Attracting, managing and retaining talented employees is an important area of human resource management. Managing talent across an organization's global network presents many challenges including expatriation and repatriation issues, cross-cultural adjustment of employees, and operating in different regulatory and economic environments. This volume provides insights into multinational enterprises' (MNEs) global staffing and global talent management (GTM), and covers issues of global mobility from organizational, individual and contextual perspectives. The chapters in this edited volume cover historical development of expatriation, use of self-initiated and company-assigned expatriates, talent management in entrepreneurial firms, and talent retention through effective expatriation and repatriation programs in transitioning and emerging economies.

Wales (UK), Karl-Klaus Pullig, University of Paderborn (Germany), Max RingI- steuer, Catholic University ofEichstatt (Germany), Ewald Scherm, University of Hagen (Germany), Stefan Schmid, Catholic University of Eichstatt (Germany), Karl-Heinz Schmidt, University of Paderborn (Germany), Ursula Schneider, University of Graz (Austria) and Joachim Wolf, University of Hohenheim (Ger- many). For support in the organization of the review process the editors thank Christopher Gramley. The outcome of the review process was that 13 papers were selected for pub- lication in two special isslIes which both address the field of international human resource management. There were many other very well-written and high quality papers but due to space limitations, the editors could not include more contribu- tions. For those interested in the other papers of the IHRM-conference we recom; mend the conference proceedings which are available from the University of Paderborn (E-mail: [email protected]). The selected papers can be related to three broad IHRM-approaches which are described below: * Cross-cultural management approach: early work in this field (especially in Anglo-Saxon cOllntries) emphasized a cross-cultural management approach which examines human behavior within organizations from an international perspective. * Comparative HRM: A second approach developed from the comparative indus- trial relations and HRM literature seeks to describe, compare and analyse HRM systems in various countries. * HRM in mulfinationalJirms: A third approach seeks to focus on aspects ofHRM in multinational firms, especially expatriate management and HR in subsidiaries.