- Title
- Expatriate assignments and the value of idiosyncratic knowledge
- Creator
- Boyle, Brendan; Nicholas, Stephen; Mitchell, Rebecca
- Relation
- International Conference on Business and Information Technology, Contemporary Research and Development. Proceedings of the International Conference on Business and Information Technology, Contemporary Research and Development: Managing Business Organizations, Knowledge and the External Environment (Ghaziabad, India 25-26 February, 2010) p. 394-409
- Publisher
- Macmillan Publishers India
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2010
- Description
- Purpose: This paper argues that theory clarifying the strategic importance of knowledge in multinational enterprises (MNEs) provides a strategic context in which expatriate assignments can be studied. This paper seeks to explain why a greater consideration of the firm-specific or idiosyncratic characteristics of the knowledge transferred by expatriates is required in order to integrate the study of expatriate assignments with core internal strategic issues for the MNE, as defined by the resource-based view of the firm. Design/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper. As this is a conceptual paper, there are no empirical results. Research implications: The practical implications of the propositions raised in this paper are presented with a focus on how they reaffirm the continuing need for expatriate assignments as a form of international staffing in multinational enterprises. Originality/value: The proposition that much more of the technical or general knowledge utilized by expatriates during assignments, which was formally characterized as knowledge that could be sourced in external labor markets, is in fact characterized by idiosyncrasies or applied in a firm-specific way, has not been directly considered in the literature to date. In contrast, this paper argues that the firm-specificity of knowledge might best be understood on a continuum from unique knowledge that is highly firm-specific (for example, knowledge related to the operation of unique technology) to knowledge that is largely portable across firms but applied in idiosyncratic ways within the MNE.
- Subject
- expatriates; expatriate assignments; multinational enterprises; human resources; knowledge resources
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/934829
- Identifier
- uon:11915
- Identifier
- ISBN:9780230329409
- Language
- eng
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