Best of both worlds: How embeddedness fit in the host unit and the headquarters improve repatriate knowledge transfer
- PDF / 612,209 Bytes
- 19 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 35 Downloads / 153 Views
Best of both worlds: How embeddedness fit in the host unit and the headquarters improve repatriate knowledge transfer Fabian Jintae Froese1,2, Sebastian Stoermer3, B Sebastian Reiche4 and Sebastian Klar1 1
Chair of Human Resources Management and Asian Business, University of Goettingen, Platz der Goettinger Sieben 5, 37085 Goettingen, Germany; 2 School of Business, Yonsei University, 50 Yonsei-ro, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea; 3 Junior Professorship in Human Resources Management, Technical University of Dresden, Schumann-Bau, B-Wing, Office 232, 01187 Dresden, Germany; 4 Department of Managing People in Organizations, IESE Business School, Ave. Pearson 21, 08034 Barcelona, Spain Correspondence: FJ Froese, Chair of Human Resources Management and Asian Business, University of Goettingen, Platz der Goettinger Sieben 5, 37085 Goettingen, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
Abstract Knowledge transfer within multinational enterprises is a source of competitive advantage. However, we know little about repatriates’ role in reverse knowledge transfer upon their return to headquarters (HQ). Using an organizational embeddedness perspective, we conceptualized how embeddedness fit – individuals’ perceived match between their knowledge and skills and the job requirements – during the expatriation assignment and upon repatriation predicts repatriate knowledge transfer. To test the hypotheses, we collected multi-wave survey data from 129 repatriates and their supervisors and developed a repatriate knowledge transfer scale. The results show that perceived organizational support from HQ positively influences embeddedness fit, both in the host unit during expatriation and in the HQ upon repatriation. Further, embeddedness fit in the HQ upon repatriation has a direct effect, while embeddedness fit in the host unit during expatriation has an indirect effect on repatriate knowledge transfer via increased communication frequency with the former host unit. In addition, we found that knowledge transfer is particularly pronounced for repatriates with both high levels of embeddedness fit in the HQ upon repatriation and frequent communication with colleagues in their former host unit. Our results highlight the critical importance of helping expatriates increase their perceived embeddedness fit for reverse knowledge transfer to occur. Journal of International Business Studies (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-020-00356-4 Keywords: expatriation; repatriation; knowledge transfer; organizational embeddedness fit
The online version of this article is available Open Access
Received: 18 January 2019 Revised: 11 June 2020 Accepted: 27 June 2020
INTRODUCTION In today’s knowledge-based global economy, knowledge transfer across countries is a source of competitive advantage for multinational enterprises (MNEs) (Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000; Huang & Li, 2019). Prior literature has provided rich insights into how MNEs can transfer knowledge from headquarters (HQ) to foreign subsidiaries and has pointed to expatriation as one of
Data Loading...
