How Inpatriates Internalize Corporate Values at Headquarters: The Role of Developmental Job Assignments and Psychosocial Mentoring.
| Verfasser | Sekiguchi, Tomoki |
1 Introduction
Multinational companies (MNCs) increasingly use inpatriation or invite foreign subsidiary employees to the parent country's headquarters (HQ) to increase the HQ's diversity and to develop "boundary spanners" or "bridge individuals" who form links between HQ and foreign subsidiaries (Collings et al. 2010; Harzing et al. 2016; Moeller and Reiche 2017; Reiche 2011; Reiche et al. 2009a; Sekiguchi 2016). Inpatriates typically stay at HQ for a predetermined period before returning to their foreign subsidiaries to become managers. Therefore, inpatriation is considered a useful means of disseminating and implementing the HQ's knowledge and shared corporate values throughout the MNC (Froese et al. 2016; Gertsen and S0derberg 2012).
Corporate values represent management philosophies or principles, usually summarized in a company's mission statement, that clearly articulate a corporation's objective and purpose. Such values guide an organization's internal conduct, as well as its relationships with customers, partners, and shareholders, which facilitates the success of corporate goals such as increasing financial and operational performance and becoming a socially responsible organization (Gordon and DiTomaso 1992; Hollender 2004; Posner et al. 1985; Spitzeck and Chapman 2012; Wang 2009, 2011; Williams 2008). Shared corporate values also provide an effective means of managing HQ-subsidiary relations in MNCs (Nohria and Ghoshal 1994). However, it is quite challenging to share corporate values within MNCs because MNCs are geographically dispersed, internally differentiated, and culturally and linguistically diverse. Therefore, the role of inpatriates in transferring corporate values from HQ to foreign subsidiaries is particularly important.
To transfer MNCs' corporate values across national borders, MNCs expect inpatriates to learn and internalize the corporate values that are, in general, more salient in HQ while engaging in their assigned duties. If successful, inpatriates can effectively disseminate these corporate values to subsidiaries after they return (Gertsen and S0derberg 2012; Reiche 2006). However, few studies have explored how and why inpatriates internalize corporate values through their HQ experiences. Therefore, there are several theoretical puzzles that cannot be solved by the extant literature. For example, researchers on global talent management (Collings 2014; Harvey and Buckley 1997) might expect inpatriates to proactively learn and internalize corporate values when working at HQ because inpatriates are considered high-potential, high-performing employees. However, other researchers have suggested that inpatriates exhibit passive behavior and experience difficulties when learning and internalizing corporate values due to the many challenges that they face at HQ (e.g., Harvey et al. 2005; Maley et al. 2015).
International adjustment researchers (e.g., Firth et al. 2014; Takeuchi 2010) have provided some hints regarding how to reduce inpatriates' adjustment challenges. However, in terms of adjustment outcomes, most of their studies have focused on expatriate adjustment rather than on the internalization of corporate values. Therefore, successful international adjustment alone does not necessarily predict inpatriates' effective internalization of corporate values. Moreover, although socializing inpatriates within the HQ environment is critical to promoting the internalization of corporate values, the organizational socialization literature (e.g., Kammeyer-Mueller et al. 2013) has tended to assume that socialization occurs naturally when newcomers become members of the same organization (e.g., Van Maanen and Schein 1979). This may not be the case for inpatriates, however, because HQ employees may not regard inpatriates from a MNC's periphery as members of the same organization and inpatriates' status at MNCs is different from that of HQ employees (Maley et al. 2015; Moeller and Harvey 2011; Moeller et al. 2016). In short, the existing literature does not sufficiently explain the mechanism by which inpatriates learn and internalize corporate values while performing their HQ duties.
Therefore, understanding how and why inpatriates internalize corporate values that are prevalent in the HQ environment while performing their assigned duties requires a novel theoretical approach. Since the extant literature on inpatriation has hardly emphasized the learning process through their assignments, this study focuses on inpatriates' on-the-job learning. The learning process is important to this study because the ways in which work is performed at a company's HQ (i.e., correct and incorrect methods for carrying out job-related tasks) more or less reflect corporate values, and because inpatriates obtain critical knowledge about corporate values through their on-the-job HQ experiences. In particular, we integrate the perspectives of international adjustment and organizational socialization with that of on-the-job learning (DeRue and Wellman 2009; Dong et al. 2014; McCauley et al. 1994) and develop a model in which HQ-based job-related and psychosocial factors promote the internalization of corporate values among inpatriates. We argue that, in the HQ environment, job-related and psychosocial factors are critical to inpatriates' on-the-job learning processes. In this study, we focus on developmental job assignments (McCauley et al. 1994) as the most significant job-related factor and on psychosocial mentoring (Ragins and McFarlin 1990) as the primary psychosocial factor.
We theorize that developmental job assignments and psychosocial mentoring in HQ inpatriation practices stimulate inpatriates to proactively socialize themselves within the HQ environment (proactive socialization behavior; Saks and Ashforth 1997). In turn, this behavior promotes inpatriates' feeling of oneness with the MNC (organizational identification; Ashforth and Mael 1989). Through this process, inpatriates are meant to learn and internalize corporate values. We assume that inpatriates exhibit their internalization of corporate values through behavioral demonstration of these values in daily work-related activities. By exhibiting observable behaviors that are consistent with corporate values, inpatriates who return to their home countries influence other subsidiary employees to learn and adopt the HQ's values, thereby disseminating corporate values throughout the MNC.
We empirically test this study's theoretical model using a sample of foreign subsidiary employee-supervisor dyads assigned to the HQ of a Japanese MNC. This study contributes to the literature on international business (IB) and international human resource management (IHRM), especially that of inpatriation, by developing a novel theoretical framework and providing empirical findings that enable us to understand how and why inpatriates internalize corporate values during their HQ assignments. This study also provides invaluable information for IB and IHRM researchers and practitioners who are seeking a better understanding of inpatriate management, particularly in fostering and facilitating the internalization of MNCs' corporate values among inpatriates who effectively disseminate these values at foreign subsidiaries after repatriation.
2 Characteristics of Inpatriates
Multinational companies' increasing use of inpatriation reflects their need to diversify global staffing methods that are suitable to their strategic goals. This need reflects a shift from an ethnocentric or unidirectional approach (i.e., sending parent-country nationals from HQ to foreign subsidiaries) to a bidirectional approach (i.e., using expatriation and inpatriation). In doing so, MNCs aim to increase the effectiveness of global talent management and optimize HQ-foreign subsidiary relationships (Duvivier et al. 2019; Harvey et al. 2000a, b; Moeller and Reiche 2017; Reiche et al. 2009b; Tharenou and Harvey 2006). The global talent management perspective (Collings 2014; Harvey and Buckley 1997; Harvey et al. 2000b, 2011) emphasizes that MNCs should select inpatriates based on a track record of high potential, high performance, and a capacity to pursue MNCs' strategic goals as knowledge-transfer and knowledge-sharing agents (Moeller et al. 2016; Reiche et al. 2009a). For example, Harvey et al. (2002) suggested that inpatriates should be appointed based on their cognitive, emotional, political, and cultural intelligence. Therefore, it can be assumed that inpatriates are high-potential, high-performing foreign subsidiary employees who are motivated, proactive, and committed to the MNCs.
Researchers have highlighted the role and nature of inpatriates as being different from those of other types of expatriates. This contrast illustrates why this present study on inpatriates is necessary and important. First, the primary objectives of sending expatriates from HQ to foreign subsidiaries are rooted in ethnocentric needs: i.e., (1) to enable HQ to tightly control subsidiaries, (2) to transfer knowledge from HQ to foreign subsidiaries, and (3) to develop parent-country nationals (Harzing et al. 2016; Reiche et al. 2009b). MNCs also expect expatriates to transfer knowledge from foreign subsidiaries to HQ, but this may not be the major motivation for expatriation. On the other hand, inviting inpatriates from foreign subsidiaries to HQ is predicated more on bidirectional motives:, i.e., (1) to develop talent in foreign subsidiaries and (2) to use inpatriates as boundary spanners and knowledge agents (Moeller and Reiche 2017; Reiche et al. 2009b). Typically, MNCs expect inpatriates to absorb specific knowledge and corporate values and then transmit this information to subsidiaries; MNCs also expect inpatriates to import their knowledge regarding the subsidiaries' problems to HQ. For example, Adler (2002) suggested that inpatriation is designed to help selected foreign subsidiary employees learn HQ's...
Um weiterzulesen
FORDERN SIE IHR PROBEABO ANCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
