What Do Expatriate Managers Know About Their HCN Subordinates' Work Values

Abstract

To be able to adjust to a foreign work environment, expatriate managers need to know what to adjust to. This article explored to what extent expatriate executives are familiar with the work values of their host country national subordinates in Asia. A field study investigated Swedish top managers' perceptions of the work values of their middle managers who were employed in Swedish subsidiaries in Hong Kong. The result showed that the Swedish executives significantly underestimated the importance of the work values of their subordinates in one third of the investigated values. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed.