The expatriate myth: Cross-cultural perceptions of expatriate managers

Expatriate managers work alongside increasingly sophisticated and experienced local managers in many parts of the world, yet few researchers have examined the dynamics of the relationship between expatriates and local managers, or the attitude of local staff to their expatriate colleagues. This article seeks to redress this by reviewing existing research, and by drawing on the perceptions of Singaporean managers, highlights the tensions between local and expatriate managers and reflects some of the issues faced by multinationals who continue to employ expatriates in countries where there is sufficient indigenous management talent.     

Facilitating expatriate adjustment: The role of advice-seeking from host country nationals

The expatriation literature consistently suggests that expatriates on assignment require a great deal of support to adjust to their new environment. This study examines the potential of host country national (HCN) coworkers as an important yet often overlooked source of support for expatriates. Analysis of survey data collected from 350 expatriates working in the U.S. indicated that expatriates who sought advice from HCN coworkers reported higher levels of work and interaction adjustment. This study also found that expatriates were more likely to seek advice from HCN coworkers they perceived as being credible and likable. Implications for research and managerial relevance are offered.     

A new perspective on the female expatriate experience: The role of host country national categorization

This study was designed to investigate host country national (HCN) categorization of female expatriates, in two samples—U.S. and India. Two hundred and twenty-two HCNs (104 in the U.S. and 118 in India) participated in the study. Consistent with prior research [e.g., Tung, R. L. (1998). American expatriates abroad: From neophytes to cosmopolitans. Journal of World Business, 33: 125–140], we found that female expatriates from the U.S. were not discriminated against. Indeed, we found that female expatriates from the U.S. were preferred by Indian HCNs, as co-workers, significantly more than male expatriates from the U.S. We discuss implications for organizations and offer suggestions for future research.     

An ethical argument for host country workforce training and development in the expatriate management assignment

This paper seeks to establish the ethical foundation of MNCs' responsibility for providing host country workforce (HCW) preparation and training attendant to the new expatriate management assignment. It argues that such moral responsibility arises from a set of correlative duties which MNCs acquire as business institutions. They include duties involving the expatriate manager, the HCW, and the host nation to (1) assist all employees, including the expatriate manager, in the successful execution of their assignments; (2) avoid the semblance of discriminatory treatment; (3) encourage full status integration into a global economy; (4) foster personal enlightenment and self-enrichment; (5) help individuals develop useful, marketable skills; (6) contribute to the development of a greater and more functional national labor skill base; and (7) encourage a long-term focus on creating enduring value for a maximum number of stakeholders, rather than upon short-term and shortsighted profit for only a few. Some important cautions and considerations related to HCW training implementation are then discussed.Charles M. Vance, associate professor of management at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, has both a domestic and international focus on human resource management and learning system design to enhance organizational performance. He has several publications, and his new book,Mastering Management Education (Sage Publications), is to be published in 1993.Eduardo S. Paderon is the Associate Dean of the Hagan School of Business of Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. He teaches graduate courses on Business Policy and Business and Society. His writings and other scholarly activities, including presentations at national and international conferences, focus on business ethics and cross-cultural value studies.     

The acculturative stress of host country managers working at MNC subsidiaries: Determinants and effects

This paper introduces the concept of acculturative stress to indicate a distinct psychological difficulty faced by host country managers working at multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries. Drawing on the social identity and self-verification theories, we suggest that host country managers are exposed to acculturative stress due to the challenges they face in verifying their national cultural identity. We identify the perceived cultural incongruence and the lower relative standing of host country managers as proximal determinants of acculturative stress and examine its negative impact on their work engagement. The analysis results of a sample of 643 Korean managers working at 60 MNC subsidiaries in Korea support our hypotheses on the determinants and effects of acculturative stress.     

The hypercompetitive global marketplace: the importance of intuition and creativity in expatriate managers

The value of expatriate managers has always been predicated to a degree on the nature of complexity of the overseas assignment and the external environment. There are two emerging and interrelated processes of environmental change occurring that could have a direct impact on the selection of expatriate managers, those being, the globalization of businesses and the resulting hypercompetitive nature of global markets. Due to the rapid rate of globalization, organizations have recognized that the global managers need different skills than their predecessors who manned multinational corporations. In addition, the hypercompetitiveness of the marketplace has placed managers under a new time perspective that tends to overshadow other managerial constraints. Therefore, two additional dimensions (i.e., intuition and creativity) are examined as being useful in the selection of expatriate managers in global organizations. This paper assesses the value of examining potential expatriate candidates on the creative and intuitional intelligences, in that it is anticipated that these two abilities will become of inordinate importance in the global hypercompetitive marketplace.     

The effect of host country Internet infrastructure on foreign expansion of Korean MNCs

This study examines the effect of host country Internet infrastructure on a multinational corporation (MNC) foreign expansion. Using Heckman’s selection model on a sample of 2589 subsidiaries of 487 Korean MNCs between 1990 and 2011, we find that host country Internet infrastructure is important in MNC expansion decisions. In addition, we find that a well-developed Internet infrastructure within a host country leads to more investments from MNCs producing consumer over industrial goods and is more attractive to domestic market followers than market leaders. We find that the host country’s Internet infrastructure is important for an MNC foreign expansion decision, suggesting that efficient communication within an MNC is critical in coordinating globalized MNC subsidiary operations.     

Heterogeneous effect of ethnic networks on international trade of Thailand: The role of family ties and ethnic diversity

Ethnic networks have been found to have a pro-trade effect in previous research. However, the heterogeneous effect of different ethnicities is under-studied. Drawing on the literature on social structure, this paper attempts to untangle the heterogeneous effect of ethnic networks on international trade using trade data of Thailand. We found that ethnic networks have a positive impact overall on trade, confirming the results of previous studies. However, the magnitude of the positive effect varies across different ethnicities along two dimensions. First, the strength of family ties in the culture of origin accelerates the pro-trade effect of its ethnic networks, suggesting ethnicities with stronger family ties have a cultural preference for trading within their own ethnic community. In comparison, ethnic diversity weakens the positive effect of ethnic networks on trade, suggesting an informational value of diverse ethnic structure in promoting trade between different ethnicities. Our study contributes new evidence of the enduring influence of social and cultural attributes on economic activities.     

The accelerating effect of institutional environment unfamiliarity on subsidiary portfolio expansion in a new host country

In forming external networks in a host country, a foreign subsidiary acquires knowledge which contributes to the parent’s stock of country-specific knowledge and capabilities. Building on this notion, we argue that an MNE unfamiliar with the institutional environment of a newly entered foreign country has an incentive to expand its subsidiary portfolio in that country at a higher rate. We test this using a longitudinal dataset of German public firms which made investments into 2220 new host countries between 1985 and 2015. We find that unfamiliarity accelerates subsidiary portfolio expansion most when the initial investment is a wholly-owned subsidiary, and that the effect becomes weaker over time. Our study contributes to the internationalization process literature by showing that being unfamiliar with a host country is not necessarily an obstacle to subsidiary portfolio expansion – indeed it can accelerate it.     

Perceptions of task cohesiveness and organizational support increase trust and information sharing between host country nationals and expatriate coworkers in Oman

Information sharing between expatriate and host country national (HCN) employees is strategically significant. In a sample of Omani HCNs, we hypothesize and find that perceiving task cohesiveness is positively associated with HCNs’ willingness to share information with expatriates and that trust mediates this association. In addition, perceiving organizational support strengthens the relationship between expatriates’ task cohesiveness and HCNs’ trust, whereas interpersonal similarity has no influence. This research highlights important ways in which trust and information sharing may be encouraged, and that HCN–expatriate interpersonal similarity is less important to building trust when more diagnostic cues are available.     

Effects of coping strategies on sociocultural and psychological adjustment of western expatriate managers in the PRC

Western expatriates currently working on the Chinese mainland participated in a mail survey to examine their coping strategies and adjustment to the Chinese work environment. As expected, the results suggest that managers who use problem-focused coping strategies adjust better than those using symptom-focused strategies do. Implications of these findings for Western expatriates assigned to China are discussed.     

Developing the local competence of expatriate managers for emerging markets: A knowledge-based approach

This paper proposes a theoretical framework for developing expatriate managers’ local competence in emerging markets from a knowledge-based perspective. We argue that local knowledge in emerging markets differs significantly from corporate knowledge transferred to those markets, and that its very nature determines its critical importance to expatriate managers’ business performance. We explore the processes and mechanisms through which local knowledge can be acquired and integrated into expatriate managers’ knowledge base supporting local talent development and their effective strategic decision-making. We suggest that conventional local competence development strategies may not be effective methods for developing global managers for emerging markets.     

The supportive expatriate spouse: An ethnographic study of spouse involvement in expatriate careers

Previous research on the influence of accompanying expatriate spouses has emphasized the negative impact on the business expatriates that could contribute to unsuccessful outcomes of the foreign assignments. But spouses’ influences could also be positive. Applying ethnographic field-work methodology, this study investigated female spouses’ involvement in the career of a sample of Danish business expatriates living in the same compound in Saudi Arabia. Results showed that the accompanying partners were active in trying to support and further their expatriate husbands’ immediate careers and repatriation opportunities by using social strategies, such as creating alliances and establishing social networks with influential others through social contacts and dinner parties. The female trailing partners also tried as a group to influence company decisions regarding working schedules, pay, and holidays. These findings are consistent with recent theoretical developments focusing on positive outcomes of the work–family interface and social capital theory and are in line with empirical research on repatriation and post-assignment careers.     

The impact of foreign direct investment on host country exports: A meta-analysis

In this paper, we present a synthesis of the literature examining the impact of foreign direct investment on host country exports. We reviewed and summarised 37 theoretical papers, 27 micro-level empirical studies and analysed 627 specifications from 117 macro-level empirical studies. In exploring the reasons behind the variations of the reported effects in the empirical literature, we applied meta-regression methodology. Our results indicate that the existing empirical literature generally reports a positive impact of foreign direct investment on exports, especially in developing countries. The reported effects are sensitive to research design, model specification and the context of the research. No publication bias was detected in the sampled studies. Based on our results, we provide some avenues and guidelines for future research on this topic. Our results could also have some important implications for policymakers.     

Transaction services and SME internationalization: The effect of home and host country bank relationships on international investment and growth

Building on the argument put forward by North and Wallis (1994) that the transaction sector enables economic growth by lowering the costs of transacting, we investigate how internationalizing firms’ host and home country bank relationships affect their international specific investments and growth. Banks provide payment, liquidity, and risk management services, which are essential to international business relationships, yet little is known about how banks affect international business relationships. In a sample of 255 small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), we find that host and home country bank relationships affect the dependent variables differently. We contribute to the literature by explicating the role and effects of banks in international business relationships. Our findings have implications for understanding transaction services in international business as well as the choices made by their customers.     

Global performance management systems: The role of trust as perceived by country managers

This study focuses on a critical mechanism of the international human resource management process: performance management. The study specifically explores how the process of global performance management is perceived by the country managers of multinational corporations' subsidiaries in Australia. The study reveals that a multinational corporation's systemic demand for short-term profit has the potential for inhibiting employee–supervisor relationships and perceived effectiveness of performance management appears to be dependent on the relationship and level of trust between the country manager and her/his supervisor. On the basis of the research findings, relational communication and psychosocial factors such as trust play an important role in the functioning of a country manager vis-à-vis their perceptions of the performance management process. The study suggests that, with the current approach to global performance management for country managers, despite the expense involved in the process, many of the potential benefits may not be realized. Social exchange theory is proposed as the foundation for developing more effective and fluent global relationships based on trust.     

The impact of FDI in land in agriculture in developing countries on host country food security

We investigate the influence of FDI in land in agriculture in developing countries, a phenomenon also known as land grabbing, on host country food security, and suggest a differential impact depending on the investor’s country of origin. FDI in land by developed-country investors positively influence food security by expanding land used for crop production because of home institutional pressure for human rights respect and responsible farmland conduct, in addition to positive spillovers. Instead, FDI in land by developing-country investors negatively influence food security by decreasing cropland due to home institutional pressure to align to national interests and government policy objectives, in addition to negative spillovers.