This Article Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 0149206308328511v1 35/5/1181    most recent References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Wang, S. Articles by Kim, H. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Expatriate Utilization and Foreign Direct Investment Performance: The Mediating Role of Knowledge Transfer

College of Business, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV 89154-6009, sheng.wang{at}unlv.edu

Tony W. Tong

Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0419

Guoli Chen

INSEAD, 1 Ayer Rajah Avenue, Singapore 138676

Hyondong Kim

College of Business Administration, Dongguk University, 3-26 Pil-dong, Cung-gu, Seoul, 100-715, Korea

Multinational corporations (MNCs) often assign expatriate executives overseas to transfer knowledge, yet prior research has not specifically examined the utilization of expatriates as a strategic resource to facilitate knowledge transfer and enhance foreign direct investment performance. Drawing from the resource-based view of the firm and the international strategy literature, the authors argue that assignment of particular expatriates to the subsidiary will enhance subsidiary performance and that the knowledge transferred into the subsidiary through expatriates will mediate this relationship. Results based on MNCs’ subsidiaries in China showed that using expatriates with motivation and adaptability for knowledge transfer enhanced subsidiary performance and that this relationship was mediated by knowledge transferred into the subsidiary; using expatriates with technical skills did not directly affect subsidiary performance but had an indirect effect on performance via knowledge transferred into the subsidiary. They also discuss the implications of their findings for the resource-based view of the firm and international strategy research.

Key Words: resource-based view • expatriate utilization • knowledge transfer • international strategy

This version was published on October 1, 2009

Journal of Management, Vol. 35, No. 5, 1181-1206 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0149206308328511


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?