Based on a sample of 169 subsidiaries of multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in the USA, Russia, and Finland, this paper investigates the relationship between MNC subsidiary human resource management (HRM) practices, absorptive capacity, and knowledge transfer. First, we examine the relationship between the application of specific HRM practices and the level of the absorptive capacity. Second, we suggest that absorptive capacity should be conceptualized as being comprised of both employees' ability and motivation. Further, results indicate that both ability and motivation (absorptive capacity) are needed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from other parts of the MNC.

This paper examines how social capital and organizational innovativeness influence business performance through their separate, indirect, or interactive effects, and how these effects differ across the institutional contexts of a transition economy and a market economy. In line with institutional theory, our findings show that the effects of social capital are more extensive and probably more malignant in a transition economy than in a market economy. Furthermore, different types of organizational innovativeness, as corporate culture, can be cultivated by different forms of social capital in different institutional contexts. The implications for institutional theory and social capital theory, and the managerial implications, are discussed.

It is well known that firm-level corporate governance practices vary mainly between rather than within countries, but country-level factors such as legal and financial institutions explain less than 50% of this cross-country variation. In this article we show that two dimensions of national culture – individualism and uncertainty avoidance – capture about 90% of the country fixed effects and outperform the country-level explanatory variables used in prior literature. We argue that culture works through a tradeoff between managerial expertise and certainty of control, a tradeoff largely overlooked by prior literature, that captures a country’s preference for the Anglo-Saxon approach versus the direct control approach for governance. Consistent with this argument, we find that the effect of culture on corporate governance varies across firms with different needs for managerial expertise and certainty of control. We also find that culture interacts with other factors to determine firm-level governance.

This article reports the development and validation of a theory-based, short form measure of cultural intelligence (SFCQ). The SFCQ captures the original theoretical intent of a multifaceted culture general form of intelligence that is related to effective intercultural interactions. The validity of the scale is established with 3526 participants in five language groups from around the world. Results provide evidence for construct and criterion-related validity of the measure, and indicate that cultural intelligence is a single latent factor reflected in three intermediate facets. In support of construct validity the measure is modestly related to but distinct from emotional intelligence and personality and correlates positively with several indicators of multicultural experience. With regard to criterion-related validity, it relates as predicted to several dimensions of intercultural effectiveness. Implications for the measurement and understanding of culture and the influence of culture on management practice are discussed.

In a globally connected world, it is increasingly common for individuals to belong to and be influenced by more than one culture. Based on a critique of conceptualizations from psychology, management, marketing, anthropology, and sociology, we bring clarity and consistency to conceptualizing and measuring multiculturalism at the individual level. We propose that individual-level multiculturalism is the degree to which someone has knowledge of, identification with, and internalization of more than one societal culture, and recommend methods to measure each dimension. Finally, we suggest how individual-level multiculturalism influences, and is influenced by, social networks and power dynamics in international organizations.

With a 41-society sample of 9990 managers and professionals, we used hierarchical linear modeling to investigate the impact of both macro-level and micro-level predictors on subordinate influence ethics. While we found that both macro-level and micro-level predictors contributed to the model definition, we also found global agreement for a subordinate influence ethics hierarchy. Thus our findings provide evidence that developing a global model of subordinate ethics is possible, and should be based upon multiple criteria and multilevel variables.

Migration is one of the most pressing global issues of our time. However, relatively little is known about the factors and mechanisms that govern the post-migration experiences of skilled migrants. We adopt an acculturation- and social identity-based approach to examine how differences between institutional characteristics in the destination and origin country, as well as migrants’ experiences with formal and informal institutions shape their identification with the destination and origin country and contribute to their community and career embeddedness. Our study of 1709 highly skilled migrants from 48 origin countries in 12 destination countries reveals that the institutional environment migrants encounter provides both sources of opportunity (potential for human development and value-congruent societal practices) and sources of disadvantage (experienced ethnocentrism and downgrading). These contrasting dynamics affect migrants’ destination-country identification, their origin-country identification and, ultimately, their embeddedness in the destination country. Our results have important implications for multinational enterprises and policy makers that can contribute to enhancing skilled migrants’ community and career embeddedness. For example, these actors may nurture a work environment and provide supportive policies that buffer against the institutional sources of disadvantage we identified in this study, while helping migrants to leverage the opportunities available in the destination country.