The impact of individual performance on organizational success and its implications for the management of expatriates

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new but simple typology of international assignments that can help guide the management of expatriates. Applying a well-known job typology by Jacobs, D. (1981, ‘Toward a Theory of Mobility and Behavior in Organizations: An Inquiry into the Consequences of Some Relationships Between Individual Performance and Organizational Success,’ American Journal of Sociology, 87, 684–707) and Baron, J.N., and Kreps, D.M. (1999, Strategic Human Resources: Frameworks for General Managers, New York: Wiley) to the international arena, we distinguish between star and guardian assignments. The essence of this distinction lies in a difference regarding a crucial relationship: the link between expatriate performance and organizational success. Drawing on two well-known case studies, we analyze the essential characteristics of and differences between star and guardian assignments, and deduct concrete consequences for the employment of specific human resource management policies along the expatriate cycle. The paper concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.

Keywords::

• expatriate performance
• international assignments
• star and guardian jobs
• transnational organizations
• workforce differentiation

Acknowledgement

Authors thank financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science (ECO2012-37314).

Notes

^1. When we talk about expatriates, we refer to traditional corporate expatriates as distinguished from alternative types of expatriates (e.g. inpatriates, self-initiated expatriates).

^2. Note that we use the terms expatriate success and assignment or transfer success interchangeably, assuming that the assignment and its objectives constitute the expatriate's task.

^3. To be more exact, in both these studies, knowledge transferred mediated the effect of expatriate motivation and competencies on subsidiary performance. But as the predictors of expatriate performance are not a main concern of this paper, we focused on the relationship of interest.