Effects Of Cross-cultural Competence On Expatriate Performance In MNCs

With the rapid development of globalization and China's economic growth,an increasing number of Chinese enterprises choose to ‘going global' to develop overseas markets.But in the process of going out,Chinese enterprises send large numbers of their employees to work in the host countries.The work performance of the assigned employees will directly affect the total performance of the enterprises.In the present literatures and researches,the study on the work performance of the assigned staff mainly focuses on the impact of cross-cultural adjustment,and there is less research on the related mechanism of actions.At the same time,the domestic scholars mostly focus on the domestic foreign enterprises,and they are less concerned about the Chinese enterprises that have gone abroad.Therefore,this study will regard the assigned staff of the Chinese enterprises as the research object and study the relationship among the cross-cultural competence,cross-cultural adjustment,task dependence as well as job performance of expatriates.And in this study,a questionnaire survey was conducted and 219 questionnaires were collected for the expatriates.The recovery rate reached to 78%.Then,the model was tested for the mediation and regulatory effects.The study found that:(1)There is a positive correlation between the cross-cultural competence and work performance of expatriates.The stronger the cross-cultural competence of them,the better working performance in the host country and the higher corresponding job performance they have;(2)The cross-cultural adjustment plays a mediating role in the relationship between the assigned employees' cross-cultural competence and job performance;(3)The cross-cultural and task-dependent interactions have a significant negative effect on expatriate performance,namely,the stronger task interdependency they have,the weaker impact of the cross-cultural adjustment on the work performance.The innovations of this thesis are:(l)When exploring the cross-cultural adjustment abilities,the mediators they perform are analyzed so that their mechanisms of action are demonstrated;(2)This thesis believes that the task interdependencies can be effectively adjusted the impact of the cross-cultural adjustment on the work performance,therefore,the task interdependency is used as an indicator of individual work performance rather than the team performance;(3)the empirical analysis of the work performance of the assigned staff through questionnaires was not just theoretical analysis.Also,the level of analysis and research has made up for the lack of relevant empirical research in previous studies.In terms of theories,this study not only enriched the research in the field of the cross-cultural competence,but also established a bridge between the cross-cultural competence and adjustment.In terms of management practices,this study can provide a reference for the ‘going global' Chinese enterprises managers and effectively enhance the work performance of expatriates.In the meantime,this study also has some limitations,and we look forward to the future scholars can further improve it.