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National culture and expatriate deployment

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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.

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Notes

  1. The authors are grateful to a JIBS reviewer for this point.

  2. Similar analyses were done for the comparative cultural measures (Hofstede and Schwartz) with similar results, and are available from the first author.

  3. Results available on request from first author.

  4. Thanks to a JIBS reviewer for suggesting this approach.

  5. The authors are ever grateful to an astute JIBS reviewer for pointing this out and providing the example we use.

  6. Once again, thanks to a JIBS reviewer for these references.

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Acknowledgements

An earlier draft of this paper was presented to the 2004 AIB Conference and JIBS/AIB Paper Development Workshop. The authors are grateful to Professors Arie Lewin, Tatiana Kostova, Mary Teagarden, participants and reviewers at the JIBS Paper Development Workshop in Stockholm; and to Shulamith Gross, Tal Yaffe, and two JIBS reviewers for their insightful comments. Thanks also to Gary Oliver for his help with data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, Guilford Glazer School of Business and Management, Ben-Gurion University, Israel

    David M Brock

  2. Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University, Columbus, USA

    Oded Shenkar

  3. School of Business Administration, College of Management, Rishon Le Zion, Israel

    Amir Shoham

  4. Sapir Academic College, Sderot, Israel

    Amir Shoham

  5. Mercer Human Resource Consulting,

    Ilene C Siscovick

Authors
  1. David M Brock
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  2. Oded Shenkar
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  3. Amir Shoham
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  4. Ilene C Siscovick
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David M Brock.

Additional information

Accepted by Arie Y Lewin, Editor-in-Chief, 30 April 2007. This paper has been with the authors for two revisions.

Appendices

Appendix A

The Items Measuring Strategy and Structure

Table A

Table 5 Table a1
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Appendix B

Definitions of Globe Cultural Dimensions

Table B

Table 6 Table a2
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Brock, D., Shenkar, O., Shoham, A. et al. National culture and expatriate deployment. J Int Bus Stud 39, 1293–1309 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400361

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