. Study 3 focused on the psychological treatment of cancer pain. In Study 1 a group of 66 Setswana-speaking adults were required to describe what they saw, what happened, and what would be the outcome with respect to three visually presented pain scenes using The Pain Apperception Test (PAT) A qualitative analysis of their responses shows that pain is experienced as an all encompassing experience affecting all aspects of their lives, such as the physical, emotional, social, and economic. This was found to be true, irrespective of gender and age with the exception of economic issues. A qualitative analysis of their responses to the Pain Eliciting Incidents Questionnaire (PEIQ) reveals that the Setswana pain descriptors are classifiable according to the three dimensions of pain namely, the sensory-discriminative, affective-motivational, and cognitive-evaluative. Sludy 2 applied the Profile of Mood States (POMS) preoperatively to a group of 58 female laparotomy (gynaecological) patients. These patients were also tested post-operatively with the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the Wisconsin Brief Pain Questionnaire (WBPQ) as pain measures. The pain measures were taken at no medication and at the peak of medication. Factor analysis could not confirm the validity of the six POMS scales. These scales also did not show correlations with post-operative pain. Correlations between the pain measures showed acceptable reliability and validity of the VAS and the WBPQ. In Study 3 three groups of 15 cancer patients each, suffering from chronic pain, were treated over a period of two weeks with either cognitive behavioural therapy plus medication, reassurance therapy plus medication, or medication only. Comparison of before and after treatment pain measures showed that both cognitive behavioural therapy and reassurance therapy had a beneficial effect. Follow-up results three months later showed that the beneficial effect of reassurance therapy did not persist. Patients treated with cognitive behavioral therapy still showed the beneficial effects thereof. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)