The unanticipated coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has hit global business heavily, disrupting the management of human resources across numerous industries. More than 500 articles (indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science) on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on emerging human resources issues and related practices were published from 1 January 2020 to 31 January 2021. In this study, we conduct a systematic literature review on emerging studies in the business and management field to explore what the emerging human resource issues are during the COVID-19 pandemic and propose related practices to solve these issues. The analysis of the published literature identifies nine main human resource issues across 13 industries. The findings of this study suggest that COVID-19 has enormous impact on conventional human resource management and requires the theoretical and empirical attention of researchers. The propositions nominate related human resource practices to deal with emerging human resources issues and identify several research venues for future studies in this field.

Purpose: – Expatriate management is a popular topic in international human resource management (IHRM) because expatriates play a critical role in a firm’s international business operations. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the existing studies that often examine the expatriate management of developed country multinational enterprises (MNEs), aiming to help them identify, employ, prepare and retain expatriates and address challenges these MNEs may face, while how MNEs from emerging countries manage their expatriates is understudied. Design/methodology/approach: – The knowledge of expatriate management from emerging market MNEs (EMNEs) may help us understand whether there is anything new for IHRM theory and practice. This conceptual paper aims to address this research gap by selecting China, a leading emerging economy, and reviewing the existing literature in both English and Chinese to examine the status quo of the expatriate management in Chinese MNEs to highlight challenges facing these MNEs in managing their expatriates when conducting outward foreign direct investment (FDI). Findings: – This paper aims to make theoretical contributions by generating research propositions to address an under-researched area, i.e., how EMNEs manage their expatriates and the role of their expatriates in the outward FDI. Originality/value: – No other person’s work has been used in the main text of the paper. This paper has not been submitted for the award of any other degree or diploma in this or any other tertiary institution.