This paper is the first to explore the impact of culture on the acceptability of workplace bullying and to do so across a wide range of countries. Physically intimidating bullying is less acceptable than work related bullying both within groups of similar cultures and globally. Cultures with high performance orientation find bullying to be more acceptable while those with high future orientation find bullying to be less acceptable. A high humane orientation is associated with finding work related bullying to be less acceptable. Confucian Asia finds work-related bullying to be more acceptable than the Anglo, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa country clusters and finds physically intimidating bullying to be more acceptable than the Anglo and Latin America country clusters. The differences in the acceptability of bullying with respect to these cultures are partially explained in terms of cultural dimensions.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze cross-national and cross-cultural similarities and differences in perceptions and conceptualizations of workplace bullying among human resource professionals (HRPs). Particular emphasis was given to what kind of behaviors are considered as bullying in different countries and what criteria interviewees use to decide whether a particular behavior is bullying or not. Design/methodology/approach HRPs in 13 different countries/regions (n=199), spanning all continents and all GLOBE cultural clusters (House et al., 2004), were interviewed and a qualitative content analysis was carried out. Findings Whereas interviewees across the different countries largely saw personal harassment and physical intimidation as bullying, work-related negative acts and social exclusion were construed very differently in the different countries. Repetition, negative effects on the target, intention to harm, and lack of a business case were decision criteria typically used by interviewees across the globe – other criteria varied by country. Practical implications The results help HRPs working in multinational organizations understand different perceptions of negative acts. Originality/value The findings point to the importance of cultural factors, such as power distance and performance orientation, and other contextual factors, such as economy and legislation for understanding varying conceptualizations of bullying.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine career‐life issues of successful women in the Americas.Design/methodology/approachA total of 30 interviews were conducted with successful women in Canada, Argentina and Mexico. Themes were pulled from the interview transcripts for each country, analyzed and then compared across countries, looking at universalities and differences of experiences.FindingsThe women in all three countries conveyed more subjective measures of career success, such as contributing to society and learning in their work, with Canada and Mexico particularly emphasizing receiving recognition as a hallmark of career success.Practical implicationsThis research provides insight into the experiences of successful women in the Americas, which can inform the career development of women in business.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the literature on women's careers, highlighting successful women's experiences across cultures and in an under‐researched area: Latin America.

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The feasibility, validity and reliability of the Time Trade-Off (TTO) and Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) methods in obtaining preference values for health states were compared in a random sample of the Spanish population (n = 294). Respondents valued 43 EuroQol-5D health states in face-to-face interviews. Convergent validity was assessed by examining the relationship between values, and the effect of sociodemographic and health variables on values was used as a means of assessing construct validity. Test-retest reliability was analysed in a subgroup of 50 respondents, using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and generalisability theory. Rates of non-response and missing data were low on both methods, though the VAS took considerably less time to administer. VAS and TTO values correlated highly (r = 0.92), though there were differences in the ordering of health states between methods, and in the number of health states rated worse than death. VAS values were compressed into a considerably smaller valuation space than TTO values. Respondents in higher educational categories assigned higher TTO values to 12 health states. Mean ICCs (95% CI) at individual level were 0.90 (0.88-0.92) and 0.84 (0.81-0.87) for the VAS and TTO, respectively. Generalisability analysis showed variance due to time to be 0 for both methods. In conclusion, the VAS was more feasible and slightly more reliable than the TTO, whilst doubt can be cast on the degree of convergent validity existing between the two methods. The compression of VAS values means that the TTO is likely to discriminate better between health states, and it may have greater construct validity if results from larger samples confirm that there are genuine differences between sociodemographic subgroups.