National culture and expatriate deployment

David M. Brock, Oded Shenkar, Amir Shoham, Ilene C. Siscovick

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

128 Scopus citations

Abstract

We hypothesize that expatriate deployment is a control function predicted by home country culture dimensions with transaction cost and agency repercussions (rather than culture in the aggregate). This departure from the traditional conceptualization and measurement of cultural impact also yields a hypothesized asymmetrical effect, which is tested for a multi-country sample of 236 multinational subsidiaries. Using multiple measures of national culture, hypotheses are supported, with assertiveness and power distance confirmed as prime predictors of expatriate deployment.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1293-1309
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of International Business Studies
Volume39
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2008
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias (FIS; ISCIII, Plan Nacional I+D+I 2008–2011 and 2013–2016: Refs 13/01207 , 12/02080 ) and cofinanced by FEDER funds. L. Pérez-Lago holds a contract from CIBERES (Ref CP13/27/01). Ramón y Cajal Spanish research grant RYC-2012-10627 and MINECO research grant SAF2013-43521-R (to I.C.). All authors report no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

Keywords

  • Asymmetrical culture distance
  • Expatriates
  • Power distance

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