2017 Volume 9 Issue 1-2 Pages 19-34
the problems involving both expatriation and localization, multinational companies (MNCs) have begun to search for new options by breaking with the dichotomy of parent country nationals or host country nationals. One of the alternative strategies is the hiring of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs). According to previous research, SIEs are less expensive, more internationally oriented, and more willing to accept permanent posting abroad compared with assigned expatriates (AEs). Moreover, they could be expected to play the role of boundary spanners between the cultures of parent country and host country.
With these points in mind, we explore 1) the employment of Japanese SIEs, 2) their attributes, and 3) the evaluations of Japanese SIEs by Japanese AEs based on our survey in China where Japanese MNCs have the largest number of subsidiaries in the world.
The results revealed that 26.6% of the respondent companies employed Japanese SIEs and the number reached 42.6% when we include the companies which used to hire SIEs. Concerning the reasons for employing SIEs, the data suggested that the companies recruited SIEs because of their Japaneseness as the scores of better understanding of the Japanese people's mindset or manners and better Japanese proficiency were higher than other items. Our analyses also showed that the type of business (non-manufacturing), Japanese-affiliated companies and/or Japanese individuals as their major customers, the ratio of Japanese AEs to total number of employees, Japanese president born in Japan, and Japanese fluency requirement in hiring/promoting Chinese nationals to executive positions were related to the employment of SIEs. Regarding the antecedents of SIEs, 39.7% of them were female. The results also identified that the SIEs could be boundary spanners because they have longer living and working experience in China, better linguistic proficiency in Chinese, and more study experience in China compared with the AEs. As to the evaluations of Japanese SIEs, we found the AEs highly recognized the SIEs' Japaneseness like diligence, sincerity, and punctuality. On the other hand, the mean scores of negative aspects of SIEs discussed in earlier literature such as strong orientation of job-hopping and excessive localization of way of thinking and behavior were relatively low.
