An investigation into international assignment directions of R&D MNE employees: evidence from Greece

Abstract

In this study, we explore the effects of the roles of research and development (R&D) laboratories, roles of subsidiaries and level of technological intensity of the sector in which multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries operate on international assignment directions of R&D employees. International assignments are an underinvestigated issue in the international human resource management literature despite its significant research and managerial importance. In particular, to the best of our knowledge, no prior research on international assignments of R&D employees has been undertaken and so the current study aims at filling this void in the literature. Based on a large quantitative research on MNE subsidiaries operating in Greece, the findings suggest that variables of the aforementioned categories of factors influence different international assignment directions, with roles of the R&D subsidiary exerting the most crucial effect. Researchers may examine the unexplored issue of R&D employee international assignments to a larger extent, while MNE management can particularly take into account the micro (laboratory) context of R&D international assignees when developing effective international human resource management programmes.

Keywords:

• Greece
• international assignments
• multinational enterprise subsidiaries
• research and development employees

Notes

1. Corporate expatriates are broadly defined as employees who are sent to another country on a temporary basis to accomplish an organizational goal (Harisson, Shaffer and Bhaskar-Shrinivas 2004; Dowling and Welch 2005). Therefore, in this paper, we use the terms ‘international assignees’ and ‘corporate expatriates’ interchangeably.

2. The statistical results that follow were similar across EU, USA, Japanese and other European MNEs. Hence, the MNE country of origin does not form a variable of interest in the subsequent analyses.