What are the major concerns for corporations in developing and retaining expatriate employees, especially managers?
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Week6_ManagingAcrossBorders_GlobalIntegrationandKnowledgeExchangeinMNCs.pdf
© W. S. Maney & Son Ltd 2014 DOI 10.1179/1024529414Z.00000000060
competition and change, Vol. 18 No. 3, June 2014, 265–79
Managing Across Borders: Global Integration and Knowledge Exchange in MNCs Kathleen Park MIT Sloan School of Management, USA and Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait
Ursula Mense-Petermann Department of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Germany
In this article we explore expatriate managers as international boundary spanners and problem solvers in promulgating knowledge exchange in mul- tinational companies (MNCs). Theoretical perspectives on agency, expatria- tion and MNCs connect notions of individual volition with expatriation interactions and organizational outcomes. This conceptualization questions the exaltation of individual excellence in the earlier heroic perspective on the expatriate. Rather, interculturally competent, strategically localized expatriate managers address recurring global–local tensions in everyday interactions with the host country subsidiary staff. The expatriates’ boundary spanning, problem solving and knowledge exchange enhance the global integration, national responsivenes s, and worldwide innovation and learning concomitan t with the transnational form of the MNC.
keywords multinational companies, transnational management, expatriate managers, intercultural competency, boundary spanning
Introduction
Since the end of the 1980s, inspired by the path-setting work of Bartlett and Ghoshal
(1989), scholars in organization studies, international business and strategic manage-
ment have investigated changes in the global strategies and organizational structures
of multinational companies (MNCs) targeting enhanced cross-border integration
of their worldwide activities. MNCs today must exploit opportunities arising from
the globalization of value chains, while confronting the difficulties of integrating
geographically dispersed processes of sourcing, production and sales. While the MNC
266 KATHLEEN PARK and URSULA MENSE-PETERMANN
headquarters represents the most important locus of organizational strategic decision
making, the headquarters does not function as the sole site of management or of
knowledge creation and dissemination. An essential challenge in the practice of inter-
national management consists of connecting knowledge distributed across different
locations and making productive use of that knowledge to gain competitive advan-
tage. Expatriate managers embody an indispensable aspect of the global dispersion
and development of organizational resources. We question the heroic, individualisti-
cally triumphant perspective on the expatriate by investigating conditions for the
successful fulfilment of the boundary-spanning and problem-solving roles antecedent
to knowledge exchange. These roles become crucial in balancing the tension between
global integration and national responsiveness inherent in achieving transnationaliza-
tion, where the transnational company represents the most efficacious form of the
MNC (Bartlett & Beamish, 2011).
In the transnationalization of multinational companies (MNCs) — that is, in the
realization of an MNC that functions simultaneously highly on global integration,
national responsiveness, and worldwide innovation and learning — the functions of
expatriate managers in the cross-border transfer of organizational models, work
structures and best practices assume pivotal importance. Expatriate managers possess
unique skills as internationalized agents impacting managerial and technological
practices in both their home and host countries (Hébert et al., 2005). This impact
occurs whether the home and host countries are at the same or disparate levels of
economic development (Luo & Zhao, 2013). In the context of globalization across
the economic gradient (Kim & Tung, 2013), expatriate managers serve MNCs
in processes of knowledge exchange and worldwide integration. We examine how
expatriate managers span boundaries and solve problems within and between borders
in transnationally-orientated MNCs.
The subjective and objective importance of global assignments has grown consider-
ably throughout the globalization of the economy and the increased cross-border
coordination of worldwide activities of MNCs (Dickmann & Doherty, 2008). While
debates on the globalization phenomenon initially focused on the organizational
level, with MNCs considered as central driving forces of global economic integration,
attention subsequently shifted increasingly to the level of actors putting organiza-
tional globalization into practice (Dörrenbächer & Geppert, 2006). The expatriate
manager hence becomes a central character.
Literature review and theoretical framework Expatriate managers can be viewed as important actors in organizational global-
ization in two fundamental respects. Expatriates can play an important part in
implementing global programmes, distributing best practices and aligning the organi-
zational cultures of the headquarters and globally dispersed subsidiaries, thereby
furthering the global integration of MNCs (Black et al., 1992). In addition, expatri-
ates can acquire the breadth and depth of knowledge necessary to assist MNCs
in managing myriad intercultural factors reflecting both global and local forces
(Berthoin Antal, 2001). The expatriate manager has emerged as a boundary spanner
in accordance with the research of Ancona and Caldwell (1990, 1992), with the
appreciation and awareness of global and local forces as articulated by Au and
267MANAGING ACROSS BORDERS
Fukuda (2002). Expatriates form part of a core management cadre playing increas-
ingly indispensable roles in assuring both local responsiveness and global integration
as globalization continues.
The literature on expatriates and global assignments has grown in relation to
globalization of the economy and the expanded reach of MNCs. We focus on trends
related to corporations and careers as well as the worldwide economy, strategy and
knowledge management. Several intertwined strands emerge as especially important
for our conceptualization of the boundary-spanning and problem-solving capabilities
of expatriate managers: transnational management, bridging boundaries, global
career mobility and global career orientation. These strands are interrelated in the
convergence of, yet distinction between, global and local business forces and also in
a broader understanding of expatriation as a form of human agency. The agency
understanding marks the guiding edge of our conceptual framework.
Agency and expatriation Agency perspectives illuminate expatriation as organizational instrument, human
capital consequence and career calculation. Agency concerns the capacity of indi-
viduals to make choices and to act on their decisions (Bandura, 1982). Expatriation
exhibits agency in that the expatriates — sometimes from individual assertion and
sometimes at institutional behest — have elected to take job assignments in locations
other than the home country. In this article, we use the term expatriates to mean
managers or experts dispatched by headquarters to a subsidiary of the MNC in a
different country for business enhancement purposes (Perlmutter & Heenan, 1974).
This definition of expatriate excludes other types of internationally mobile manager,
such as in-patriates (employed by a subsidiary of an MNC and assigned to the
corporate headquarters, usually for reasons of qualification), third country nationals,
or bicultural/bilingual persons recruited within the subsidiary country and referred to
as local hires. With our focused definition, we emphasize human agency within the
organization. For instance, structure–agency linkages have been previously explored
with respect to executive search firms and CEO labour markets (Khurana, 2002),
cultural differences in individual motivations (Hernandez & Iyengar, 2001) and sub-
sidiary learning as mediated by individual actors in MNCs (Saka-Helmhout, 2007).
We examine the links between organizational structure and human agency as
reflected in expatriate manager behavioural practices and promotion. Expatriation
becomes a mediating mechanism for understanding the relationship between human
agency and organizational global integration and knowledge integration, as well as
the relationship between agency and careers, as viewed in practices of managing
across national and cultural boundaries in MNCs.
Transnational management and expatriate managers Multinational companies function as innovation and learning networks for partici-
pants across borders within these organizations, as exemplified by expatriate manager s
daily engaged in intercultural interactions (Park & Hollinshead, 2011). The transfer
of resources and capabilities across national and cultural boundaries occurs at expa-
triate levels from the top executive suite to the factory floor (Geppert & Clark, 2003).
We focus on expatriate managers with project and personnel oversight responsibilities
268 KATHLEEN PARK and URSULA MENSE-PETERMANN
and with divisional and bottom line accountability. In the range of MNCs — from
multinational to international to global to transnational — the transnational firm to
the greatest extent shares innovation and learning capabilities between headquarters
and subsidiaries. Intellectual competencies in the transnational are not concentrated
at headquarters, but rather exist worldwide through interconnections among
knowledge-intensive individuals and teams. These interconnections represent a meta-
network on which MNCs can draw to enhance their innovation and learning perfor-
mance (Ahuja, 2000). Knowledge flows between geographic nodes and the dispersion
of professionals facilitates the transfer of essential information to endorse the global
competitive advantage of the firm (Lazarova & Tarique, 2005).
The importance of knowledge transfer for MNCs in general, and for the transna-
tional type of MNC in particular, centres on this creating and sustaining of global
competitive advantage (Govindarajan & Gupta, 2001; Morris & Snell, 2011). Multi-
national firms must enhance core competencies in varied locations around the world
and must be continually on the lookout to anticipate and respond to competition,
whether global or local, in identified crucial markets. Whether the company occupies
the dominant strategic position of defending worldwide preeminence or the subordi-
nate position of challenging the global leader, it must engage in an iterative sequence
of tasks to identify issues, gather information, devise strategic actions, respond to
competitor reactions, and overall generate the tripartite performance (financial, social
and environmental) now expected of the largest MNCs in demonstration of their
global corporate citizenship (Rasche et al., 2013). The transfer of knowledge remains
vital for organizations operating in the global economy, in an information age where
leading-edge knowledge-based capabilities represent the intangible asset most in
demand for competitive advancement. For transnational MNCs, the flow of knowl-
edge becomes especially important because of the greater diffusion of capabilities and
responsibilities across national borders.
Expatriate managers and global assignments During the past few years, global assignments have increasingly drawn the attention
of scholars in international business and management. Global corporations have
intensified integration of their worldwide activities, necessitating revised strategies
and enhanced understanding of both global and local cultural and competitive forces.
Three dominant perspectives can be identified — the managerial, organizational and
expatriate — in the literature on global assignments.
The global manager perspective
The entire world becomes the purview of a new breed of managers as well as the
scholars who study them (Sklair, 1995). The global manager successfully masters the
transnational challenge of balancing global integration and local responsiveness.
These world-class executives operate in companies interlinked through global value
chains — these managers are cosmopolitan, adept in varied geographic and social
settings, and adroit in bridging differences among actors (Kanter, 1995). Moreover
global managers excel in creating influential, boundary-spanning networks, the
potency of which derives from the managerial facility for moving easily within
multiple social spaces (Park, 2005). The intercultural, transnational managers become
269MANAGING ACROSS BORDERS
the essential economic agents for navigating cross-border activities in MNCs amidst
the competitiveness of global markets.
Crucially, global assignments develop managers who can oversee worldwide
coordination and control functions in addition to bilateral information flows across
borders (Hamori & Koyuncu, 2011). According to the global manager view, MNCs
adopt a geocentric management approach (Perlmutter & Heenan, 1974), responding
to the imperative to build a global management cadre meeting the challenges of
global competition (Bossard & Peterson, 2005). These managers are the progenitors
and heirs of the transnational capitalist class (Sklair, 2000) that began evolving in
modern form in the mid- to late twentieth century, with increasing prominence in the
present.
The organizational perspective
This perspective elucidates the organizational conditions that can make global assign-
ments successful. The research focuses on organizational practices such as selection,
training, compensation, performance appraisal and repatriation (Björkman & Schaap,
1994; Chang & Smale, 2013; Fish & Wood, 1996; McPhail et al., 2012; Peterson
et al., 2000). A range of questions has been considered: What strategic roles do
global assignments play for multinationals (Duncan et al., 2010)? How can MNCs
successfully expatriate and repatriate international managers (Cox, 2004; Fish &
Wood, 1996; Lazarova & Caligiuri, 2001)? What role do different individual alle-
giance patterns play in successful expatriation and repatriation (Black & Gregersen,
1992)? What can expatriates contribute to organizational learning (Berthoin Antal,
2000, 2001; Lazarova & Caligiuri, 2001; McIntyre et al., 2012; Wong, 2005)? These
contributions reprise the intra-organizational processes and practices connected with
expatriation and repatriation, and hence adopt an HRM perspective. Some research
has also resulted in best practice recommendations to MNCs for global assignment
policies.
Complementing the strategic HRM perspective, other researchers have adopted an
institutionalist perspective (Westney, 2005). Studies comparing staffing practices of
MNCs of different national origin reveal the importance of home country as well as
host country effects on the propensity to staff overseas management positions with
expatriates (Boyacigiller, 1990; Peterson et al., 2000). Boyacigiller (1990) considers
differing levels of political risk, cultural distance, and competition, and operations
with different levels of complexity and interdependence to be important host country
variables. Peterson et al. (2000: 145) differentiate at least three models — Anglo-
American, Japanese and German — of expatriate management and subsidiary con-
trol. Björkman and Lu (2001) studied HRM practices in Sino–Western joint ventures,
asking whether these practices more closely resembled those typical for the Western
MNC or for the local Chinese firms. They determine expatriates to be important
carriers of culture, implementing the practices of their home organizations. These
institutionalist studies consider the role of expatriate managers within a wider
perspective that addresses questions of organizational convergence or divergence
in the globalization process — one of the main areas of debate on organizational
globalization during recent years.
270 KATHLEEN PARK and URSULA MENSE-PETERMANN
The expatriate perspective
This literature identifies the problems and opportunities arising from global assign-
ments and explores the implications of these assignments for the expatriate roles of
boundary spanner (Au & Fukuda, 2002) and culture carrier (Björkman & Lu, 2001).
Issues of intercultural communication and transnational cooperation crystallize in
connection with these functions (Mense-Petermann, 2005). Not only intercultural dif-
ficulties during deployment but also difficulties relating to readjustment upon return
to the home country have been revealed by these investigations (Black et al., 1992;
Cox, 2004; Lazarova & Caligiuri, 2001). The alignment between expectations and
reality becomes crucial for expatriates in developing perceptions of success resulting
from their overseas career ventures (Harvey et al., 2012). Some studies extend the
perspective to include the partners and families of expatriates, examining the role
played by these important life-world members in the decision to accept a posting as
well as the success of that posting (Black & Gregersen, 1991; Harvey, 1997). In the
range of studies, cultural differences have clearly emerged as the main source of the
difficulties experienced by expatriates (cultural differences between the home and
host countries as well as between the headquarters and subsidiary offices). To cope
with these differences and to formulate effective intercultural collaborations (Gertsen
& Søderberg, 2011), the boundary-spanning and problem-solving aptitudes of the
expatriates come especially into play.
We continue now with the cultural strands of the perspectives, addressing expatri-
ates as boundary spanners and studying the prerequisites for fulfilling this role
successfully.
Expatriate managers as boundary spanners and culture carriers Boundary management requires both an external and an internal orientation. Tradi-
tionally, management research focused on the internal orientation of groups for the
tasks required for group performance (Hackman & Morris, 1975). Later research on
the external orientation of groups explicated the associations between the group
and the wider organization and business environment (Ancona & Caldwell, 1988).
Likewise, the framework applies to individuals, who can cultivate external (inter-
organizational) and internal (intra-organizational) orientations as seen in three sets
of potential facilitative actions: (1) ambassador (persuading, lobbying and informing
actors at different hierarchical levels in the within-firm or between-firm network); (2)
task coordinator (discussing ideas, assimilating feedback and harmonizing activities
across network actors); and (3) scout (scanning the networks for ideas and informa-
tion) (Ancona & Caldwell, 1992). These diverse manifestations of boundary manage-
ment correspond to the nature of communications between the knowledge broker and
other information agents or recipients. The ambassador, task coordinator and scout
roles are not mutually exclusive; rather, they emphasize different aspects of exchange
of greater or lesser importance at various times. The boundary-spanning functions of
key individuals can, in addition, facilitate firms’ innovation performance (Levina &
Vaast, 2008).
Boundary spanning highlights issues related to progressively bridging cultural
differences (Harvey, 1996; Hofstede, 1997, 2001; Javidan & House, 2001) as well as
problems connected with the enduring juxtaposition between the headquarters and
271MANAGING ACROSS BORDERS
local subsidiaries (Black & Gregersen, 1992). The global integration and knowledge
exchange of MNCs surfaces in the actions, interactions and reactions among key
organizational actors, in particular expatriates.
Within the transnational type of MNC, boundary spanning occurs extensively
among the globally dispersed affiliates. As a result of their multiple locations, MNCs
are intrinsically embedded in multi-layered environments and confronted with con-
tradictory expectations (Westney & Zaheer, 2001, 2010). Organizations dealing with
conflicting expectations surfaced as a core issue in the seminal work of Meyer and
Rowan (1977) on the myth and ceremony of formal organizational structures. Meyer
and Rowan assert the importance of decoupling organizational units to cope with
inconsistencies in conjunction with interdependencies. Such decoupling can readily
occur, for instance, in the multinational type of MNC, which has relatively high
national differentiation and responsiveness in combination with relatively low global
coordination and integration (Bartlett & Beamish, 2011). Regardless of the particular
type of MNC or other organization, when decoupling cannot occur, conflicts erupt.
These conflicts must then be handled within the context of informal relationships
among individuals (Meyer & Rowan, 1977: 258). In transnational MNCs, expatriates
bear the responsibility for this intra-organizational boundary spanning and informal
relationship building.
Building on the work of Ancona and Caldwell (1992), Au and Fukuda (2002)
accentuate the directionality of the boundary-spanning role in the multinational con-
text. The ambassador tends to convey knowledge from headquarters to subsidiaries,
the scout from subsidiaries to headquarters, and the task coordinators in both
directions. Expatriates can play more than one role at different points in time. The
successful adoption and alternation of boundary-spanning roles depends on the effi-
cacious handling of cultural differences and intercultural translations by the expatri-
ate manager in the knowledge-intensive environment. The literature on knowledge
exchange has convincingly demonstrated the necessity of translating — that is, dis-
embedding and re-embedding — crucial knowledge (Becker-Ritterspach & Raaijman,
2013; Czarniawska, 2012; Mense-Petermann, 2005). Organizational learning and
knowledge transfer within MNCs unfolds as a series of intercultural interactions
between expatriates and local staff. The competence to successfully act in intercul-
tural situations therefore becomes central for expatriates in performing each of the
boundary-spanning roles.
Intercultural interactions occur between locals and expatriates. Expatriates can be
considered to be either those appointed by the corporation or those who have been
educated and gained work experience abroad who then return to their home country
(that is, a host country for the MNC) as so-called self-internationalizing expatriates
(Berthoin Antal, 2001). The self-internationalizing expatriates are in some sense
simultaneously local and global and hence possess the capability to function particu-
larly well as boundary spanners. This category of expatriate has been growing; China,
for instance, as a result of its economic ascendancy and greater career opportunities,
has increasingly lured back the diaspora of professional talent. The returning
well-educated, internationally-orientated individuals have the bilingual and bi-
cultural skills for facilitating cross-border, cross-functional and inter-organizational
communications and knowledge exchange.
272 KATHLEEN PARK and URSULA MENSE-PETERMANN
In addition, expatriates tend to occupy positions and acquire the knack for span-
ning inter- and intra-organizational boundaries. Expatriates can locate business
opportunities and disseminate information within global organizations. Also, expatri-
ates can serve as conduits for information flows between organizations at regional,
national or international levels. The performance of expatriates in these bridging
roles depends on the depth of experience in a particular locale and the extensiveness
of networks formed there. The fulfilment of a range of boundary-spanning functions
validates the sense of professional efficacy experienced by expatriates, leading also to
higher levels of job satisfaction and power within their positions (Au & Fukuda,
2002). The greater autonomy accorded to subsidiaries in the transnational model
underscores the importance of strategic interconnections and boundary spanning.
Expatriate managers embody linkages between the home and host countries. Drawing
on their intercultural savvy and interactions, expatriate managers facilitate knowl-
edge exchange, which leads to the embedding of innovations that can stimulate
world-class corporate performance. Delving further into the boundary-spanning
function illuminates the complexities and specificities of these home–host linkages.
We now turn to the differentiation of expatriates who prospectively fulfil these
functions.
Career orientations and boundary-spanning capacities The career orientations of expatriates influence their boundary-spanning capacities,
as established in the work of Loveridge (2005, 2006b), who differentiates three career
types based on his intensive study of expatriates: (1) diplomats, whose role has been
mainly developing new international ventures and troubleshooting on a global scale;
(2) fast-trackers, also referred to as tourists, who have carefully calibrated and
monitored their career trajectories to benefit from relatively briefer overseas time, and
who exhibit a primary allegiance to headquarters as the source of promotion and the
location to which to return; and (3) locals, whose outlooks have been modified
through marriage, religious conversion or otherwise social assimilation into the local
community, and whose prospects and interests have accordingly changed to antici-
pate career trajectories and conclusions in their host (now home) countries. We focus
on locals and tourists as the key contrasting types of expatriate agent in relation to
their boundary-spanning and problem-solving capacities within MNCs.
In additional formative work, Loveridge (2006a) analysed the exchanges between
European MNCs and associated agencies in the host countries of Malaysia, Brunei,
Thailand and Singapore. He examined technology transfer between the host and
home sites in the context of expatriate managers navigating the local business terrain.
External interfaces and internal resources influenced the embedding of innovation, as
reflected in technologies for accelerating economic development in these regions. He
found that senior expatriate managers in the MNCs served in effect as diplomats,
with close ties to the heads of the host country agencies. These high-level connections
endowed them with the political capital and relational resources to get things done.
The fast trackers, also known as tourists, represented a group of rising expatriate
managers with shorter-term career horizons in the host countries, who nevertheless
functioned as goal-orientated pace setters with high managerial, technological and
innovation expertise. Toward the accomplishment of designated goals, the fast-
trackers benefited from the input of the local form of expatriate manager. Having
273MANAGING ACROSS BORDERS
longer-term career spans in the host country, these managers assimilated and accul-
turated to a greater extent. This localization conferred on them a relatively lower
status, as viewed by some corporate colleagues. As concluded by Loveridge, based on
his study of 20 European MNCs and their subsidiaries in assorted Asian host coun-
tries, both locals and diplomats demonstrate considerable skill in handling cultural
differences and facilitating knowledge exchange, while tourists typically excel much
less in these areas.
Extending the career influence perspective of Loveridge (2005, 2006a, 2006b), we
suppose that the career orientations and organizational allegiances of expatriates
affect the manner and intensity with which they immerse themselves in the local busi-
ness and social environment and culture. As expatriates differ in how their interna-
tional assignments relate to their short-, medium- and long-term career expectations,
expatriates involve themselves in their host countries to different extents. Differing
career orientations invoke varied boundary- spanning capacities in the respective
expatriates, as their career orientations are connected, for example, with levels of
willingness to learn the local language, to engage in local communication and con-
flict, to form relationships with local businesses, government officials (Heikkliä, 2012)
and other individuals, and generally to absorb the local worldview. Figure 1 provides
our conceptual overview of the expatriation context and anticipated outcomes, as
mediated by the capabilities of the differing types of expatriates themselves together
with specific aspects of the integration mechanisms of boundary spanning and
problem solving.
figure 1 Expatriate managers, global integration and knowledge exchange.
274 KATHLEEN PARK and URSULA MENSE-PETERMANN
Discussion
In this article we have explored expatriate managers as international boundary
spanners and problem solvers in relation to knowledge exchange across borders
within MNCs. Theoretical perspectives on agency, expatriation and MNCs link the
individual volition of the expatriation decision with organizational outcomes related
to those decisions. Specifically, the individual-level decision making of the agency
perspective leads into the inter-group interactions of the expatriates with the host
country subsidiary staff in terms of boundary spanning and problem solving, which
in turn impacts the MNC trajectory in relation to the apotheosis of transnationalism.
The more readily expatriation occurs as a desirable career development opportunity,
and the more readily the headquarters-dispatched expatriates intermingle with the
host country subsidiary staff and propagate bilateral knowledge exchange, the more
the MNC advances toward transnational realization along the triple dimensions of
global integration, national responsiveness and worldwide innovation and learning.
We find that the polarized tourist and local types of expatriate do not necessarily
distinctly occur. Likewise, the valiant ideal of the touristic expatriate manager
dramatically resolving tensions between global competitiveness and local responsive-
ness does not in reality exist. Interculturally competent, to some degree localized
expatriate managers instead address recurring global–local tensions through their
boundary-spanning and problem-solving capabilities. These capabilities occur in a
range of interactions between the host country subsidiary staff and the home country
expatriate managers sent from headquarters.
Building on the expatriate typology of Loveridge (2005) and identifying boundary
spanning and problem solving as the mechanisms for knowledge transfer, we have
identified the dynamic interplay between strategy, culture and career in MNC expa-
triation. Previous research has determined that MNCs tend to advocate the more
touristic transient form of expatriation over the local form, while locals experience
greater success than tourists in transferring knowledge as a result of their greater
intercultural competencies. At the extremes, the global mobility structures, processes
and policies of MNCs actively support and promote the tourist type of expatriate,
while disregarding and disadvantaging the local type. The disharmony between the
benefits devolving to the MNC from the locals versus the promotion by the MNCs
of the tourists can in part be resolved through the observation that no pure type of
expatriate in reality exists. The most successful expatriates combine elements of the
tourist and the local: in relation to the home country headquarters and the duration
of their assignments, they function as tourists; in relation to the subsidiary host
country, they function as locals. In this synthesis enacted through their intercultural
proficiencies and headquarters–subsidiary network connections, the successful
expatriates address the dialectic between home and host cultures and between global
competitiveness and local responsiveness.
Tourists and locals can be differentiated as ideal types, but expatriates in reality
display features of either type to greater or lesser degrees. We contribute to the
expatriation debate and extend the findings of Loveridge by positing that neither pure
type of expatriate best serves boundary spanning and problem solving. The tourists
lack the essential intercultural understanding and competencies, while the locals
lack the requisite relationships with headquarters. To succeed as boundary spanners,
275MANAGING ACROSS BORDERS
actual expatriates must balance local and headquarter perspectives in their everyday
work and interactions. Boundary spanning then manifests as a form of expatriate
agency, invoking individual capabilities, decisions and actions. Yet intercultural
competencies and understanding of local conditions (which require time to acquire)
and tied relationships with headquarters (which tend to loosen over time) mean that
expatriation does not represent the solution to the problem of global integration of
MNCs but rather presents an ongoing challenge.
Local expatriates are better equipped to manage knowledge transfer at the local
interface than are tourist expatriates, although tourists have access to the most recent
business and technological innovations and practices provided by headquarters. The
relative proficiencies of each type of expatriate provide potential for the synthesis of
orientations and capabilities, as seen in the most successful expatriates. With the local
expatriate orientated primarily toward the foreign subsidiary and the tourist expatri-
ate orientated primarily toward headquarters, integrative results can be obtained
through individual and collective efforts. The integration of capabilities and perspec-
tives can occur within an expatriate — for instance, multi-competency expatriates
functioning as highly-contributing individuals can incorporate aspects of both the
tourist and the local. Tourists and locals as pure types tend not to be both widely
hired in the same outpost; rather, expatriates can change from tourists to locals when
they stay long enough.
While the tourists and local type of expatriates are conceptually polarized and
seldom equally recruited at a particular location, the tourists and the local (host
country) subsidiary staff more widely rely on and need each other. The tourists
cannot so rapidly and frequently change country locations without the deeper
contextualized functioning of the local subsidiary staff to back them up. The local
staff cannot so well deploy their capabilities without the knowledge and authority
imparted from headquarters by the tourists. In the host country, the tourists in coop-
eration with headquarters have the international–global content, and the locals in
conjunction with their own networks hold the linguistic and cultural key for unlock-
ing dissemination into the foreign subsidiary. The global competitiveness and
national responsiveness mandates of the transnational corporation can be fulfilled,
for instance, in tourist expatriate–local staff combinations. The third required dimen-
sion of the transnational corporation, worldwide learning and innovation (Bartlett &
Beamish, 2011), occurs also through this collaboration. Innovation transpires at both
the headquarters and local levels and relies on bilateral knowledge exchange facili-
tated by the range of expatriates and local staff. Successful transmission across the
headquarters–subsidiary synapse requires a spectrum of expatriate–local interaction.
Expatriate professionals illustrate contradictions in the transnational model of glo-
bal operations. As boundary-spanners, expatriates work at the intersection between
headquarters and local subsidiaries. They mediate the conflicting rationalities of these
organizational units. As problem solvers, expatriate managers work in conjunction
with multiple organizational members on an array of issues requiring the integration
of diverse capabilities and perspectives in relation to global excellence. The allocation
of expatriates in itself becomes a dilemma for MNCs. The tension between local
responsiveness (which classically could best be addressed by the local type of expatri-
ate) and global competitiveness (which now becomes the domain of the tourist to
276 KATHLEEN PARK and URSULA MENSE-PETERMANN
support) appears in decisions concerning which expatriates to assign for fulfilling
which goals and responsibilities. These allocation decisions do not have easy answers.
The tourists experience pressure from both the business performance aims of head-
quarters and their own motivations and expectations for expatriation, while the
locals experience more pressure from within themselves to achieve the goals driving
their orientation within a new country and culture. This synchronization of individ-
ual and organizational expatriate aims, challenges and accomplishments becomes
essential to successful management across borders in the modern global MNC.
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Notes on contributors
Kathleen Park is Research Fellow in Global Studies and International Management
at the MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, USA and International
Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor in Strategic Management and International
Management at Gulf University for Science and Technology, College of Business,
Kuwait. She received her PhD from the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her
research interests include international mergers and acquisitions, alliances, corporate
governance, executive careers and global leadership development. Dr Park is
279MANAGING ACROSS BORDERS
presently collaborating with Dr Ursula Mense-Petermann on ‘Expatriate managers:
A new cosmopolitan elite’. In addition, Dr Park has received grants for projects on
‘MNCs as family businesses? Drivers of growth and internationalization from the
GCC to the global economy’ and ‘Global leadership development in high-income
emerging economies in the Arabian Gulf’. Her work has been published in Competi-
tion & Change, Journal of International Management, Thunderbird International
Business Review, International Journal of Business and Economics Research, Rout-
ledge Companion on Mergers and Acquisitions and the Academy of Management
Best Papers Proceedings.
Ursula Mense-Petermann is Professor of Economic Sociology and the Sociology of
Work at the Department of Sociology, Bielefeld University, Germany. Prior to her
present chair at Bielefeld, she held a chair in Sociology at Klagenfurt University,
Austria, and she was previously Assistant Professor for Economic Sociology at
Bielefeld University. She earned her PhD with distinction at Magdeburg University,
Germany. Her current research focuses on economic globalization and transnation-
ally mobile work. The processes and problems of transcending political and cultural
boundaries in the economic realm are at the centre of her research interests. She is
principal investigator of three world society-related research projects: (1) Expatriate
Managers: A New Cosmopolitan Elite, (2) The Globalization of Small and Medium-
sized Enterprises, and (3) Global Mobility Policies as Mobility Regimes.
Correspondence to: Dr Kathleen Park, MIT Sloan School of Management, Building
E62-300, 100 Main Street, Cambridge, MA, USA 02142. Email: [email protected] and
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